Nebraska
- Dec 17, 2019
- 7 min read
Nebraska Cornhuskers (4-6, 0-1) vs. Purdue Boilermakers (6-3, 1-0)
Sunday, December 15 @ 3:00 PM Lincoln, NE
Pinnacle Bank Arena
THE SCHOOL
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is a public research university in Lincoln, Nebraska. It is Nebraska's state flagship university. With an enrollment of 25,332 students and an endowment of $1.7 billion, it is the largest university in the state. UNL was founded in 1869 as a land-grant university.
The Cornhuskers compete in the Big Ten Conference in NCAA Division I. Historically, Nebraska is one of the worst major conference programs in NCAA basketball. There are seventy-five schools in the Big Ten, Big East, Big 12, ACC, Pac-12, and SEC. Of those seventy-five teams, Nebraska is the only one who has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Despite this, the Husker basketball program is popular. In the 2018-19 season, Nebraska averaged 15,341 tickets sold per home game, good for tenth-best in all of college basketball. They had better average attendance than traditional powers like Indiana and Michigan State, as well as higher numbers than Virginia, last year's national champion. There was additional excitement coming into this season with the hiring of new head coach Fred Hoiberg, formerly of Iowa State and the Chicago Bulls. However, early season losses to UC Riverside, Southern Utah, and George Mason have dampened expectations.
Purdue University is a public research university in West Lafayette, Indiana. They also compete in the Big Ten. Because the Big Ten plays a twenty-game conference schedule, they start their conference season in December.
THE TOWN
green=my apartment, blue=my office, yellow=previous games, red=this game
It was a snowy, gross day in Lincoln, but luckily I didn't have to go far. Allison went with me, and Pinnacle Bank Arena is only four miles from her apartment. Even with wet roads and traffic, it took 10-15 minutes to get to the parking deck. A couple weeks before the game, I bought two tickets on StubHub at $6 apiece (before fees). This felt strangely cheap as it cost more to park ($9) than get into the stadium, and this was less than it cost to go to the Hastings game on Saturday. I'm not complaining, though.
Pinnacle Bank Arena resides in the part of town known as "Haymarket." Haymarket is the cool part of town. It's where the old train station was, but it now contains a lot of hip restaurants and shops. Too much of Lincoln contains gray, drab, boring buildings, but Haymarket is the opposite. This part of town feels colorful, new, and alive. It's very walkable and they host a huge farmer's market in the summer. Every city has a section that attracts young people and new businesses; in Lincoln, it's right by the arena.
Considering they're both large, state flagship universities located in small cities, I expected the University of Nebraska to feel a lot like Alabama. There are some big differences, however. Mostly, UNL has two distinct campuses: there's "city" campus which is downtown and "east" campus which is... to the east. From what I can tell, east campus is like Alabama in that it feels separate from the rest of the city and has lots of trees and green space. City campus feels like an extension of downtown Lincoln. Additionally, one big thing at Alabama was that everything matched; regardless of when a building was constructed, almost all of them have red brick and white columns. UNL is more architecturally varied, with some new, sleek, brick buildings and some old, Brutalist, stone structures. These two factors make UNL feel like less of a cohesive unit than UA. I don't think this a bad thing, and I think it's quite cool how the university and city merge into one a lot of the time, but it isn't what I expected.
Pinnacle Bank Arena is an off-campus event center that opened in 2013. "The Vault," as it's referred to (because its sponsor is a bank; it's not great) is as much a concert space as basketball arena, with a whole bunch of notable acts performing there since its completion six years ago. That said, the place feels primarily like a sports complex. They have Nebraska basketball banners and logos hung everywhere and the team feels right at home. No offense to Coleman Coliseum, but this a better college basketball arena.
THE GAME
My seats were four rows from the top, but as you can see from the above photo, they were still good seats. Pinnacle Bank Arena's seats go up instead of out, so there isn't a bad view there. In the picture I took, it looks like there weren't many people there. It wasn't a full house by any means, but by the time the game began, it was probably about half-full. l think the snow caused a lot of people to be late or not show up at all.
Nebraska had my favorite player name so far. From Reykjavik, Iceland, Thorir Thorbjarnarson (#34) was obviously a crowd favorite. The fans around me simply referred to him as "Thor," which is way easier to say than "Thorir Thorbjarnarson," but less fun. Just say that aloud a couple of times. Thorir Thorbjarnarson.
I'd like to introduce you to the most frightening mascot in major college athletics. Folks, this is Lil' Red:
Look at his dead eyes. His unwavering smile. His legs that bend the wrong way. I don't like anything about this eight-foot-tall inflatable child. First off, if "Lil'" is short for "little," shouldn't the apostrophe come between the i and l? Lil' Red spells his name with the apostrophe at the end, but I think "Li'l Red" is more grammatically proper. Second, Nebraska already has a mascot in Herbie Husker. While Herbie Husker doesn't make my list of favorite mascots, he's better than this unnecessary human balloon. Mostly, I just think I would have been scared of Lil' Red when I was a kid. I didn't like stuff like this and looking at Lil' Red brings back primal childhood fears. Maybe I don't like Lil' Red because he still scares me a little. And he's ugly and stupid.
Anyway, the game got underway right at three o'clock. Apparently, Nebraska fans all stand up until the Huskers make their first basket. I was scared that everyone was just going to stand the whole game because I didn't know this rule. They didn't have to stand for long though, because Nebraska got out to a hot start. They went on a 12-2 run in the first five minutes, helped by two big three-point shots from Thorbjarnarson. Unfortunately, they forgot how to score right after that and went on a 6:30 scoring drought that allowed Purdue to tie the game. This run aside, Purdue had offensive issues the whole game. Once Nebraska got their offense back in motion, they hit a couple of transition threes and took a 25-18 lead with 3:45 left in the first half. The Boilermakers had some opportunities to cut the lead in the last four minutes, but they couldn't capitalize and entered halftime down 34-23. In the first half, Purdue shot 9/41 from the field and 3/18 from 3. Nebraska played spectacular defense, but those numbers mostly reflect the offensive ineptitude from Purdue. For Nebraska, #3, Cam Mack, had eight points, five rebounds, and six assists in the first half. That's a solid stat line for one half of play.
At halftime, the Kansas City Disc Dogs came onto the court. This was a group of dogs (and people) that did frisbee tricks. Their best one was when one of the guys stood at one end of the court, they tossed the frisbee all the way to the other end, and the dog ran as fast as it could to get it. Seeing the frisbee dogs was worth $6 by itself.
The second half's beginning was much like the first half's. Nebraska started out hot, and by the first media timeout, they had gotten out to a fifteen-point lead. With 14:50 left, Cam Mack got his tenth assist and officially had a double-double while maintaining Nebraska's double-digit lead. But, much like the first half, Purdue had their turn for a run and went on a 15-7 jaunt to cut the Husker lead to as close as four with 8:54 remaining. They couldn't quite close it any closer as Nebraska had some big makes while Purdue continued to whiff on open shots. Somehow, the first foul of the second half came with 6:10 on the clock when Purdue's #32, 7'3" Matt Haarms, jumped onto and over a Husker player, landing right on his head. He was down for several minutes and went the locker room visibly woozy. He was later diagnosed with a concussion. After Haarms' injury, Purdue couldn't keep it together. Nebraska's lead got back to double digits at 3:00 and with 1:45 left, Nebraska's #11, Dachon Burke, hit a clutch three and a stupendous dunk on back-to-back possessions to effectively end the game. The most exciting moment came with thirty-eight seconds left, when Cam Mack tiptoed the baseline to grab his tenth rebound of the game and earned a triple-double. Not only is this the first triple-double I've seen in person, it's the first triple-double in Nebraska basketball history. This was cool to see. Purdue tried intentionally fouling to get back in the game but only made it worse, and Nebraska walked out with a fourteen-point win and a positive addition to their resume.
Final: Nebraska 70, Purdue 56
After seeing so many small-school teams in a row, it was interesting to compare them to major Division I basketball. Nebraska's players are taller, faster, and more muscular, but the small-school guys play with just as much passion and focus. Nebraska has a better arena and atmosphere than the others, but the on-court play isn't wildly different. Basketball is still the same game, no matter where it's played.
Two big takeaways: 1) this broke the five-game losing streak for teams I had gone to see and 2) Lil' Red stinks.
Next up: Wayne State College
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