Nebraska Basketball: Beating Texas Tech would be huge for Huskers

After Nebraska basketball beat Missouri State Monday night in Kansas City, the Huskers will play Texas Tech in the Hall-of-Fame Classic title game.

The Nebraska basketball team opened the Hall-of-Fame Classic against a scrappy Missouri State team Monday night. But despite a solid effort by the Bears, the Huskers ran away with it, in the end, winning by a score of 85-62.

It wasn’t a win that will stand out on the resume or anything, but Nebraska basketball took care of business. More importantly, it set up a critical showdown tonight against Texas Tech in the championship game of the tournament tonight at 8:30 PM CST (ESPN 2).

Obviously, no team really cares that much about winning the Hall-of-Fame Classic. However, if the Huskers can do that and beat Texas Tech in the process, they would notch an impressive neutral-floor victory over an NCAA tournament team, one that won 27 games a season ago and is currently ranked 24th by the Kenpom rankings.

As good as it was to beat Seton Hall last week, knocking off Texas Tech would mean a lot more. For one, it comes away from home. The committee really looks to see if teams can beat other good teams away from home. Nebraska didn’t really do that last season, so this is the perfect opportunity.

While the Huskers are fresh off a big win, the Red Raiders are too. They beat USC by 15 points after Nebraska’s game to reach the final. Texas Tech had four players score in double figures and at this point in the season, its leading scorer is Jarrett Culver, who scores 16.8 PPG and knocks down 38 percent of his shots from deep.

Davide Moretti (12.8 PPG) and Matt Mooney (11 PPG) are the other leading scorers and both shoot better than 40 percent from 3-point range too. As a team, the Red Raiders are scoring 77 points a game and shooting 37 percent from three.

Defensively, the Red Raiders have been outstanding and are allowing just 48 points per game, which is fifth in the country. The Huskers are scoring 89 points a game and giving up just 47.5, which ranks fourth in the country and just ahead of Tech.

James Palmer, Glynn Watson Jr., Isaac Copeland and Isaiah Roby also give Nebraska a solid core group of players along with Thomas Allen and Nana Akenten, who is averaging 10 points a game after connecting on three triples vs Missouri State. As a team, Nebraska basketball hit 13 treys against the Bears. For the season, NU has made 44 three-pointers, an average of close to nine per game.

Both teams are similar. They want to score defend and get up and down the floor. The team that defends better will probably win the game. Each squad is allowing less than 50 points per game, so tonight, we will find out if the defenses are legit.

Either way, Texas Tech provides a huge opportunity for Nebraska basketball to get the kind of quality win that alluded the Huskers so often last season.