Nebraska defeats South Dakota State 76-64
LINCOLN, Neb. — Under coach Doc Sadler, Nebraska has become known as a defensive team. On Saturday, his Cornhuskers scored 76 points for the second straight game, beating South Dakota State 76-64.
“The one thing we’ve got to be most about happy about, except for USC, is we’re scoring some points against good teams,” Sadler said. “You guys can write about how much I like to be a defensive coach. But it’s a lot more fun to score some points, I promise you.”
Bo Spencer had 18 points and eight assists to lead the Cornhuskers (4-1), who lost their last game 83-76 to Oregon.
This time, they took control of the game early in the second half. But Jackrabbits coach Scott Nagy said the key stretch was the last 3:41 of the first half.
“I can’t remember what happened in it, but when you are tied and it’s a seven-point stretch there, that’s probably the difference of the game,” Nagy said. “We cut it to five in the second half. We basically went with five guys in the second half and they were just gassed.”
Nebraska (4-1) scored seven straight points early in the second half, ending with David Rivers’ three-point play that made the score 42-30 with 15:30 remaining.
The Jackrabbits (4-3) cut Nebraska’s to 50-45 with their own 7-0 spurt that ended with Griffan Callahan’s 3-pointer with 9:27 left. The Cornhuskers pulled away from there, though, taking a 66-53 lead on Toney McCray’s short jumper with 3:55 remaining.
Callahan hit seven 3-pointers to lead South Dakota State with 25 points.
While it appeared that Nebraska struggled throughout the game, Sadler said, his team likely played better than it appeared.
“The way South Dakota State plays, they’re not going to make you look good,” Sadler said. “But statistically, if you look at what we did, we did a really good job.”
That was the view of McCray, who came off the bench to score 12 of the 32 points Nebraska got from its reserves.
“We were scoring,” McCray said. “Every time I looked at the score, we were winning, so we were doing something right.”
Nagy also singled out McCray as the game’s key performer.
“Quite frankly, McCray was their MVP,” he said. “He hit big shots when we got close. And he hit a big three in the first half. He played better offensively than we gave him credit for. It wasn’t their stars that hurt; it was their bench that hurt us.”
Like his coach, McCray is happy that Nebraska has a stronger offense so far this season.
“It’s a lot easier to outscore a team than to sit there and try to defend them all the time,” he said,
Nate Wolters had 19 points, hitting 13 of 14 free throws for South Dakota State. Prince had 11 for the Jackrabbits. Brandon Ubel, Dylan Talley and McCray each had 12 points for Nebraska.