Men's Basketball

Nebraska Postgame Notes/Quotes vs. Illinois

Nebraska Postgame Notes
  • Bryce McGowens reached double figures for the seventh straight game with a team-high 19 points. He went 6-of-7 from the line and is now 18-of-19 from the charity stripe the last four games. McGowens has been in double figures a team-high 13 times this season.
  • Derrick Walker Jr. finished with 14 points, his fifth straight game in double figures. It matches the longest stretch of his career (also Nov. 19-Dec.1). Walker added seven rebounds and help limit Kofi Cockburn to just 16 points on 8-of-18 shooting. It marked just the second time this year that Cockburn was held under 50 percent shooting in a game. He had scored 20 or more in Illinois’ last four games.
  • Alonzo Verge nearly posted his fifth double-double of the year with 14 points and nine assists. It marked the fifth time he has had at least seven assists in a game. It also marked his highest scoring output since having 16 against Kennesaw State.
  • Nebraska’s four steals tied its lowest total on the season. The Huskers entered Tuesday leading the Big Ten in steals.
  • Nebraska went 6-of-12 from 3-point range, while the 12 attempts was a season low.
  • Nebraska falls to 0-4 against ranked teams this season.
Nebraska Coach Fred Hoiberg 
On the final four minutes of the game 
“Bryce hits the two free throws under the four minute media timeout. They come out and get two offensive rebounds in that first possession and have a good stop and we do not hit. They hit their big guy and he goes in and gets two chances at it and opens up a lead for them. We came down and I believe it was a shot that got blocked. Ran a play to get Bryce to his right hand. I thought he had good attack, and they made a hell of a play at the rim on it. Come back their roller got behind us and gets the dunk to put them up four. I think the next possession was the free throws and then we came down and did not execute the play that was called on the free throw line. We had three guys in the right spot and two guys not. It is obviously a horrible time in crunch time to not go down and execute, and we had a poor possession. We felt like we had a good play called and they could have got us to the rim maybe get us to the free throw line, and we did not execute it. They came down and hit a couple of threes there at the end. I thought we guarded the three all night long extremely well. When you play a team like this with Kofi (Cockburn) and four shooters around him, you cannot take away everything. The decision was made to play mostly one-on-one on the post and we tried to dig in there when we could. I thought we executed some good fouls there at the end to put him at the free throw line but they hit the big ones there at the end of the game when it mattered most. Our effort was phenomenal. I thought we fought them all the way until the end. Just have to execute it better at the stretch.”
 
On Derrick Walker
“I thought he battled Kofi (Cockburn) and made him work for everything that he got. I thought Eduardo (Andre) gave us some good minutes in there as well. I guess going back to the Ohio State game is when we really challenged our bigs to go one on one with the post and Derrick continued to fight all the way. Obviously you see what happens. The impact he has on the team. When he picked up his third foul in the last game that is when Rutgers went on the big run and took control of the game and had all of the momentum before halftime. Derrick has been a warrior. Did a solid job playing with the two fouls. May have picked up one more in the entire game. Derrick is doing a little bit of everything for us right now.”
 
On the limited three-point attempts 
“It is what they do. They eliminate the threes as well as any team in the country. They drop Kofi (Cockburn) down in the restricted area and they force you in the midrange. I thought we had some good midrange looks, and I thought we had some forced midrange looks. We talked about that in the game plan that they force you into those shots because they stay home in the shooting and then they drop Kofi and their guards do a good job getting through screens. For the most part I thought we had a solid offensive game. I would love to get a couple of those possessions back but this is one of the top defensive teams in the country and I thought we had some really good possessions out there.”


Nebraska Freshman Guard Bryce McGowens
On what changed in the last four minutes of the game:
“I just feel like we did not execute our plays or echo the call on offense (after Payne’s free throw). It’s a game of runs, and I feel like they had the last push at the end.”
 
On Derrick Walker’s performance against Kofi Cockburn
“Derrick brought it. That’s just what Derrick does. He’s a high-energy guy, and he’s one of the leaders on our team. Every night and day he’s going to bring it. That's why personally I love Derrick.”
 
On the key to defending good bigs such as Cockburn
“It’s a team effort. Me being a guard I don’t really have to bang with them. Just giving them as much help as possible. We did not do a good job at rebounding his misses, and we’ll work on that tomorrow.”

Illinois Head Coach Brad Underwood 
Opening Statement
“Really good team win tonight; this is a good Nebraska team. This is a game that when the schedule came out, I was concerned with for a long time. They did exactly what I feared they would do. They’ve been really struggling shooting the basketball, and they make four by the first media timeout. Fred’s got these guys playing hard and together, and I thought Derrick Walker’s defense was outstanding. I think he’s one of the best interior defenders in the league. He went right at Kofi early, obviously a huge night on the offensive end being 7-for-11. More importantly when I think back on this game I’ll think of Coleman Hawkins. He had a huge offensive rebound, where he got two at a critical time. Then I’m going to remember the coming-out party for Omar Payne. I couldn’t be happier for a young man who’s worked so hard and stayed with, I think he went seven or eight games where he hadn’t scored but has kept grinding in practice, and to step up and impact the game the way he did was huge in a night that I literally kept the best player in the country on the bench for the last four minutes, he was that good. Trent Frazier, I keep running out superlatives for him, he does what Trent does, 29 points, 38 minutes and only one turnover. He also does it on the other end guarding his tail off. We all know Alonzo Verge is a talented kid, and he makes everybody better but Trent’s work on him was tremendous and then obviously the big shots. All in all, a great team win. I thought that Luke Goode and Brandin Podziemski in the first half came in and really gave us a spark in a night where Plummer wasn’t his best and to be honest Kofi wasn’t either, but I wanted to give him credit for that.”
 
On Illinois' slow start
“Maybe their energy, I think they hit us with a blitz in transition. I thought we got a couple of good looks, but they have the third fastest time of possession in the country and they got going in transition, we took a couple bad shots and missed, and they got a couple looks in transition, but you expect that from teams at home.”
 
On experience down the stretch
“It’s a wonderful thing. I’ve been blessed in my career to win games and it’s those guys who do it. They’ve got a special freshman, Bryce is special, but for the most part you don’t win big games with freshmen. You win with veterans who don’t panic and play in the moment, and we have a couple of those, and they continue to do it for us."
NU Athletic Communications