[Husker] Nebraska 84, Marquette 74

[NUStLNorris at aol.com]

I had hoped that Nebraska's effort and overall performance would improve  
right along with their competition and, at least tonight, it did.
 
Nebraska led at the half 48-29.  It was the best first half I've seen  in the 
Barry Collier era.  NU played hard tonight.  That's not always  the "given" 
that you might think it should be from 18- to 21-year old kids,  but NU played 
like they wanted it tonight.  It showed in their  rebounding, which had been 
far less than acceptable in the first four  games against a lot less 
competition than they saw tonight.  Marquette is a  good team.  They beat South Carolina 
in the championship game of the  Great Alaska Shootout this past weekend.  
Not great, but they will  beat some people this year.
 
Nebraska's big man trio of Aleks Maric, B.J. Walker and Wes Wilkinson  was 
very good tonight.  It was definetly B.J. Walker's coming out  party.  He showed 
the intermediate shooting touch that he was rumored  to have.   Good 
defensive player and good on the boards  tonight.  Great effort.  Last time I looked 
at the big scoreboards at  the Devaney Center tonight, Maric had 15 points and 
11 boards and Wes had  15 points and 7 boards (heard on the radio on the way 
home that he had 5 blocks  as well).  B.J. Walker had around 14 points and 8 
boards.  6-11, 6-9  and 6-9 is how those guys measure up.  They were huge 
tonight.
 
The freshman point guards played like freshman point guards at times  
tonight.  Jamel White still did some good things.  Marcus Perry came  off the bench 
and had a very productive first half - by far the best he's  played in his 
brief Husker career.  Charles Richardson, the 5-foot-9 (?)  junior point guard who 
just came back from a knee injury, really steadied  things in the second half 
when Marquette made some runs.  NU's poor free  throw shooting kept it closer 
than it needed to be.  Jason Dourisseau got  in early foul trouble and then 
missed five of his first six free throws  tonight.  He is STILL playing better 
than I've ever seen him play thus  far.  Plays great defense on a good 
perimeter shooter -- and Marquette had  a couple who got warm at times tonight.  
Collier's substitution pattern  tonight was a lot easier to understand too.  I 
hope he stays away from the  playing 11 guys in the first 10 minutes mind-set.
 
Joe McCray is looking like he's going to re-define the term "sophomore  
slump."  He's overweight and his attitude looks like it needs work.   He has no 
rhythm to his game at all.  Everything is off.  He forced  things tonight and 
turned it over with regularity.  I was his biggest  supporter last year, but 
there's no one who's seen him play this year that can  like what they see.  Stay 
tuned on that one.  The fact that NU won  like they did tonight with Joe being 
a liability says a lot for the other  guys.  Joe's got to get in better shape, 
get his head right, and contribute  more.  This team needs him, but there IS 
other talent.  Needs to stop  forcing it and let the game come to him more.
 
The Devaney Center crowd no longer deserves it's nickname of "The  Library."  
George Romero spent his time around a more lively bunch.   "The Morgue" would 
be more appropriate.  A lot of NU hoops fans have died  off, or something 
like that, over the years.  That's another post for  another time.  It WAS the 
biggest crowd of the year (I'd give you a number,  but I have no clue how 
they're counting attendance down there this year).
 
NU played very well overall tonight in their first true test against a real  
team this year.  5 wins, 0 losses on the young season.  This Saturday  at 3 
p.m. the competition gets even better as the UAB (Alabama-Birmingham)  Blazers 
come to town.  They've been an NCAA tourney team the last two years  and they 
are reportedly "extremely talented" this year as well.  
 
Dave Norris