[Husker] Iowa State 69, Nebraska 63

Wed Feb 28 22:57:48 CST 2007

We interrupt this Ostergard-a-thon for some depressing news on the most excrucitating game to watch this year for a Husker hoops fan.  Iowa State played great on the road but Nebraska was not good tonight.  Wesley Johnson is a great young (freshman) player who's only going to get better.  He led Iowa State with 22 points tonight while Mike Taylor -who ripped the Huskers from behind the arc in Ames earlier this year - added 19.  Taylor, Johnson and the rest of the 'Clones were smokin' early and got up on the Huskers either 24 or 26-10.  While ISU was off and running, Alex Maric was missing close-in shots.  Around mid-way through the first half, ISU was shooting 65 percent while Nebraska was shooting 25.

Hard to get down on a guy (Maric) who scores 36 points and grabs 12 rebounds, but the big Aussie center could've had 50 tonight.

90 percent of Nebraska's focus on offense is getting the ball to Maric so he HAS to put up big numbers.  All of NU's effort goes to getting the ball to him so it's deliver-or-else.  When this game was taking shape early, Maric hit a stretch where he couldn't buy one from close-in.  At one point, I suppose you could say it was comical (although I personally wasn't amused), he was missing so many close-in shots.  NU came back to close it to within four points only four minutes into the second half (after trailing by 11 at the break).  But later in the second half, Maric hit another stretch where he missed some close-in attempts ... and ISU never let the Huskers draw even after that.  

Maric was 15 for 30 from the field tonight.  30 shots.  So it's not a question of Nebraska not getting him the ball in a position to score.  The rest of the team was eight for 30.  Iowa State played similar defense to the way KSU defended the Huskers in Lincoln earlier this year (the night that Maric went for 41).  The one, huge exception was that Iowa State wasn't "fronting" Maric and giving him easy dunks (he can finish those with regularity) like KSU did.  ISU concentrated on guarding NU's perimeter players, and they did it very well.  Marcus Perry didn't get many good looks at all this evening.  Credit Iowa State's perimeter D.

I'll never figure out why Huggins insisted on fronting Maric with no backside help that night in Lincoln.

Maric probably gets as good of position down low in the post, on-the-blocks as any post player in the country (6-foot-11, 270 lbs. helps).  But oooohhh, man does he struggle to finish and score at times.  He missed 15 shots tonight and 14 of them had to be from five feet or less.  To be fair, he is carrying a heavy burden for his team.

Maric needs another baseline scoring threat and Doc needs to recruit some players who can score, in general.  Nebraska doesn't have anyone who can semi-consistently put it on the floor and create their own shot --perimeter, intermediate or close-in.  Lil' help would be nice.

The Huskers are now 16-12, 5-9 in the conference with a road trip to Colorado on Saturday (12:30 p.m. on the ESPN+ package).

Dave Norris

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