SAD NEWS: A star player for Nebraska Cornhuskers is ready to make a move to

admin | January 7, 2024 | Other Clubs | No Comments

Nebraska basketball ended a seven-game losing streak to Indiana behind a season-high 28 points from sharpshooter Keisei Tominaga on Wednesday night in Lincoln. The Huskers defeated the Hoosiers 86-70. It is the most points Nebraska scored in a Big Ten game since Feb. 27, 2022 – 26 games. Tominaga finished 9-of-15, scoring 18 of his points in the second half.

“When he’s open I think everybody in the building is shocked when the ball doesn’t go in the basket,” coach Fred Hoiberg said postgame, via Husker247. “That’s what our world of basketball is turning into with analytics is guys that can space a form make shots. There’s so many great playmakers that can get into the paint and when you have a guy like Keisei spacing the floor that’s going to – the gravity that he provides – is gonna force the defender closer and either open up a play to the rim or get an open shot.”

“I thought we that we had great hand activity. That was a big emphasis coming in was to really try to take away their pocket with any of their pick-and-rolls. And I thought we did a really good job of it. They got off to a good start. I thought they were a little too comfortable early in the game, but we turned that around once we started getting deflections. That got us out in transition, that got Keisei (Tominaga) loose a little bit. But you know, that’s a very talented team over there that was at the top of our league. So, you know, a really good complete win for us. I’ve used the word consistency with our group, you know, talked about that from the day we got back from the break. And I thought tonight was about as consistent as we’ve been for 40 minutes and we played a complete game. And, you know, shared the ball, had eight turnovers – which is certainly a step in the right direction after the last couple of games – and I thought we had good movement on the offensive end and got the ball to the right guy.

“It was great to see Keisei get it going. You know, I love that his family was in the building. It’s a special thing, being away from his family for as long as he has they last few years. And, you know, for them to witness this event. I told them they need to find a place over here. He seems to be pretty damn good when they’re in the building.

“And then Rienk (Mast’s) parents were able to be here as well. And you know, the thing you got to understand about Rienk, he had his procedure done the day after the Kansas State game and he’s really had a day and a half of practice. And for him to go out there, you know, probably played a few more minutes than we would have liked just because of the foul trouble.

“You know, in the communication that we had with the medical staff, he did not have a limit on his minutes per se, but we wanted to try to, you know, get him in and out as much as possible. I got him out of there early that was by design. And then with the foul trouble in the first half we had to have him on the floor. He just does so many things for us with his versatility on both ends. But you know, for the most part I thought just the consistency CJ (Wilcher) going out there, you know, we did a great job finding him, unfortunately he went down with back spasms in the second half, but you know from start to finish I was really pleased with the effort that our guys gave.”

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“Yeah, you know I thought Rienk (Mast) had a couple of really good looks that were right there, you know, in and out. Sam (Hoiberg) had a good look that hit it just, you know, grazed the back of the rim. Those are the misses – if you’re gonna miss – that’s where you want them. You know, we had one other one, I think it was Keisei (Tominaga), had a wide open one that didn’t fall. Second half I thought we played smart, you know, we had a couple possessions we’d have liked back, but I thought we played smart. And when we got the lead up, I thought we had good patience out there.

“You know, it’s a very good defensive team that obviously has got great length across the board. So, you know, I thought the movement the sharing was, you know, what we need to bottle up and continue on the rest of the Big Ten season. It’s gonna be very important. Wisconsin, obviously it’s, you know, what they do. They’re as good as anybody in the country on that end of the floor. You have to have movement, you can’t be stagnant down there. They’re gonna make you look ugly. So, you know, this is a good win. We got to learn from it. Get back to work tonight, and put an edit together, clean up of this one and then move on and put a game plan together for Wisconsin on a short prep with an early game on Saturday.”

“Well, we had to adjust the second half. They did a really good job of just throwing the ball up to the front of the rim and we had no answer for it when they were posting (Malik) Reneau and Kel’el (Ware) was just going right to the front of the rim. We had to switch up our coverages and go a little bit more one-on-one in the post. And, you know, it’s something that we have, you know, with our defense, obviously you can see it we like to force that thing down and trap it if it gets too low, but they did a good job kind of baiting us and throwing the lob up. But I thought the guys made a good adjustment out there and again, got good activity.

“The guy want to point out Josiah (Allick), I thought was terrific tonight. Twenty-nine minutes he doesn’t take a shot, but you could argue he was as important as anybody on the floor. Eight rebounds, the play he made where he dove from underneath the basket, first to the floor, you know, basically got the ball at the free throw line and that got us out in transition. So you know, Joe with again with foul trouble that we had, I thought was huge for us out there.”