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Mar. 1, 2011
 
Huskers hold Tigers in free throws in win.
 
Lincoln, Neb. — Behind a 16-point effort from senior Lance Jeter, the Nebraska men's basketball team snapped a two-game losing streak with a 69-58 win over No. 24 Missouri Tuesday night at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

The Huskers (19-10, 7-8 Big 12) used a balanced attack, putting four players in double figures en route to picking up their third win against a ranked opponent.

Jeter led NU with 16 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, while Jorge Brian Diaz and Toney McCray finished with 13 points, including a trio of 3-pointers. Nebraska also got a big lift off the bench from sophomore Brandon Ubel, who had 11 points and matched his career high with nine rebounds.

Nebraska, which tied a school record with 17 home wins, took control of the game midway through the second half with an 11-0 run, turning a 40-all tie into a 51-40 cushion. Fittingly, it was the seniors who keyed the run, as Jeter and Drake Beranek combined for eight points in the spurt.

Beranek, who scored all seven of his points in the second half, gave Nebraska a lead it would not relinquish with a layup with 12:17 to make it 42-40 before Jeter hit a 3-pointer to give NU a five-point lead. The Huskers continued the pressure as Jeter found Ubel on conventional 3-point play before Beranek's 3-pointer with 10:34 left staked the Huskers to an 11-point lead.

The Huskers eventually got the lead to 15 points, at 57-42, before the Tigers made one last run, using a 7-2 spurt to pull within 59-49 with 5:09 left after a Marcus Denmon 3-pointer. Nebraska responded quickly, breaking the Tiger press and getting Diaz a layup on its next possession to push the lead back to 12 points.

Missouri (22-8, 8-7 Big 12) made it 63-53 after Denmon's fifth 3-pointer of the night, but could not get closer, as the Huskers allowed just two field goals in the final four minutes to earn its third win over a ranked team this season.

Denmon finished with 19 points, including a perfect 5-of-5 from 3-point range, as the Tigers shot just 41 percent on the night and were out-rebounded, 35-24.

After a rocky offensive start, the Huskers shot 53 percent from the floor, including 14-of-21 in the second half. Nebraska trailed 17-12 early but took over behind McCray, who scored seven of his points in the run, including a 3-pointer to give NU a 26-19 lead.

Missouri came back with long-range shooting, getting a pair of 3-pointers from Michael Dixon to close the Husker lead to 27-25 at the break.

The Huskers return to action for their last regular season game of the year against Colorado on Saturday, March 5 in Boulder Colo. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. (central) and the game will be carried on the Husker Sports Network. There is no television coverage for Saturday's game.

Game Notes vs. Missouri

*-Nebraska improves to 19-10 on the season, the Huskers highest regular-season win total entering the postseason since the 1997-98 season. NU closes the regular season at Colorado Saturday at 8 p.m. (central).

*-Missouri's 58 points was a season low. The Tigers had not been held below 65 points all season before tonight and were averaging 82.8 points per game to rank sixth nationally.

*-Missouri becomes the eighth team Nebraska has held to a season low in points this season. The Tigers scored 77 in the first matchup in Columbia in January.

*-Nebraska has held 16 opponents under 60 points this season.

*-Nebraska won its 17th home game tonight, which ties a school record set in 1982-83 (17-1) and 2007-08 (17-3). Nebraska is 17-2 at home with both losses coming against teams from the state of Kansas.

*-Nebraska improved to 3-3 against ranked teams this season, only the third time in the Big 12 era NU has topped three ranked teams this season

*-Nebraska's six Big 12 home wins matches the team's highest total in the Big 12 era.

*-With tonight's win, Doc Sadler moved into a tie for fourth place on Nebraska's all-time wins list with 89.

*-Lance Jeter finished with a team-high 16 points, the sixth time he has had at least 15 points in a game this season. Jeter also had six assists, the 14th time with at least five assists.

*-Jorge Brian Diaz reached double figures for the 16th time this season with 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting. He has been in double figures in four of NU's last five games

*-Nebraska shot 53.2 percent against Missouri, the 12th time the Huskers have shot over 50 percent in a game this season.

*--With the blocked shots, Andre Almeida now has 10 games with at multiple blocked shots this season

*-Ubel's tied a career high with nine rebounds (also against Davidson) while his 11 points were his highest total in Big 12 play this season.

*-Nebraska held Missouri to just four foul shots, the third time NU has held an opponent to five free throws or less in a game this season.

Nebraska Coach Doc Sadler: Opening Statement: "I can't say enough about tonight. Obviously, it was great to go into the locker room and see a lot of the former players that were in there. Some of the former payers came by practice yesterday. When you're the head coach at a place like this, there's so much history that you've read about and heard about. I've heard stories about certain guys, but I've never met them. It's just good to see those people.

I didn't get a chance to see it, but I hope the halftime ceremony (honoring the Big Eight/Big 12) - or whatever they did- I know they had some coaches because a lot of those coaches called me and had said they had done that piece.

And then to have lost two ball games and to have that type of crowd that we had, says a lot for the people here in Nebraska.

On the game Going into the game, we wanted to try and concentrate on three things; Keeping them off the free throw line, eliminating turnovers, which I don't know if we did that, and transition baskets. I think we did a great job in that area. Those three things were things that we knew we had to take care of. Two of the three, I thought we did about as good as a job that you could do when you consider that Missouri in the last five games is averaging 83 points a game and you hold them to 58. I can't say enough about our basketball team, and what they did tonight. I'm very happy for Lance, he got us going again like he's done so many times like when we were struggling in the first half offensively. We got some run outs and I thought that's what got our offense going. Overall, I'm just very pleased with tonight. Now we get a chance to move on to the next one."

On holding Missouri to 4 free throws: "We really, for a lack of better words, we wanted to pretty much play it like a zone tonight. I thought for the most part we did a pretty good job of that. We were trying to cut out their driving lanes. When we got in trouble is when we gave them the drive. Late in the game we gave up the baseline up a few times and that caused us some problems. I think when you play it the way we did, underneath a lot of stuff and keeping the ball in front of you, you're going to give up 10 3-pointers. I knew that we couldn't do both and we just made the decision to take the drive away the best we could."

On running on a team that likes to run: "I don't know, but there's and old theory that you press a pressing team. The thing that I think is so important is that you better attack their pressure. You better not get tentative and play side-to-side against it, because when you do, they just come at your more and more and more. The one area that we've always tried to attack against Missouri is attack the basket. Whether or not that's the right thing to do, it's worked sometimes and it hasn't worked others."

On the hustle plays by Brandon Ubel: "It thought that maybe one of Brandon's best games since he's been here. I thought he was competing and going after balls. The miss free throw put back was huge. The made free throws were huge. We did all of this again not shooting free throws. You're 14-of-23, if we want to get where we want to get, we got to get that correct and hopefully we will, but we played well."

On the Crowd chanting for Matt Karn: "I was hoping we'd be in a position to put him in at the end of the game. And I'm glad that we got a chance to put him in at the end of the game. We were only up 10 with 20 seconds to go and I still didn't feel good. I know that everyone wanted Matt in the ball game, but I know a lot of people would have been mad at me if it wouldn't had turned out the way it did too. I'm happy for Matt though."

Point Guard Lance Jeter: On turning it on with 15 minutes left in the second half: "I'm just trying to do what I see on the court; nothing too hard. I'm just trying to get my teammates in the right position. They were being aggressive, so I knew I could drive more. They collapsed and we had open shooters. Just simple offense, like what coach Doc (Sadler) told us to do. It felt good tonight. The team played hard. It felt good to be back at home and letting that Kansas State game go.

On what game means personally: "It's something special, especially, when your family is in town. You don't get many chances to see you son play. My mom was there, my grandma, it felt kind of special, but at the end of the day all that matters is to win. And we got that win, so that's all that matters. I wanted to get back on the win streak and we got a tough one on Saturday and that's all that I'm worried about.

On what switched in the first half to go on the 14-2 run: "Doc told us in that first T.V. timeout that we were slow and we needed to pick it up. He knew our defense was good enough. He just told us we were playing slow on offense and I think that switched it. We turned it around and got some good baskets. Caleb Walker played excellent in the first half with his rebounding. Just playing together, I feel like our defense definitely won us this game tonight."

On what was working on transition game: "Pretty much just, finding lanes and making the smart play. All the coaching staff told the team to just run and we got some easy baskets. It feels good when you're running especially when you got big men that can run too. (Jorge Brian) Diaz and (Brandon) Ubel and Tony (McCray), when they're running, we're hard to stop because they're so big. When we're doing our half court set offense, we have the advantage of them being big and we can go to them and we can make plays, so this is a good offense when coach is giving me that opportunity to just run and I see something."

Nebraska Guard Drake Beranek: "We still got some fight left in us. It's not over until it's over. We're going to play it out for as long as they'll let us and we'll see how it ends up."

On the feeling of making the second three: "I think I missed like nine straight shots in the last three games. Especially on senior night, I'd like to make all of them. But it's a special feeling.

Missouri Head Coach Mike Anderson Opening Statement: "Congratulations to Nebraska on Senior Night. I thought there with probably 11 minutes to go, they had a nice little spurt there and we just weren't able to recover. We just couldn't make the plays going down the stretch. It was probably an ugly game in the first half, but that's what they want. The thing I was most disappointed with our guys was the inability to take care of the basketball. That's one thing we do. We value the basketball. We want to disrupt it, and create tempo, but we want to value the basketball. Our two point guards had seven turnovers between them. You can't do that on the road and expect to win."

On the team's confidence: "They're not happy with their performance tonight. I think they know they're a much better basketball team. This is what takes place when everyone doesn't show up to play. Especially on the road and not bring the energy and not bring the mindset that we're going to guard people. I just didn't think we played with that toughness you got to play with on the road."

On whether this performance was an effort or execution issue: "I think it was execution more so. It wasn't because they didn't try. Maybe we just did the wrong things at the wrong time. And you got to put the ball in the hole. We had some open looks, and we missed a lot of open shots."

Source: University of Nebraska Athletic Dept.