ESPN2 had the spotlight onLincoln last night as the #25 Kansas State Wildcats
traveled to bitter cold Lincoln to take on the Nebraska
Cornhuskers.
Michael
Beasley was
extremely confident going into last night’s game. “It’s going to be fun tonight. I’m telling ya’ll, I’m looking for 50,”
Beasley told an ESPN reporter. Not
only did Beasley not reach 50, he didn’t even crack a usual double-digit
performance before going into the locker room at half. Unimpressive is a good description of
Beasley’s overall performance against the Huskers. It took him ten and a half minutes to
score his first basket and went into halftime only racking up an embarrassing
four points. Four measly points for
a potential first round NBA draft pick.
Sure he played well for about five minutes in the second half, earning
himself his 22nd double-double of the season,
but I would still pick
Aleks Maric over Michael Beasley any day. His over confidence in himself really hindered his performance tonight
and probably was the main reason Kansas State will be dropped from the Top 25.
Enough about Beasley, let us look at all the good things the Cornhuskers
did tonight.
Similar to last week’s game against the
Missouri Tigers, Nebraska came out strong and took an early
lead on the Wildcats.
Unlike the
game against the Tigers, the Cornhusker kept pouring on the pressure.
Steve
Harley stepped up huge tonight and
played extremely well against the opposition. He ended the game with 20 points, went
9-12 on field goals and made both his free throw attempts. What stuck out for me were his back door
cuts to the basket. Six of his 20
points came on tremendous cuts to the hoop, easily beating his defender.
Cookie Miller also had a strong game. Even though one might look at his
statistics and think he had a poor performance, he was strong in certain
areas. Miller did struggle shooting
the ball against Kansas State, going 1-9 on field goals and 0-3 on
three point attempts. He did
however flourish in the steals and assists categories. He had five total steels coming at
important moments in the game and ended regulation with six total assists. He once again moved the ball very well,
finding the open man to give the Huskers an ongoing lead throughout the
game.
Aleks Maric also showed very strong against the Wildcats. Maric ended the game with 15 points,
going 5-8 on field goals, 5-6 shooting free throws, and had an impressive 17
rebounds. Maric, along with others,
double teamed Beasley throughout the game making him useless in the Wildcats
offense. A little skirmish between
Maric and Kansas State’s Bill Walker ended with Walker receiving a
technical foul for swinging at Maric after Aleks got the rebound with 9:38 left
in the game. Maric later knocked
down both his free throws to seal the deal for the Cornhuskers.
Nebraska was very motivated going into last
night’s game with the Wildcats. They knew Beasley had hurt them last time scoring well over 30
points. The Huskers did well in
shutting Beasley down and was the main reason the Huskers walked out of the
Devaney
Center with a huge
win. There was no real stand out on
the Husker side. Everyone who
stepped foot on the court contributed to the morale boosting victory. Beasley wilted under the ongoing
pressure from the Nebraska defense. He finally showed up with about five
minutes left in the game. Which was
impressive when I look back, but then I remembered his cocky quote he gave to
the ESPN reporter saying how he is going to drop 50 on us. Hopefully he has that image of the
faithful Red Zone fans storming the court with the scoreboard reading,
Nebraska 71….Kansas State 64, burned into his
memory.
