Huskers Rebound To Beat Monmouth

Lincoln --Steffon Bradford and Cary Cochran came off the Nebraska bench to give the Huskers an inside-outside combination and allow Nebraska to pull away from Monmouth in the second half and post a 63-47 victory in the consolation game of the Ameritas Classic on Saturday night at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

The Huskers were sluggish in the first half, trailing by as many as nine points at 23-14 with 7:50 left. However, Nebraska finished the half with a 12-0 run to take a 26-23 lead into intermission. Cochran scored 11 points, including three 3-pointers in the first half, while Bradford added five points and five boards.

Monmouth took its last lead of the game at 35-34 with 11:16 remaining, but the Huskers went on a 21-6 run from there to lead 56-41 with four minutes to play. Cochran capped the run by hitting all three free throws after being fouled. The sophomore scored 17 points in the game, the second-most in his Husker career. Bradford scored a NU career-high 18 points and pulled down 11 rebounds for the second double-double of his career. Overall, the Husker bench combined for 43 of Nebraska's 63 points in the contest.

The Husker defense was strong, limiting Monmouth to just 36 percent shooting from the floor and forcing 21 Hawk turnovers. Nebraska has now held all six opponents this season to 50 percent or less from the floor and Monmouth was the fourth team the Huskers have held to less than 40 percent from the field. Monmouth was the first team Nebraska has held below 50 points since a 60-48 victory over Colgate in the championship game of last year's Ameritas Classic.

Saturday's victory evened Nebraska's record at 3-3. The Huskers are next in action on Thursday night when the Huskers take on Creighton in a 7 p.m. game at Omaha's Civic Auditorium.

Nebraska vs. Monmouth Post Game Quotes
Nebraska Head Coach Danny Nee
ON THE GAME:
"I was just pleased we were able to come out and get the win tonight. I though Cary Cochran gave us a little lift, let me rephrase that, he gave us an enormous lift. The threes he hit were the key to the game, I think. Steffon Bradford came off the bench and got some rebounds for us which helped us tonight as well."

"It came down to pride. We didn't want to lose two straight home games. To be honest, if we would have had Cary last night, we would have won the game. Not having a piece of the puzzle like him right now is too much for us. We just aren't deep enough to get through that right now."

ON MONMOUTH's MATCH-UP ZONE:
"Monmouth is a tough team to play because of their match-up zone. That zone can really make you look bad out there. They run a Princeton-type offense and that zone really makes the game ugly."

Monmouth Head Coach Dave Calloway
ON THE GAME:
"I thought we played hard and we played pretty good defense, but offensively, we've been struggling. We've won one game this year, and that one game we won, we made our shots. There's no magic to this game - you have to make shots."

ON NU's CARY COCHRAN:
"I think it helped them getting Cochran back. He made some shots for them. That helped them. Getting that kid Cochran helps. What happens is when you have someone that can shoot, that opens things up. You can start getting it inside a little bit.

ON THE HAWKS' OFFENSE:
"We just didn't make our shots. We think we run our stuff fine and we do a good job defensively. When you're holding teams to 63 points, you should win games. We're only scoring in the 40s. That's not going to win a lot of games."