• Box Score
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BOULDER, Colo. — The Nebraska men’s basketball team is off to its worst start in conference play in 20 years.
The Huskers’ 72-60 loss at Colorado on Wednesday night dropped them to 12-8 overall and 0-5 in the Big 12. The last time NU lost its first five league games was in 1989-90, a Danny Nee team that finished 10-18.
Unlike the Huskers’ first four Big 12 losses that were close deep into the second half, this game was almost all Colorado (11-9, 2-4).
In the first half, Nebraska committed nine turnovers in the first 10 minutes and 13 by halftime.
“The first 20 minutes was the first time in several years that we didn’t compete,’’ NU coach Doc Sadler said on his postgame radio show.
“(Colorado) definitely was the aggressive basketball team.’’
Those miscues and NU’s cold shooting helped Colorado slowly stretch its lead from 6-4 to 13-6 to 18-10 to 23-13 to 31-18 before Ryan Anderson’s 3-pointer just before half cut the gap to 31-21.
“This team doesn’t have the luxury of not being ready to play,’’ Sadler said. “And that’s my fault. I did not have them ready to play the first half.’’
The Huskers started the second half missing 7 of 8 shots — dropping them to 29.6 percent at the time — and fell behind by 16 points, 42-26.
NU forward Myles Holley scored six quick points off the bench to help cut the gap to 11. But Colorado went up by 20 at 59-39 with 8:45 to go on two free throws from guard Alec Burks.
Burks, the only true freshman to score in double figures in every game this season, led all scorers with 21 points.
Nebraska freshman Christian Standhardinger sparked a late rally.
He scored 12 of his team-high 14 points in the 5½ minutes after the deficit grew to 20 to bring NU back to 67-56 with 2:55 to go.
Colorado outshot Nebraska 48.8 percent to 39.6 percent, and had four more 3-pointers and four more free throws.
The Huskers play next at home Saturday at 12:30 p.m. against Oklahoma (12-8, 3-3), which used 38 points from freshman point guard Tommy Mason-Griffin on Wednesday night to beat Iowa State 89-84.
Sadler said he hasn’t seen much of Oklahoma yet, but is more focused on his team.
“We’ll find out a lot about this team come Saturday,’’ he said.
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