Huskers Host Samford on Sunday

GAME 12: vs. SAMFORD Date: Sunday, Dec. 20 Time: 6:06 p.m. Location: Pinnacle Bank Arena Tickets: Huskers.com/Tickets NEBRASKA CORNHUSKERS 2015-16 Record: 7-4 Head coach: Tim Miles Record at Nebraska: 54-53 (4th year) Career Record: 337-273 (21st year) SAMFORD BULLDOGS 2015-16 Record: 7-3* Head coach: Scott Padgett Record at Samford: 20-22 (2nd year) Career Record: Same *-Plays at South Alabama on Friday night BROADCAST INFO Television: BTN Play-by-play: Steve Physioc Expert Analysis: Shon Morris Online: BTN2Go and BTN.com Radio: IMG Husker Sports Radio Network, including KLIN (1400 AM) in Lincoln, KXSP (590 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 TuneIn Radio

After a short break for final exams, the Huskers hit the court Sunday evening for a non-conference matchup with the Samford Bulldogs.

Tipoff is scheduled for 6:06 p.m. (central) and tickets are available for the contest by calling the NU Athletics Ticket Office at 800-8-BIGRED, visiting Huskers.com or at the Pinnacle Bank Arena box office beginning at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday.

The matchup will be aired nationally on BTN with Steve Physioc and Shon Morris on the call. It will also be available online at BTN.com and on BTN2Go.
Sunday’s game will air across the state on the Husker Sports Network with Kent Pavelka and Matt Davison, including KLIN 1400 AM in Lincoln, KXSP 590 AM in Omaha and KRVN 880 in Lexington and is also available on Huskers.com and the Huskers App.

Nebraska (7-4) looks to build some momentum following a 70-67 win over Rhode Island last Sunday. In that game, the Huskers rallied from an 11-point deficit behind the play of Shavon Shields and freshmen Glynn Watson Jr. and Michael Jacobson to pick up a crucial win against one of the favorites in the Atlantic-10 Conference. Nebraska shot 51 percent against a Rams squad that allowed only two of its first nine opponents to score more than 60 points.

While Shields had team highs of 19 points and seven boards, Watson came off the bench and scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half, including a basket that gave the Huskers a four-point lead in the final minute. Jacobson, who moved into the starting role earlier in the week, matched his career high with 11 points and added four rebounds in two assists in 26 minutes of work.
Samford, which is led by former Kentucky standout Scott Padgett, is 7-3 on the season heading into a home game against South Alabama on Friday night. The Bulldogs, who are off to their best start since the 2001-02 season, have been tested as two of the losses are at Texas and against Louisville.

Sunday’s game will also have a halftime performance by the famous Red Panda Acrobat, marking her first Lincoln performance since 2012 this weekend.

NUMBERS TO KNOW
.910 - Over the last 10 years, Nebraska is 81-8 in non-conference home games, including 18-3 since moving into Pinnacle Bank Arena in 2013.

4 - Nebraska put four players in double figures against URI, and is now 4-0 this season when at least four players reach double figures.

5 - Nebraska now has had five double-digit comebacks under Tim Miles following Sunday’s win with Rhode Island.

61.1 - Nebraska’s shooting percentage in the second half against Rhode Island. It was NU’s best shooting half of the year and highest since shooting 67 percent in the second half against Northwestern on Feb. 2, 2015.

7.7 - Nebraska’s steals per game, which is second in the Big Ten. The Huskers feature four players who average more than a steal per game.

1,295- Shavon Shields’ career point total. He is now just five points away from being the 13th player in school history with 1,300 points.

SCOUTING SAMFORD
Head Coach Scott Padgett brings Samford to town at the back end of a busy weekend. The Bulldogs, who are 7-3 on the season, host South Alabama on Friday night before coming to Lincoln.

Padgett, who played on Kentucky’s 1998 NCAA title team, was an all-SEC performer and spent eight seasons in the NBA before getting into coaching. Padgett served as an assistant coach at Kentucky, Manhattan and Samford before taking over the Bulldog program in 2014. After going 13-19 in his first season, Samford has been competitive with its only losses coming at Louisville, at Texas and a one-point loss against Austin Peay.

Samford returns two starters and eight letterwinners from that team and are led by Darius Jones-Gibson, who was an All-Southern Conference performer in 2014-15. The 6-foot-2 guard averages a team-high 15.8 points and 2.4 assists per game. Sophomore point guard Christen Cunningham is also back and averaged 14.7 points and a team-high 3.3 assists per game. Freshman Matt Rose averages 9.5 points per game and is shooting 45 percent from 3-point range. He earned SoCon Player of the Week honors after scoring 17 points in a win at Florida A&M.

Series History: Sunday’s meeting between the Huskers and Samford is the first meeting between the schools, and marks the third of four games against first-time opponents. Nebraska is 9-1 against the current members of the Southern Conference and the first matchup against a member of the conference since a 77-62 win over The Citadel on Dec. 21, 2013.

LAST TIME OUT
Benny Parker’s go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:14 left gave Nebraska its first lead since the opening minutes of the game, as the Huskers overcame an 11-point deficit to down Rhode Island, 70-67.
Trailing 65-64 freshman Glynn Watson Jr. found Parker on the wing, as the senior knocked down the 3-pointer for his only basket of the game for the Huskers.

Watson was a sparkplug in the Husker comeback, as the freshman scored 13 of his career-high 17 points after halftime. His final bucket, a jumper with 22 seconds left, gave NU a four-point lead at 69-65.

After a Jarvis Garrett jumper pulled URI (6-3) within 69-67, Shavon Shields split a pair of foul shots with seven seconds left to give NU a three-point lead. The Rams had a shot to tie, but Jared Terrell’s 3-pointer just before the buzzer fell short, giving the Huskers the come-from-behind win.

Watson was one of two Husker freshmen who came through on Sunday, as Michael Jacobson finished with 11 points and four rebounds in 26 minutes of work, as four Huskers finished in double figures. Shields led all scorers with 19 points and added seven rebounds, while Andrew White III finished with 11 points in the win.

Nebraska, which trailed 37-32 at the break and by as many as nine points in the second half, shot 61.1 percent in the second half and hit 6-of-8 from 3-point range on the afternoon in the victory.

Kuran Iverson and Garrett tied for game-high honors with 15 points apiece for URI, as All-Atlantic-10 performer Hassan Martin was limited to six points and two rebounds because of foul trouble.

IMPROVED OFFENSE
With the departure of three starters who are playing professionally, including two in the NBA D-League (Terran Petteway and Walter Pitchford), the biggest question entering the season was who could fill the scoring void for the Huskers. Nebraska’s newcomers have shown the ability to provide offense in the early going, as Nebraska’s 74.5 points per game is seven points per game higher last year’s average through 11 contests.

• Nebraska’s scoring average of 74.5 points per game through 11 games is the highest since the 1997-98 season and the third-highest in the last 20 years.
• Ten different Huskers have reached double figures at least once, a total which ties for second nationally, while three players (Shields, Webster and White) have also recorded 20-point efforts.
• Nebraska has two 90-point games, the first two times in Miles’ four seasons that Nebraska has scored at least 90 points in a game and has averaged 77.3 points per game over the last three contests.
• In KenPom, NU’s adjusted offense efficiency has climbed from 285th (96.3 ppg per 100 possessions) to 153rd (102.8 ppg per 100 possessions) this season.
• The biggest improvement has come from the 3-point line, as the Huskers were 340th in that category last season (.284) and are 88th (.371) entering Sunday’s game with Samford.
• Four of Nebraska’s top-six scorers are in their first year of competition as a Husker, as newcomers have accounted for 53.9 percent of NU’s total offense in the first 11 games.
• Five of NU’s newcomers have already posted double-digit efforts, including a team-high nine by Andrew White III and five by Glynn Watson Jr.