Postgame Notes/Quotes vs. Illinois

Nebraska Postgame Notes
• Lat Mayen’s career-high 16 points in the contest marks his fifth consecutive game putting up double figure scoring for the Huskers this season and seventh on the season.
*-Nebraska out-rebounded Illinois, 40-39 as the Illini entered the contest leading the Big Ten in rebounding margin +7.8.
*-Teddy Allen recorded his 14th double-figure scoring effort of the season, netting 15 points for the Huskers Friday night. It is his nineth career double-figure performance against ranked teams.
*-Derrick Walker recorded career highs in both rebounds (eight) and assists (three).
*-Thorir Thorbjarnarson hit two 3-pointers, his third game with at least two 3-pointers this year. Two of the three have come against top -10 teams (also No. 8 Creighton)
*-Thorbjarnarson tied his season high set three other times, most recently against Doane on Dec. 17.
*-Tonight was NU’s first overtime game of the season. The Huskers fall to 4-6 in overtime games at Pinnacle Bank Arena and 63-51 all-time in overtime contests.
*-Illinois’ Ayo Dosunmu’s 31 points is the most individual points allowed by the Huskers this season.
*-Tonight was Nebraska’s fourth game in the last seven days dating back to Feb. 6.
*-Nebraska falls to 0-6 vs. ranked teams this season.

Nebraska Head Coach Fred Hoiberg
On the team’s performance against Illinois:
“I couldn't be more proud of my guys for going out there and fighting the way they did and going toe-to-toe with the No. 6 team in the country. You know, this has been an incredibly difficult stretch for everybody involved. For those guys to go out there sore, beat up, on this losing streak, and find a way to continue to muster up the energy to go out and compete the way we are, I give our guys all the credit in the world for that. That's what I talked about in the locker room. The positives of the steps that we took in the right direction. Less playing in a crowd. Better cuts on offense to loosen up Illinois’ pressure. Getting to the free throw line again. Shooting better for the most part. We struggled and missed some at key moments, but we continued to do a good job getting it in there.”
 
On the final play of regulation:
“The lack of execution on that last play is extremely disappointing. To draw something up that we think could have at least gotten us a good look to win a game like this and then to go out and have a couple guys in the wrong spots, that's the hard thing. That's going to be the one that certainly will keep me up tonight. But as I told our guys, the biggest thing that we need to take out of this is to know that we can play with anybody. To battle a team that's going to be a national championship contender, that's a huge step in the right direction and I'm really proud of my guys for that.”
 
On if he expected the team to play like it did against Illinois:
“I did think we'd come out compete again because that's what this group is made of. It's what they do. My big thing was looking to play smarter basketball and for the most part we did it. Of our 13 turnovers, we did a much better job of not going and trying to fight through three or four guys coming down on the brake and attacking numbers. If we didn't have anything, we did get into our offense and our set as we talked about after the last game. We were going to try to have a little more structure and I thought we did a better job of that. The turnovers we had were just kind of on ball reversals where they shot the gap in the passing lane and unfortunately got pick sixes on them. But for the most part, we did a better job, and that's what we're going to do if we're going to have a chance to win games. Our team right now, they're fighting. They're hurting. They’re sore. Mentally, it's been a tough deal what we just went through and the losing streak weighs on you. We just got to find a way to continue to work our guys back into shape and get their timing right and hopefully we'll get one of these wins.”
 
On the team’s work in the post:
“That was one of the biggest things in the in the four days of preparation going into live play again (before playing MSU). We really worked on our ball pressure and we really worked on fronting the post. Our bigs have done a tremendous job of that. We talked to our bigs about at 15 fouls to give, and I thought we had some good ones there. Our bigs battled the strongest guy in our league. If they can do it against him then we should be able to do it against anybody.”
 
Illinois Head Coach Brad Underwood
On Nebraska’s early start:
“Well, I told the team they would give us an opportunity to get back in the game. But I was really concerned. Jacob Grandison, which I’ve been pretty critical of Jake all week at practice because he gave up a back cut layup and I told our coaching staff before the game Jake’s going to give up the first basket on a back cut layup and I told him about it before the game and he still gave it up. Again, it’s one of those things he’s got to get better at and he wasn’t as dialed in as he needed to be and they took advantage. We had to get stops. We had to figure out how to get a couple stops. And then we got really passive on the offensive. They do a good job defensively. I knew they were going to take Kofi away. They made his entries hard. And we didn’t do a good job at taking care of the ball, and we just had to settle down and we did that and kind of found a way to make it competitive at the end of the half.”
 
On the Big Ten competition:
“It was a game that I have been concerned about for a long time when it was set. It is a game that we have been talking about prior to. We thought we were playing Michigan on the schedule. You’re going to get two top five or two top six teams playing and then all of a sudden its not Michigan. It’s a team who’s really struggling and all of a sudden it becomes that trap game. We practiced not very good yesterday and our shoot around was horrible today. I thought our effort was ok. It was just our mental focus and tenacity. Like I said when we don’t chase balls that’s a pretty good sign.”
On Nebraska’s defense:
“They do a great job at it. If you look at their stats over the course of the season, I think Minnesota took 36 threes at home. Wisconsin came in here and took 32. And then you look in the league play their games have been seven eight nine they have been close games and it’s because of their defense. They force you to make threes. Once we drove the ball and had a little movement we were able to get Kofi the ball but again give their defense a lot of credit.”

NU Athletic Communications