Nebraska Postgame Notes

• Nebraska tied a season high with seven steals in the game. The Huskers also had seven steals against Florida A&M. Juwan Gary had a season-high three steals in the game.
• Keisei Tominaga led Nebraska with 20 points, his second 20-point game of the season and 12th of his career.
• Tominaga was the only Husker to score in double figures. Before today, Nebraska had placed at least three players in double figures in every game this season.
• Nebraska sees its 12-game home win streak against non-conference foes come to an end.
• NU was held to a season-low 60 points, as its previous low was 64 against Rider on Nov. 13. The Huskers went just 2-of-22 from 3-point range, as NU entered the leading the Big Ten with 9.6 3-pointers per game.Nebraska committed just eight turnovers, the fourth straight game with less than 10 turnovers.

Nebraska Coach Fred Hoiberg
Opening statement
“I’ve got to give Creighton credit. Not only offensively what they do, but defensively they’re really good. They force you into a lot of tough mid-range shots with (Ryan) Kalkbrenner back there. They stay home on shooters. They executed their game plan to perfection. I told the guys in our locker room, this is our first time now being on the other end of this thing. What are we gonna do to bounce back? A big part of this business at any level is responding. Responding to big emotional wins and responding to tough losses like we had today when we got it handed to us. We have a very important two days in front of us. Getting ready for our first road game and our first opportunity in the league. We’re gonna get a game plan put in. We’re gonna learn from this one and then put it behind us. Hopefully, bounce back with great effort for these two Big Ten games that we’ve got coming up. I still love these guys. Got a big opportunity in front of us. We’re gonna bounce back and compete. It’s the makeup of our guys. I know who they are. They’re gonna be there ready to go and ready to learn and get better at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning.” 

On NU’s 3-point shooting 
“Not very good. Listen when you do that against a team like this obviously, it’s gonna get ugly. I’ll be interested to see what we were at the rim. I thought we had some good ones at the rim.  We also forced some at the rim. It was not a very good night for us with the ball going in the basket. A lot of that has to do with them and their personnel and they made it very difficult for us today.”

On the first time getting through adversity this season
“The huddles were still spirited. That’s the one thing when we went over there. We talked about continuing to go out and compete. I was proud of Eli (Rice) for going out there and getting some good-quality minutes. As I talked to him about every possession, his plays matter. It gives him an opportunity to show what he can do and lead to potentially more time. I liked some of the things he gave us out there on the floor. He certainly is a guy who can put the ball in the basket. I was proud of how he approached those minutes. These are important minutes of Matar (Diop). He’s had a couple of great weeks of practice. We’re gonna need him in Big Ten play. Those two guys as freshmen to go out there and really get their first opportunity in a meaningful game like this is very valuable. We got a lot of decisions to make here moving forward as we start Big Ten play. Hopefully, just go out there and compete. That’s the bottom line. I could sit here all day and tell you the same freaking thing. We gotta get better from this. It’s something that we’re gonna grow. I love the character and makeup of our team. We’ve got veteran guys and an old team. We’re gonna bounce back. We’re gonna compete on Wednesday and hopefully get back in the win column.” 

Nebraska Forward Rienk Mast
On Creighton’s runs and staying disciplined
“They just did a great job playing the way they like to play. We did a poor job with trying to make them do things they are uncomfortable with. They were very comfortable out there and that’s on us. They did a good job with us, forcing us into tough spots that we were uncomfortable with. If they go on runs, you try to respond and try to get a stop, but especially the last nine minutes of the first half was just very tough for us to do. We should have been more disciplined with that. We are going to watch the film and see where we can improve.”

On what Ryan Kalkbrenner was able to do down low
“He is just a big body. Their scheme is very good for him. He clogs up the paint and everything close to the rim, he is going to be there. They play right into that. So they force you to try and shoot over him and he’s just so big. Credit to them. They do a good job with it.” 

On bouncing back quickly 
“I saw a lot of guys that were obviously really disappointed with this one. First loss of the season so we are going to see how we will bounce back. We haven’t lost this year yet but from the characters that I know are around me and what I know about myself, I think we all know that we need to be better. We are going to come to practice tomorrow and try and improve. I think we have guys that all know this was not a good showing for us and we need to be better.”

Creighton Head Coach Greg McDermott
Opening Statement
“This is a really good win for us because of what I think of Nebraska. I've been really impressed with how connected they are on both ends of the floor, and for us to come in here and do this to them is really a credit to our guys' preparation and focus. Obviously, we made some shots in the first half, and that allowed us to create some separation. But our guys played together, and we assisted on 17 baskets, and Nebraska is a big assist team, and they only had six assists. We really wanted to fight them on the boards, and we were able to out rebound them. The free-throw game is one that we felt we couldn’t lose if you’re going to come in here and win. They attempted 14, we attempted 13. We really checked the box on the goals that we had coming into this, and then we executed some pretty good stuff. Not only offensively, but the job we did defensively as well.”

On defensive performance adjustments against Keisei Tominaga after hot start
“We kept flipping Trey (Alexander) and (Francisco) Farabello just to try to keep somebody that’s relatively fresh because he’s the guy that can really get going for them. We were okay living with a few of their guys as you saw we were okay letting them shoot 3-point shots. Sometimes that works in your favor, sometimes it doesn’t. Tonight, it worked in our favor, but our guys were locked in. He was seeing a lot of blue jerseys every time he caught the ball off a screen. We weren’t necessarily trying to keep it out of his hands, we just wanted it to feel crowded.”

On Baylor on the baseline and his openness throughout the game
“We took 40 threes last year and they were very similar to the 40 threes this year, which made for more and got some stuff into transition. They were number one in the country with guarding the rim. So you can either be a fool and say ‘I’m going to try to jam it down their throats’, we’re going to try anyway, or you can take what the defense gives you. We feel like we have enough shooters that if the defense is going to give us that we’ve got to take advantage of it, negotiate better within the second half obviously. The first half performance was pretty incredible.” 

Creighton Forward Baylor Scheierman
On the chain reactions that led to an offensive game for Creighton
“We kind of knew that they like to help, and we know sides, so if we could rip a baseline they were going to overreact. We had to pull behind and get to the top corner space because we knew where they wanted to help from. This year, we have three or four shooters on the court. I’m having them in the top corner. They have to pick and choose who they’re going to guard. It’s more shots on failure.” 

On navigating through today’s game
“Well it started off with short shots. Then I kind of got hot a little bit, obviously in the second half. There’s a lot of people, especially on offense and I don’t think we really played our best in the second half. We missed a lot of shots, but you know it means a lot in this game to be able to have a decent performance. Credit to my teammates for taking shots and finding offense.” 

Creighton Center Ryan Kalkbrenner 
On the impact of this game and the mindset going into it
“Especially with a rivalry game as big as this you never want to lose those games. Losing last year, you definitely have a little more attention to detail, you feel like you owe them one after last year. I think one to 15 or 16 guys, we really locked in on the last two days from prep. The scout team gave us a great look and our starters, our best guys, were locked down with what Nebraska does. We knew what we we’re getting into.”