• Photo Showcase: Nebraska's 72-69 win over Central Michigan
• Box Score: Nebraska 72, Central Michigan 69
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LINCOLN — Nebraska’s final nonconference men’s basketball game was like a lot of the previous 10 this season.
A chore to the end.
The Huskers built double-digit leads in both halves against Central Michigan on Tuesday night, but had to scramble to finish a 72-69 victory over the 5-7 Mid-American Conference foe.
Not many saw NU improve to 8-3. The crowd of 4,257 was the fourth-smallest in the 35-year history of the Devaney Center.
None of that mattered to coach Doc Sadler, who saw two of his top three scorers sit again with injuries (Dylan Talley, Jorge Brian Diaz) and then had to sweat out a postgame X-ray of top scorer Bo Spencer’s left thumb. (The picture was negative, but Spencer did crack his thumbnail.)
“The question was asked what I wanted out of tonight,” Sadler said. “A win, and I didn’t care how we got it.”
In the first half, Nebraska held Central Michigan scoreless for 6:53 to turn a 21-20 deficit into a 31-21 lead. In the second half, NU scored on six of seven possessions to go up 47-36 with 12:39 to play.
“I thought at times we played about as well as we could play,” Sadler said. “We executed well offensively. Even when we weren’t making shots, we were getting good shots.”
But neither the final victory margin nor the scoresheet indicated Nebraska played a lot of premium basketball.
Central Michigan outshot NU from the field and the 3-point line, forced more turnovers and had more points in the paint, more second-chance points, more fast-break points and more bench points.
The Chippewas also had the game’s high scorer in wing Trey Zeigler, who had 20 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Fortunately for Nebraska, Zeigler made only 8 of 15 free throws.
Three of those misses came in the final 48 seconds when CMU twice got within three points. Nebraska hit 10 of 12 free throws in the final 1:26, and shot 76.9 percent from the line (20 for 26) for the game.
Spencer and fellow guard Brandon Richardson, who had 15 points apiece, nailed six of those late free throws. Spencer also had nine assists and three steals.
In six days, No. 13 Wisconsin (10-2) comes to Lincoln for Nebraska’s first Big Ten Conference game.
Do the Huskers, picked 11th in the 12-team league in preseason, have a sense of where they now fit among their new brethren?
“We may be an underdog, but we’re not really concerned about that,” Richardson said. “We’re going to go out there and compete. We can’t worry about people talking bad about us.”
Sadler unleashed a big sigh when asked for his assessment of nonconference play.
“It’s been a hard 11 games,” he said. “Are we where I thought we’d be? I don’t know. But I still believe in this team.”
In nonconference play, Sadler said, Nebraska has seen about every offensive and defensive combination known to man.
“The good thing about getting into the next 18 games, those teams probably think they are better than you,” he said. “They will come in here and do what they do, so we’ll have a better idea of what people are going to do.”
NOTES: Nebraska will take two days off, then return Friday to start practice for Wisconsin. ... NU has ordered new custom orthotics for Diaz’s shoes that Sadler said are completed and should arrive from North Carolina by Friday. ... Floor-level tickets are for sale at $20 to the public for the Wisconsin and Michigan State games, which are during the holiday break for students.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com
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