Huskers Host Northern State Monday Night

NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS 2014-15 Record: 13-18, Head coach: Tim Miles Record at Nebraska: 47-49 (4th year) Career Record: 330-269 (21st year) NORTHERN STATE WOLVES 2014-15 Record: 23-9 Head coach: Paul Sather Record at Northern State: 86-58 (6th year) Career Record: 180-120 (10th year) BROADCAST INFO Television: BTN Michael Shively and Jon Kipper Online: BTN2GO Radio: IMG Husker Sports Radio Network, including KLIN (1400 AM) in Lincoln, KXSP (1110 AM) in Omaha and KRVN (880 AM) in Lexington.  Play-by-play: Kent Pavelka  Expert Analysis: Matt Davison  Also available online at Huskers.com, on the Huskers App and on TuneIn Radio and the TuneIn Radio App.

The Nebraska basketball team gets a dress rehearsal for the 2015-16 season Monday night, as the Huskers take on Northern State at Pinnacle Bank Arena. A limited number of tickets for Monday’s matchup are available by visiting Huskers.com/Tickets or calling the NU Athletics Ticketing Department at 800-8-BIG RED.

Fans will see a new-look roster against Northern State, as nine of the 15 players on the roster are first-year players for the Husker program, while a 10th, junior Andrew White, is eligible after sitting out last year following his transfer from Kansas. The Huskers return two starters and five letterwinners from last year’s team.

The returnees are highlighted by senior wing Shavon Shields, who ranked among the Big Ten leaders at 15.4 points and 6.0 rebounds per game in 2014-15. Shields is a three-year starter who has started the last 82 games for the Big Red dating back to his freshman year. The other returning starter is Benny Parker, as the 5-foot-9 point guard averaged 4.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.5 steals per game last tear. One of the best defenders in the Big Ten, Parker ranked eighth in the Big Ten in steals in 2014-15.

Monday marks the debut of a heralded recruiting class, as the group was ranked among the top classes in the country by several recruiting services. The group includes five scholarship freshmen as well as two transfers and a pair of walkons. The group is led by freshmen Glynn Watson Jr. and Ed Morrow Jr., as both players were ranked among the nation’s top 75 high school players by ESPN.com.

For Nebraska Coach Tim Miles, Monday’s exhibition game is a chance to take on one of his former schools. Miles began his coaching career as an assistant at Northern State from 1989-95, where he helped lead the Wolves to five NAIA playoff appearances and two regional titles.
Northern State returns a pair of starters from a team that won 23 games and made its first NCAA Regional appearance since 1998. The Wolves averaged 75 points per game in 2014-15 and had three players in double figures and two more averaging at least nine points per game.

PREVIEWING NORTHERN STATE
Northern State comes into Lincoln tonight for the second of their two exhibition games of the 2015-16 season. The Wolves went 23-9 last season, including a 15-7 record in the Northern Sun Conference, and reached an NCAA Regional for the first time since the 2008-09 campaign.

Under head coach Paul Sather, Northern State has won 20 or more games in two of the past three seasons, posting a 62-31 mark in those seasons after his teams combined for a 25-27 record in his first two years at the school. Prior to taking the Northern State job, Sather spent five years at Black Hills State. He played collegiately at Northern State, helping the school to a pair of runner-up finishes in 1993 and 1994 when Tim Miles served as an assistant at the school.

The Wolves return a pair of starters from last year in guards Skye Warwick and DJ Pollard. Warwick averaged 10.9 points per game as a junior and is an excellent outside shooter, hitting 46 percent from beyond the arc. Pollard made 20 starts and averaged 9.8 points per game. In addition, junior Darin Peterka averaged 9.5 points per game as a sophomore and was among the team leaders with 74 assists.

SHIELDS GIVES HUSKERS RETURNING 1,000 POINT SCORER
For the first time since 2007, Nebraska returns a 1,000-point scorer to the lineup, as Shavon Shields enters his senior year with 1,127 career points. It marks the first time since All-Big 12 center Aleks Maric began his senior season with 1,111 career points. It is also the ninth time in program history that the Huskers had a returning 1,000-point scorer.

Shields begins his senior year in 24th place on Nebraska’s career scoring list. He is poised to jump in the top 20 of the list, needing only 16 points to match Terran Petteway for 20th on NU’s career list.

HUSKER LEGACIES
The 2015-16 Huskers have a number of players with relatives in college athletics. Senior Shavon Shields is the son of former Husker and Kansas City Chiefs great Will Shields, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last August. Four other Husker players have fathers who played basketball collegiately (Anton Gill, Michael Jacobson, Tai Webster and Andrew White III), while Ed Morrow Jr.’s mother, Nafeesah Brown, was a star player at Nebraska in the mid-1990s.

HANGING THEIR HAT ON DEFENSE
One of the keys to Nebraska’s success over last two seasons has been an emphasis on improved defense. In 2013-14, NU’s midseason turnaround was keyed on the defensive end, as a team that was last in field goal defense entering Big Ten play finished second in the conference in field goal percentage. Last year, it was the Huskers’ defense that kept the team in nearly every game. NU finished the season fourth in scoring defense, allowing 63.1 points per game in 2014-15.

•-NU finished the season 24th nationally in defensive efficiency according to KenPom.com, marking the second straight year that Nebraska has had a top-25 defense.
•-Nebraska’s field goal defense was one of its best in recent memory, as the Huskers held opponents to 40.4 percent shooting, which is the fifth-lowest total by a Husker defense in the 3-point era (since 1986-87).
•-Nebraska allowed only one team to shoot over 50 percent in 2014-15.
•-Under Miles, NU is 30-10 over the past three seasons when holding opponents to under 40 percent shooting.

DRAWING BIG NUMBERS TO PINNACLE BANK ARENA
Nebraska basketball has become one of the toughest tickets in the Big Ten since the program moved into Pinnacle Bank Arena. For the second straight year, the Huskers broke their own single-season record for average attendance, averaging 15,569 fans per game at Pinnacle Bank Arena in 2014-15.
•-Nebraska finished the regular season ranked 10th nationally in attendance, the highest Nebraska has finished in national attendance since the NCAA began listing it in 1977-78.
•-Nebraska is one of three Big Ten schools ranked in the top 10 nationally in attendance, joining Wisconsin (fifth) and Indiana (eighth), while six Big Ten schools are among the top 16 nationally.
•-In 2014-15, the Big Ten set conference records for total attendance (3,076,641) and attendance in conference games only (1,677,589). It marked the first time in history that the conference has eclipsed the three million mark in total attendance.

EXHIBITION HISTORY
Nebraska is 53-6 all-time in exhibition games dating back to the 1966-67 season and has won its last 11 exhibition games since a 54-50 loss to SIU-Edwardsville prior to the start of the 2006-07 season.

Monday’s game against Northwen State is the sixth time since 2000 that Nebraska has played a team from outside the state in exhibition action.

SUCCESS IN THE CLASSROOM
The Huskers have enjoyed success in the classroom under Tim Miles. In 2014-15, Nebraska placed a Big Ten-high five players (Nick Fuller, Kye Kurkowski, Trevor Menke, Shavon Shields and Leslee Smith) on the Academic All-Big Ten team. Over the last three years, 11 Huskers have earned Academic All-Big Ten accolades. In addition, nine of the 10 seniors who have played for Miles have received their degrees.

HUSKERS NEWCOMERS AT A GLANCE
Nebraska’s incoming class is one of program’s highest ranked in recent memory, as it was among the nation’s best by ESPN, Hoops Scoop and Scout.
• - The group features three ESPN top-100 players in Ed Morrow Jr., Glynn Watson Jr. and transfer Anton Gill.
• - The group combined to win 10 state titles in high school (Evelyn and Laws - 3; Morrow-2; Trueblood and Gill -1)
• - Six members of the group were first-team all-state peformers in high school (Evelyn, Gill, Jacobson, Morrow, Trueblood and Watson).
• - Jack McVeigh represented Australia in the FIBA U-19 World Championships and played for the Australian Senior National team in 2014.