LINCOLN — Nebraska's Cory Montgomery smiled and shrugged Monday night as soon as her suddenly inaccurate shooting stroke was mentioned.

She offers no excuse, no explanation.

For whatever reason, the normally lethal 3-point shooter misfired with regularity during Nebraska's two Big 12 tournament games at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City, Mo.

She wasn't the only one: The Huskers made 37 percent of their field goals last weekend, a figure far below their regular-season percentage (.466). The weekend brick-fest ultimately contributed to the season's first loss, when Nebraska couldn't keep pace with Texas A&M and fell 80-70 Saturday.

The NU players refuse to believe that the below-average shooting performances are a trend, though. They aren't ignoring the topic. They're just quick to downplay its significance.

“You can't shoot great every game,” Montgomery said. “We're going to bounce back from it. We know we're a good shooting team.”

But the weekend is still puzzling, especially for a consistent scorer such as Montgomery. Against A&M, the senior forward fell short of double digits for just the seventh time all season.

Montgomery, who made 41 percent of her 3-pointers during the regular season, finished 1 for 6 from 3-point range in both tournament games.

Before that, she had attempted five or more 3-pointers in four contests, shooting no worse than 40 percent. She made a career-high four 3-pointers against Oklahoma on Feb. 24.

“Whether it was the gym, whether our legs were tired, whether we were just off — I don't know what it was,” Montgomery said. “We were still shooting with confidence. I thought every one of my shots was going to go in. It happens sometimes.”

Baylor is the only Big 12 team with a better field-goal percentage (.463) than NU's current mark of .459. The Huskers rank 12th nationally in that category, even after their struggles in Kansas City.

They shot 50 percent or better five times during conference play and broke the 80-point mark in eight league games.

Junior Dominique Kelley said the Huskers won't be consumed by the shooting slump. She said there are other areas they've targeted for improvement.

“That's just one of them,” Kelley said. “Rebounding, again. Our transition defense hasn't been up to par where we'd like it to be. But we've just got to get back to who we are and what we've been doing all year. It's nothing that we can't fix.”

And the venue shouldn't matter, Kelley said.

The Huskers shot 44.9 percent away from the Devaney Center this year, just 1.9 percentage points below their home-court average.

They'll play their NCAA tournament first-round game in Minnesota's Williams Arena, with another one set for Tuesday night if they beat Northern Iowa.

“We'll be fine. I'm not really worried about it,” NU coach Connie Yori said. “There are a lot of things that we need to get better at in the next few days. Shooting's one of them.”

Contact the writer:

402-473-9585, jon.nyatawa@owh.com

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