Nebraska Basketball: Huskers have rare opportunity for win over Seminoles

The Nebraska basketball team has had a rough go of it when it has taken on what are traditional Power programs. In fact, the Huskers are 0-3 and have lost all of those games by double-digit margins. St. John’s, Memphis and Oklahoma have all had their way with Fred Hoiberg’s team. However, things might be a bit different on Sunday evening.

The Nebraska basketball team takes on a Florida State Seminoles squad that has seemingly fallen on even harder times than the Cornhuskers. The ACC school is 1-6 on the year and it hasn’t been picky about who it’s lost to.

FSU’s only win came against Mercer, a school that KenPom has ranked in the 100s. Of course, the Seminoles also have losses against teams ranked quite a bit worse. They opened the year with losses to Stetson (251) and have also been defeated by Siena (217) recently.

That’s why the Nebraska basketball team has a real chance to finally get a win against a Power program. This isn’t going to be the kind of thing that will be something Hoiberg and company will be able to brag about all that loudly, but it is something they can use to build on.

If the Huskers are hoping to win, they’ll need a better performance from Derrick Walker, and that’s not going to be a small feat. In his first game back with the Nebraska basketball team, the forward scored 15 points and hauled down 12 rebounds. However he also led the team in turnovers with 9.

He wasn’t the only guy turning it over, the Cornhuskers turned it over 20 times against Memphis, but he was easily the bigger culprit. Hoiberg and company are hoping that was rust and not a trend that will continue through the rest of the season.

To beat Florida State, the Huskers are going to have to find a way to play better perimeter defense. Which of course, is something Hoiberg hasn’t cracked the code on just yet.

Guard Darin Green is one of the best 3-point shooters in the country so far, hitting 44 percent of his shots from beyond the arc. That accuracy has him averaging 12.1 points per game. He’s joined by Cam’Ron Fletcher who has hit 39.6 percent of his shots from 3-point land.

The good news, for the Nebraska football team is that the Seminoles don’t have a great presence down low, despite having some rather big bodies, including 7-foot-4 Naheem McLeod. Despite having that height advantage, McLeod is only averaging 3.5 rebounds per game. He is a problem as a shot blocker as he has 1.7 per game.

When the Nebraska basketball team tips off against the Seminoles this evening, they’ve got a chance to build some momentum with a bad Boston College up next. On the flipside, a loss and an 0-fer for the weekend could start a downhill slide.