Huskers Open B1G Play at No. 9 Wisconsin

The Nebraska men’s basketball program opens Big Ten play Tuesday night, as the Huskers travel to Madison, Wis., to take on the ninth-ranked Wisconsin Badgers. 

Tipoff from the Kohl Center is set for 6 p.m. and will be carried on FS1 with Chris Vosters and Stephen Bardo on the call. The game can also be streamed via the web, smartphones, tablets and connected devices through the Fox Sports app.

Fans can follow all of the action across the state of Nebraska on the Learfield IMG College Husker Sports Network with Kent Pavelka and Jake Muhleisen on the call. The game will also be available on Huskers.com, the Huskers app and TuneIn radio. The pregame show begins one hour prior to tipoff.

 

The Huskers (4-3) have played once since Dec. 11, a 110-64 win over Doane University last Thursday. Dalano Banton had 13 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists en route to his first triple double and the second triple double in school history.  Banton guided a Husker attack that put five players in double figures and five others with at least seven points. NU shot 55 percent and hit a season-high 12 3-pointers, including four by Trevor Lakes in his Husker debut.
Nebraska comes into the matchup with the Badgers averaging 81.6 points per game and have shot the ball better of late. Over the last four games, the Huskers are shooting 45 percent from the field, including 38 percent from 3-point range, after shooting just 42 percent, including 29 percent from beyond the arc, in the first three games of the season. The Huskers have four regulars averaging double figures, including junior Teddy Allen (18.3 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 2.7 spg) and Banton (13.7 ppg, 7.7 rpg, 5.7 apg). 

Wisconsin is 6-1 on the season following an impressive 85-48 rout of then-No. 23 Louisville Saturday afternoon. Micah Potter’s 20 points and seven boards led four Wisconsin players in double figures. The Badgers shot 54 percent, including 16-of-25 from 3-point range, as they built a 26-point halftime lead and cruised to victory. Wisconsin’s only setback on the season was a loss at the buzzer at Marquette on Dec. 4. Since that loss, the Badgers have posted a trio of double-figure wins, while holding opponents to 57.7 points per game.

Tuesday’s game at Wisconsin will likely be the first of two games against nationally ranked teams this week, as NU hosts No. 19 Michigan on Christmas day.

PLAYER SPOTLIGHT

Yvan Ouedraogo had 13 points and 13 rebounds off the bench in the Huskers’ win over Doane. It was his first double-double of 2020-21 and fourth of his career. NU got 61 points from its reserves in Thursday’s win.

NUMBERS TO KNOW

2 – Dalano Banton joins Illinois’ Ayo Dosunmu as the only Big Ten players in the top 10 in the conference in both rebounding and assists as of Dec. 20. 

4 – Nebraska has four 20-point performances through the first seven games, including three by Teddy Allen and one by Kobe Webster. 

9.1 – Nebraska’s steals per game, a total which leads the Big Ten and ranks 37th nationally entering Tuesday’s game with Wisconsin.

10 – Number of seasons where Nebraska has had multiple 100-point games. The 2020-21 campaign is the first time since 1995-96.

28- Nebraska is 28th nationally in tempo according to KenPom as of Dec. 20. The Huskers are one of five Big Ten teams currently in the top 50 entering the week.

171 – Nebraska is 36th nationally in free throw attempts, as the Huskers get to the line an average of 24.4 times per game. 

SCOUTING WISCONSIN

Under sixth-year coach Greg Gard, the Badgers come into Tuesday’s Big Ten opener with a 6-1 record following an 85-48 win over then-No. 23 Louisville on Saturday. Micah Potter’s 20-points led four Wisconsin players in double figures, as the Badgers raced out to a 25-4 lead in the first 11 minutes and blitzed the Cardinals. This season, the Badgers have won all six games in double figures, including wins over Louisville, Rhode Island and Loyola (Chicago), while their only loss was a 67-65 buzzer beater at Marquette.

The Badgers were the hottest Big Ten team down the stretch in 2019-20, winning their last eight games to finish 21-10 and finish in a three-way tie for first with a 14-6 conference mark. The Badgers bring back the majority of their rotation and start three seniors and a pair of juniors. 

Wisconsin relies on a balanced attack and a stout defense. The Badgers are second in the Big Ten in scoring defense (59.8 ppg), third in field goal percentage defense (.367) and third in blocked shots (5.6). Offensively, Potter leads Wisconsin at 13.9 points per game, while D’Mitrik Trice (11.6), Nate Reuvers (11.0) and Brad Davison (10.7) are all in double figures. The Badgers have nine players playing at least 10 minutes per game while none average more than 27 minutes per game. Wisconsin shots 44 percent as a team from 3-point range and average 9.4 3-pointers per game. The Badgers don’t turn the ball over, committing a league-best 8.1 turnovers per game. 

Series History: Tuesday’s matchup is the 33rd meeting between the two programs, as Wisconsin has a 18-14 advantage. The series dates back to the 1903-04 season, as Nebraska won the first meeting, 25-22 over the Badgers in Lincoln before Wisconsin took five of the next six meetings from 1907 to 1955.  Nebraska then won eight straight games before the Badgers won the next five meetings, including the first four in Big Ten play, before the Huskers topped the No. 9 Badgers in the final regular-season game in 2013-14. Wisconsin has won the last four meetings since the 2018-19 campaign, including both meetings in 2019-20. The Huskers are 4-12 against Wisconsin since joining the Big Ten (3-11 in regular season; 1-1 in Big Ten Tournament).

Last meeting: A decisive 21-5 second half run lifted Wisconsin to an 81-64 victory over Nebraska on Feb. 15, 2020.  The Huskers led 43-41 after Kevin Cross’ 3-pointer with 18:28 remaining. From there, Wisconsin took control, as D’Mitirk Trice hit three of his five 3-pointers in the spurt, pushing the Badger lead to 17 before Thorir Thorbjarnarson’s 3-pointer ended the Badger run. 

Nebraska pulled to within 10 with just under eight minutes remaining. The Huskers had two open looks on the next two possessions, but could not pull any closer before Wisconsin ran off eight straight points, including a pair of 3-pointers from Brad Davison to push the lead back to 18 with just over five minutes remaining. Davison led all scorers with 30 points, including eight 3-pointers, while Trice finished with 15 points, including 5-of-6 from 3-point range. Haanif Cheatham paced Nebraska with 17 points.

STORYLINES

• Tuesday’s game will be a matchup of styles, as Nebraska is 25th nationally and second in the Big Ten in tempo according to KenPom, while Wisconsin is 326th nationally and 13th in the BIg Ten.

• NU will look to snap a nine-game losing streak against ranked opponents which began with a 66-62 loss to the Badgers in the 2019 Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. Nebraska’s last road win against a top-25 team was a 66-51 win at No. 25 Indiana on Jan. 14, 2019. NU’s last road win against a top-10 team was a 60-51 win over No. 9 Michigan State in 2014.

• Tuesday’s game comes in a middle of a six-game stretch where NU could face as many as five ranked teams. The stretch began with a loss at No. 8 Creighton on Dec. 11, while NU’s next three games after Tuesday are against No. 19 Michigan (Dec. 25), at No. 23 Ohio State (Dec. 30) and No. 12 Michigan State (Jan. 2).

• Only four active members of the Husker roster have faced Wisconsin prior to Tuesday’s game. Senior Thorir Thorbjarnarson has faced Wisconsin four times, including a pair of starts last season, and grabbed a career-high 10 rebounds against the Badgers in 2019. Yvan Ouedraogo played in both games last season, including a start in Madison, while Akol Arop played in both contests last season.  In addition to those three Huskers, Dalano Banton played against Wisconsin when he was a freshman at Western Kentucky in 2018-19 and totaled 13 rebounds, 10 assists and eight points in an 83-76 win over the Badgers.

• A pair of Huskers are closing in on milestone numbers this week. Kobe Webster needs five points to reach 1,500 career points, while Trevor Lakes is nine points away from 1,000 career points.

• Nebraska has out-rebounded each of its last four opponents (South Dakota, Georgia Tech, Creighton and Doane), marking the first time NU has out-rebounded four straight opponents since a five-game stretch in 2016-17. Last

year, the Huskers out-rebounded four opponents in 32 games.

• The Huskers added some much needed depth last week, as Trevor Lakes and Eduardo Andre made their Husker debuts against Doane. Andre, a 6-foot-10, 228-pound forward, had nine points, four rebounds and two blocked shots in his first action of the season. Lakes, a 6-foot-7 forward who was cleared by the NCAA on Thursday morning, came off the bench and had 12 points, including 4-of-5 shooting from 3-point range. 

• Nebraska has two 100-point games this season following the Dec. 17 win over Doane. It marks the 10th time in school history that Nebraka had multiple 100-point games in a season and the first since 1995-96. Nebraska is now 39-4 all-time when scoring 100+ points. 

LAST TIME OUT

Dalano Banton recorded the second triple-double in school history, and the Huskers scored the most points in a single game since 1995 in a 110-64 win over Doane Thursday night.

Banton scored 13 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished 10 assists to become just the second Husker to score a triple double in program history. He is the second player to achieve the feat in as many seasons after Cam Mack recorded the feat last December. 

Banton’s performance helped Nebraska (4-3) put five players in double figures, while four others had at least eight points. Teddy Allen paced NU with 16 points, while Yvan Ouedraogo (13), Trevor Lakes (12) and Kobe Webster (12) all posted double-figure efforts off the bench for Nebraska. 

After a slow start, the Huskers outscored Doane 34-7 over the final 9:43 of the first half, closing the half on a 15-2 run to take a 57-26 lead into the locker room. NU held the Tigers to just 23 percent shooting in the opening 20 minutes and 29 percent on the night.