The Kareem Abdul Jabbar Top Centers Award Finalists list was released on Friday morning and interestingly enough, three of those top centers are players that ran into a buzzsaw that was the Nebraska Cornhuskers basketball team.
While the Huskers’ defense has had a bit of an up and down season, one thing has been made clear by Fred Hoiberg and his coaches. When the team goes up against one of the best big men in the country, they tend to have a game plan that takes them out of the contest. That’s a good thing considering that when the smoke clears on the regular season, Nebrasketball will have faced off against fully half of the finalists for a total of six times.
It’s not just that the Nebraska Cornhuskers basketball team has had success against the best big men in the country. It’s that they’ve been totally shut down. Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner, Oregon’s Nate Bittle and Maryland’s Derik Queen all made the 10 finalists list for the Kareem Abdul Jabbar award. Those three players combined to score a grand total of 11 points so far.
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Announces the Top 10 Candidates for the 2025 Men’s Center of the Year Award.
— University of Hoophall (@hoophallu) February 7, 2025
🔗: https://t.co/6g66YyZdqj#KareemAward | #HoophallU pic.twitter.com/ri4CNF4qNi
Nebraska Cornhuskers basketball has shut down murderers row of bigs
The way the Nebraska basketball team shut down Kalkbrenner still stands up as the most impressive, allowing just one field goal attempt (that he missed) and 4 points. He did have 11 rebounds, but NU beat the Jays 74-63 thanks to just how much a player that averages 19.2 points a game was shut down.
Maryland’s Queen was similarly held to zero field goals (on four attempts) and his 3 points all came on free throws. Queen, who normally averages 15 points got the last laugh as the Terps toppled Nebraska, but Fred Hoiberg and company will get another chance to both shut him down and beat Maryland next Thursday.
The most recent Abdul Jabbar finalist to run into the Huskers’ buzzsaw was Oregon’s Bittle who does have the honor of being the only center in this group who actually hit a field goal attempt. Bittle scored 4 points in the Ducks’ loss to NU last week.
What does this tell us about the Nebraska Cornhuskers basketball team? For one that when it focuses in, this defense can be really good. That will be important considering that they’ll face two more members of this list soon. Michigan’s Vladislav Goldin and Minnesota’s Dawson Garcia will travel to Lincoln in back-to-back games at the end of February and beginning of March.