Huskers Host Arkansas-Pine Bluff

HUSKERS ON TV/RADIO/INTERNET
Television: None
Radio: Select IMG Husker Sports Radio Network stations
Play-by-play: Kent Pavelka
Color: Matt Davison
Internet Radio/Stats: Free on Huskers.com
Satellite Radio: None

Nebraska Cornhuskers
Game: 2
2010-11 Record: 1-0, 0-0 Big 12
Head coach: Doc Sadler
Record at Nebraska: 71-58 (5th year)
Record at Division I: 119-76 (7th year)
Career Record: 239-115 (13th year)

UAPB Golden Lions
Game: 2
2010-11 Record: 0-1, 0-0 SWAC
Head coach: George Ivory
Record at UAPB: 31-35 (Third year)
Career Record: Same

The Nebraska basketball team wraps up the short homestand on Monday, Nov. 15, as the Huskers will play host to Arkansas-Pine Bluff at the Bob Devaney Sports Center.

The contest will tip off at 7:06 p.m. and will be broadcast across the state on the 32-station IMG Husker Sports Radio Network with Kent Pavelka and Matt Davison on the call.  Live game audio will also be available on the internet on Huskers.com

Tickets for Monday's game are available by calling 800-8-BIGRED or visiting Huskers.com. Fans can also purchase tickets at the Devaney Center beginning at 5:30 p.m.

The Huskers opened up the 2010-11 season with a 76-68 victory over South Dakota on Friday night. Nebraska, which has won its last 10 season openers, controlled the paint, as the Huskers' four interior players combined for 48 of the Huskers' 76 points and 18 rebounds against the Coyotes.

Junior college transfer Andre Almeida led the charge with an impressive debut. The 6-foot-11 center came off the bench to score a team-high 20 points, on 9-of-12 shooting from the floor, and added a game-high seven rebounds. Almeida, who has lost nearly 30 pounds since enrolling at Nebraska in August, hit nine consecutive shots from the floor at one point, helping the Huskers built a 16-point second-half lead before withstood a late charge by the Coyotes.

Almeida's inside presence helped the Huskers control the boards, as Nebraska enjoyed a 44-31 rebounding advantage. NU's rebounding was a team emphasis, as five players had at least four caroms in the victory, including seven by Toney McCray and six by point guard Lance Jeter.

After struggling in rebounding for most of last season, the Huskers have now out-rebounded five of their last six opponents and have enjoyed a significant rebounding advantage in that stretch (38.3-29.3). In the first 28 games last season, NU was out-rebounded by 3.0 rebounds per game (31.4-33.4).

Arkansas-Pine Bluff comes to Lincoln with an 0-1 record after losing at Colorado State, 82-51, in their opener Saturday night. The Golden Lions made their first NCAA Tournament appearance last season and went 18-16 before losing to eventual NCAA champion Duke in the first round. 

Monday's game starts a busy week for the Huskers, as Nebraska will leave Tuesday for the Honda Puerto Rico Tip Off where NU will play three games in a four-day span, including an opening-round match up with Vanderbilt Thursday afternoon.

Scouting Arkansas-Pine Bluff
Third-year coach George Ivory and the Golden Lions returned nine lettermen and a pair of starters from a team that went 18-16 and reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history. Arkansas-Pine Bluff began the season with 11 straight losses, including road setbacks at UTEP, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Kansas State and Colorado, before turning around in conference play. UAPB went 14-4 in the SWAC to finish second in the regular-season standings before sweeping through the SWAC Tournament, clinching an NCAA berth with a 50-38 win over Texas Southern in the title game. UAPB then downed Winthrop, 61-44, in the opening round before losing to Duke in the first round.

This season, UAPB was picked to finish second in the SWAC preseason poll, trailing only Jackson State.  Junior guard Savalace Townsend is the team's leading scorer from last season, as he averaged 9.9 points, 3.3 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game. UAPB returns its two best 3-point shooters from a year ago in Townsend (35.6 percent) and Allen Smith (4.9 ppg.; 34.6 pct. from 3-point range). Townsend had 12 points in Saturday's loss, while freshman Daniel Broughton led UAPB with 15 points and five rebounds. In the opener, the Golden Lions led 24-22 with 4:30 left in the half, but Colorado State went on a 25-4 run over the next eight minutes to pull away.

Nebraska-Arkansas-Pine Bluff Series
Nebraska is 3-0 all-time against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, as Nebraska has picked up victories in 2004 (97-40), 2006 (71-42) and 2008 (67-53). 

In the last matchup, the Huskers trailed for most of the first 15 minutes before closing the first half on a 17-3 run to take a 32-24 halftime lead. NU scored five of the first six points out of the break to build a 37-25 lead and UAPB never got within fewer than eight points the rest of the way. Steve Harley led NU with 18 points while Sek Henry added 14 points and five rebounds.  The only current Huskers who played in the 2008 contest were Brandon Richardson (nine points on 3-of-4 shooting from the field and the foul line), Eshaunte Jones (three points in 13 minutes) and Toney McCray (no points and a steal in eight minutes).

The Huskers are 12-1 all-time against SWAC opponents, with the only loss coming in a 71-68 overtime loss to Grambling on Jan. 6, 1988.

Last Time Out: NU Opens Season with 76-68 win over South Dakota
Junior college transfer Andre Almeida scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds in his Husker debut, as the Nebraska men's basketball team won its 10th consecutive season opener with a 76-68 victory over South Dakota.

Almeida's impressive performance came on 9-of-12 shooting in just 19 minutes, as he was one of three Huskers in double figures in the win. Sophomore forwards Brandon Ubel and Christian Standhardinger added 10 points apiece, while Jorge Brian Diaz chipped in eight points, as NU's four post players combined for 48 points against the Coyotes.

Almeida, a 6-11 center from Sao Paulo, Brazil, helped bring the Huskers out of a slow start, totaling 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting as Nebraska turned an early three-point defict into a 28-21 lead. NU led 36-31 at the break before getting the ball inside, using a 7-0 spurt to extend the lead to 43-31 after a Ubel free throw. The Huskers eventually extended the lead to 16 points, at 70-54, before USD trimmed the lead to eight points with 1:28 remaining. The Huskers kept a comfortable margin by hitting 19-of-21 free throws, including 16-of-18 over the final 20 minutes of action.

Postgame Notes vs. South Dakota

• Caleb Walker made his first career start for the Huskers, finishing with three points and a rebound in 19 minutes of action. He was one of four newcomers who saw action against South Dakota, including Andre Almeida, Kamyron Brown and Drake Beranek. Last year, the Huskers had three newcomers making their first career start.
• Nebraska has won its last 10 season openers dating back to 2001 and have won 21 straight season openers at home.
• The Huskers have won 18 straight games against South Dakota, dating back to 1943. The season-opening matchup was the first two time the teams had squared off against each other since Dec. 1, 1984.
• Nebraska Coach Doc Sadler improves to 7-0 in season openers in his Division I coaching career (2-0 at UTEP; 5-0 at NU)
• The Huskers extended their home winning streak to 14 games against non-conference opponents and are now 38-1 in non-conference home games under Doc Sadler.
• Nebraska held South Dakota to just 38.7 shooting, marking the 12th time in the last two seasons that Nebraska has held an opponent under 40 percent shooting from the field.

Taking Advantage at the Charity Stripe
Nebraska's 19-for-21 effort from the free throw line against USD was the Huskers' best performance from the charity stripe since hitting all 10 free throws against Baylor in the first round of the 2009 Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship on March 11, 2009. The last time NU had a higher free throw percentage with at least 20 attempts came on a 20-for-22 performance (90.9 percent) against Baylor on Feb. 4, 2005.

Andre's Giant Night
One Husker who made a impressive first impression is junior college transfer Andre Almeida. A two-time NJCAA All-American, Almedia came off the bench and led Nebraska with 20 points and seven rebounds against South Dakota. He hit on 9-of-12 shots, including nine consecutive shots at one point to help Nebraska build a 16-point second-half lead.

• Almeida became the second Husker newcomer in the last 40 years to score at least 20 points in a season opener, joining freshman Joe McCray, who had 23 points in his Husker debut in 2004.
• Almeida's 20-point effort marked the first time any newcomer under Doc Sadler at NU had eclipsed 20 points in a season opener. The previous high under Sadler was 17 points by Toney McCray against San Jose State in 2008
• His 20-point performance was the most points by a Husker in a season opener since Aleks Maric had 29 against Nebraska-Omaha in 2006.

Welcome Back McCray
Another encouraging sign in Friday's opener was the return of junior guard Toney McCray. He missed nearly all of the 2009-10 season following Tommy John surgery and also missed both exhibitions with plantar fasciitis. McCray came off the bench and provided a spark with seven points while tying for team-high honors with seven rebounds in 20 minutes of action.

Diaz Makes His Mark on Husker Record Book
Jorge Brian Diaz quietly put together one of the best rookie seasons in program history in 2009-10. The 6-foot-11 center from Caguas, Puerto Rico, appeared in all 33 contests, averaging 8.8 points on a team-high 52.2 percent shooting, 4.0 rebounds and 1.2 blocked shots per game. 

He not only set a school freshman mark with 41 blocked shots, but also finished on NU's freshman top-10 list in field goals made (133, fourth), rebounds (133, seventh), points (291, eighth) and points per game (8.82, 10th).
Here is how Diaz's 2009-10 numbers compared to the freshman seasons of the post players who reached the 1,000-point plateau as Huskers.

Diaz got off to a solid start in Friday's opener, totaling eight points on 4-of-8 shooting, four rebounds and a pair of assists while playing 28 minutes. During the exhibition season, Diaz was the only Husker in double figures in both contests, as he averaged a team-high 15.0 points per game. He connected on 14 of his 18 shots from the floor and also averaged 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per contest.

Huskers Battling the Injury Bug
The Huskers have been battling the injury bug over the last week. Sophomore center Christopher Niemann will be sidelined for a few weeks, as he underwent surgery on his knee to fix a meniscus on Nov. 3. Later that day,  junior guard Brandon Richardson suffered an ankle injury when he stepped on a referee's foot during the opening minutes of NU's exhibition opener against Peru State. Richardson missed NU's second exhibition, but returned to action against South Dakota on Friday night. McCray also missed both exhibition games, but returned to action in the win over South Dakota.

Holding court
Nebraska has been strong on its home court over the years, and will try to continue an impressive run at home under Coach Doc Sadler. In the history of the Bob Devaney Sports Center, Nebraska has posted a 411-131 record for a .758 winning percentage.

In the past four seasons under Sadler, Nebraska has dominated to the tune of a 55-17 record (.764 winning percentage) against all teams. Facing non-conference opponents, the Huskers have been nearly unbeatable at home under Sadler. During his tenure, the team has earned a 38-1 record at the Devaney Center, with the lone loss coming in the 2008-09 season. The Huskers enter Monday's game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff riding a 14-game home winning streak against non-conference foes.

Jeter is the Focal Point of Husker Offense
Senior point guard Lance Jeter provides leadership at the point guard position. The senior has started all 34 games of his Husker career after arriving from Polk (Fla.) Community College. The 6-foot-3, 222-pounder was named to the Big 12's All-Newcomer team by the media after averaging 7.5 points and 4.1 assists per game. He was among the league leaders in both assists and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.9-to-1) and fell one assist shy of Nebraska's single-season top-10 list. He also played in a team-high 1,024 minutes last season, the highest number of minutes by a Husker in three seasons. Jeter opened the 2010-11 campaign with a solid effort, totaling eight points, including 6-of-6 from the foul line, four assists, two steals and six rebounds in NU's eight-point win over South Dakota.

Standhardinger Looks to Enjoy Full Season
One Husker who is looking to get off to a quick start to the 2010-11 season is Christian Standhardinger. The 6-foot-9 sophomore forward had to sit out all of the Huskers' non-conference schedule (15 games) last year because of an NCAA amateurism ruling, but still averaged 8.1 points and 3.8 rebounds per game in his debut season. Standhardinger showed a knack of getting to the foul line, as his 58 attempts in Big 12 play led all Huskers. 

One of the areas Standhardinger has worked on is becoming a better rebounder and it has been evident since the end of last season. He averaged a team-high 7.5 rebounds during the Huskers' trip to the Bahamas, and paced NU with 18 rebounds in two exhibition games. He had 10 rebounds in the opener against Peru State before grabbing eight boards in just 13 minutes of second-half action last Monday against Bellevue.

Standhardinger had 10 points and three rebounds - all on the offensive end - in just 15 minutes of action against South Dakota, as he has been battling a cold for the last week.

New Faces on the Bench
One of the biggest changes for the Huskers is on the sideline, as assistant coaches Wes Flanigan and Tracy Webster are in their first year at Nebraska, while Chris Croft moved from an administrative role to the bench this season.

Flanigan came to Nebraska from UAB, where he spent two seasons helping the Blazers to 47 wins and a pair of postseason appearances. He also served as an assistant at Arkansas-Little Rock and Northwest Mississippi CC following his playing career at Auburn, where he was an All-SEC performer.

Webster comes to Nebraska after previously serving coaching stints in the Big East, Big Ten and Southeastern Conferences. Last season, he was an assistant at DePaul before being promoted to interim head coach on Jan. 12, 2010, where he finished the season. He has also been an assistant at Kentucky, Illinois, Purdue and Ball State following a decorated playing career at Wisconsin, where he was an All-Big Ten guard for the Badgers.

Croft served as NU's director of operations for the last four seasons, but had previously been an assistant coach at the Division I level for eight years. He had been an assistant at Washington State, Southern Miss and Maryland-Eastern Shore and was the head coach at Martin Methodist College for three seasons.
 
Husker Youth Movement
Although the Huskers return 10 letterwinners this fall, it is still a rather young team. NU has two scholarship seniors (Lance Jeter and Drake Beranek) and only two players on the roster have played multiple seasons (Brandon Richardson and Toney McCray). In fact, Husker freshmen accounted for 848 of the Huskers' 2,194 points (38.7 percent) and 348 of the Huskers' 1,069 rebounds (32.5 percent).  The 2009-10 Huskers set  school marks for number of freshmen to start games (5 on the season; 3 in a single game) and for number of freshman to record 20-point games in the same season (3). Freshmen accounted for 51 starts on the season.
Huskers Look to Reclaim Big 12 Defensive Title
Throughout Doc Sadler's four seasons at Nebraska, the Huskers have been one of the Big 12's top defensive teams. In 2009-10, NU was fourth in the Big 12 in scoring defense, allowing 65.7 points per game. That snapped a two-year streak where the Huskers led the conference in scoring defense. In 2008-09, Nebraska allowed just 60.4 points per game to rank 22nd nationally and lead the Big 12. A year earlier, it gave up just 60.7 ppg and held on to a final No. 18 national ranking in that category.

Huskers Hail from Everywhere
The 2010-11 Huskers feature some international flavor with a pair of Germans (Christian Standhardinger and Christopher Niemann), a Brazilian (Andre Almeida) a Puerto Rican (Jorge Brian Diaz) and players from 10 states across the USA on its 20-player roster. There are five Nebraskans on the roster, including senior Drake Beranek, while no other location features more than two players.

Freshmen Made Their Mark on Husker Record Lists
With five freshmen in the Huskers' playing rotation during the 2009-10 season, it was natural that some of the Husker rookies would find their way on to NU's single-season freshman charts. A school-record five freshmen made at least one start (Jorge Brian Diaz -26; Brandon Ubel-16; Christian Standhardinger-4; Ray Gallegos-3; Eshaunte Jones-2) last season.

Diaz set NU's freshman record with 41 blocked shots, topping the old mark of 39 set by Venson Hamilton (1996) and John Turek (2002).  Diaz also finished in the top 10 among Husker freshmen in field goals made (133, fourth), points (291, eighth), rebounds (133, seventh) and  points per game (8.82, 10th).
Eshaunte Jones proved to be one of the Huskers' best long-range shooters, finishing his redshirt freshman year ranked second in 3-point shooting percentage (38.8 percent) and fifth in 3-pointers made (40).

Nebraska Coach Doc Sadler
Nebraska Coach Doc Sadler is now in his fifth season on the Husker sideline. Sadler has guided the Huskers to postseason appearances in two of the last three seasons and his 70 wins after his first four seasons is the second-highest total by a Husker coach in his first four years at Nebraska (Moe Iba, 71). He has guided teams to postseason berths in four of his six years as a Division I head coach, as both of his UTEP squads reached postseason play before taking over the Nebraska program in August of 2006. Sadler enters the 2010-11 season looking to climb Nebraska's all-time wins chart, as he is in seventh place, but is just 16 wins shy of cracking the top five on the list.

All-Time Coaching Wins at Nebraska
No. Coach, Years Wins  Record
1. Danny Nee, 1987-2000 254 254-190 (.572)
2. Joe Cipriano, 1964-80 253 253-197 (.562)
3. Moe Iba, 1981-86 106 106-71 (.599)
4. Barry Collier, 2001-06 89 89-91 (.494)
5. Harry C. Good, 1947-54 86 86-99 (.465)
6. Jerry Bush, 1955-63 81 81-132 (.380)
7. Doc Sadler, 2007-present 71 71-58 (.550)
8. William Browne, 1933-40 64 64-87 (.424)

Academic success Under Sadler
Under Doc Sadler, the Huskers have enjoyed success in the classroom. In all, 10 of 12 seniors who have completed eligibility under Sadler have received their degrees from Nebraska.  This season, senior Matt Karn is the 11th senior to earn a degree under Sadler, participating in commencement ceremonies earlier this year.  Fellow seniors Drake Beranek (May of 2011) and Lance Jeter (August of 2011) are on schedule to complete their course work  in the next year. The Nebraska basketball program ranks second among Big 12 programs with an 82 percent Graduation Success Rate (GSR) in the most recent rankings released on October of 2010.

Walk-on Tradition Continues
While the Nebraska football program is nationally known for its walk-on program, the Husker basketball team has gotten major contributions from walk-ons in Doc Sadler's four seasons. The most notable was Paul Velander, who received the Jack Moore Award, symbolizing the team's MVP, after helping the 2008-09 squad to the NIT.

At the start of the semester senior guard Drake Beranek was recognized for his hard work, as he was placed on scholarship for the 2010-11 year.  Beranek walked on to the program after spending three years at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. He scored 1,453 career points at UNK and ranked 11th nationally in Division II with 21.9 points per game in 2008-09.

For the 2010-11 season, the Huskers added five walk-ons, including in-state products Trevor Menke (Beatrice), Kye Kurkowski (Grant) and Jordan Tyrance (Lincoln), as well as Marshall Parker (Fort Smith, Ark.) and Bo Spencer (Baton Rouge, La.).

Regular-Season Schedule Notes

• Nebraska faces a rugged schedule with a minimum of 16 regular-season games against teams that reached the 2010 postseason. Among the Huskers' opponents that reached last year's NCAA Tournament were: Elite Eight participants Kansas State (twice) and Baylor, NCAA second-round qualifiers Kansas (twice), Missouri (twice), Texas A&M along with NCAA qualifiers Arkansas Pine-Bluff, Vanderbilt, Oklahoma State and Texas. NU will also face 2010 postseason NIT qualifiers Jackson State and Texas Tech, along with CIT qualifiers South Dakota and Creighton. In addition, the Huskers could face two more postseason qualifiers in Puerto Rico, including Final Four participant West Virginia, NCAA qualifier Minnesota, NIT runner-up North Carolina and CBI qualifier Hofstra.
• The Huskers are set to play 19 regular-season games at the Bob Devaney Sports Center, the most regular-season home games since the 2005-06 season. Last year, the Huskers went 12-6 in the building and NU is 54-17 at home under Coach Doc Sadler. The Huskers also played 18 regular-season home games in 2007-08, but one game (vs. Oregon) took place at the Qwest Center in Omaha.
• Nebraska heads to San Juan for the Puerto Rico Tip-off this week. This will be the fifth time the Huskers have traveled to Puerto Rico for a tournament and first since winning the San Juan Shootout title in 2000. That season, Nebraska won its three games by a total of four points, earning one-point wins over Iona and Kent State before winning the title with a 72-70 win over SMU. Nebraska is 8-4 in its four previous tournaments in Puerto Rico, reaching the finals of the 1990 San Juan Shootout and placing third in the 1994 San Juan Shootout.
• The Huskers will have at least 20 games televised regionally or nationally, including five games set to be seen around the country on the ESPN family of networks and another nationally televised on Fox Sports Net. The Huskers have averaged more than 20 televised contests (national, regional and local) each of the past four years.
• The Huskers' schedule features a school-record 10-game homestand beginning with the USC contest on Nov. 27. Prior to this season, the longest stretch of home games in school history was seven, which had been done four other times, most recently during the 2007-08 season.

Huskers to Enter Big Ten in 2011-12
June 11, 2010, was a historic day for the University of Nebraska, as NU was admitted to the Big Ten Conference as the 12th member of the nation's oldest conference. The Cornhuskers will begin play in the Big Ten in 2011-12. The Huskers have played Minnesota the most of any Big Ten opponent, as the teams have squared off 63 times dating back to 1902. The teams could meet again as non-conference foes, as both teams are in the field for the Honda Puerto Rico Tip-off next week.