Huskers Fall to Host Rainbow Warriors

Manoa, Hawaii -- Despite a tough shooting night, the Nebraska men's basketball team battled to the end before falling to host Hawaii, 81-72, Friday in the semifinals of the Outrigger Rainbow Classic at the Stan Sheriff Center.

With the loss, the Huskers fell to 7-3 on the season and dropped into the third-place game Saturday at 5 p.m. Hawaiian time (9 p.m. CST) against the Houston Cougars. The win pushed Hawaii into the tournament championship game where it will face Creighton.

Hawaii disrupted the Husker offense from the start, holding Nebraska to a season-low 25.8 percent shooting in the first half. NU hit 8-of-31 attempts in the period, including only 3-of-13 from long range, as the Rainbow Warriors took a 20-point lead, 43-23, into the intermission on Matt Gibson's 3-pointer with less than two seconds remaining before the break. 

The Rainbow Warriors got out of the gate strong, jumping to an 8-0 lead as the Huskers missed their first five shots from the field. Junior center Aleks Maric finally got the Huskers on the board at the 16:25 mark and added another basket a minute later, but played just eight minutes in the opening period as he picked up his second foul with 9:46 left in frame.

Maric was not the only Husker to get into some early foul trouble as the Huskers were called for seven fouls before Hawaii picked up its first. Nebraska's eighth foul, on Ryan Anderson, led to Coach Doc Sadler's ejection as he picked up his second technical of the game, forcing him out of the arena and leaving assistant coach Philip Mathews to run the squad.

Anderson led the way in the opening period, scoring 12 of the Huskers' 23 points. The freshman from Seattle, Wash., then added 17 points in the second frame as the Huskers made a furious rally, trimming the UH lead from 22 points early in the second period to just eight in the final minute.

Finding his range from beyond the arc, Anderson scored 29 points, the second-highest single-game scoring mark by a Husker freshman in school history. Only Tyronn Lue, who had 30 against Oregon as a freshman, scored more points in a game during his first season.

Anderson finished the game hitting 8-of-20 shots from the floor, including 7-of-13 from 3-point range. He finished one off the school record for 3-pointers and tied the record for 3-pointers attempted in a game while also adding six rebounds and five assists against one turnover in 38 minutes. Anderson's six boards were a team high as the Huskers were outplayed on the glass by a 45-23 margin.

As a team, the Huskers hit 36.9 percent from the floor on the game after nailing 16-of-34 (47.1 percent) in the second period. Nebraska connected on eight 3-pointers after the intermission and posted a season-low 10 turnovers for the contest, but could not overcome the Rainbow Warriors' 51.0 percent shooting for the game. UH drained at least 50 percent in each period to become the first opponent to hit at least half of its shots in a game this season.

After trailing by 22 early in the second half, Nebraska kept plugging away and finally chipped the lead down to single-digits at 72-63 behind a 16-5 run over a four-minute span. Freshman Sek Henry started the run with a jumper and Charles Richardson Jr. added a 3-pointer while Anderson dropped in a pair of treys to help pull the deficit back under 10.