• Box Score: Nebraska 80, Illinois 57
• Photo Showcase: NU men's basketball, Feb. 18

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LINCOLN — The question was inevitable. And when it came, Bo Spencer hung his head and smiled. When an 11-13 Nebraska team in the midst of a four-game losing streak blows out a superior opponent 80-57, it has to be asked.

Where has that been all year?

“I knew that was going to come up,” Spencer said. “Better late than never. I could question (what’s happened), but there’s nothing I can do to change what happened back then.”

For a day at least, the Huskers were able to forget the rough season. In a matchup of teams with embattled coaches, Doc Sadler’s squad shot better than 55 percent Saturday and pummeled Illinois, dropping the Illini to 5-9 in conference play.

“I can’t say enough about how proud I am of our team,” Sadler said. “When you’re a senior and you’ve got five games left and things have been as tough as it has been for them, you hurt for them. To know that you’re going to continue to get every bit of effort that they’ve got makes me proud.”

The beginning of the game appeared to be a continuation of NU’s rough season as Illinois made 7 of its first 9 shots. The Illini built a 24-16 lead with 8:35 left in the first half.

Then everything changed.

Spencer hit a 3-pointer, Toney McCray made a tough left-handed layup and Caleb Walker threw home a fast-break dunk to give NU its first lead since the opening minutes. Illinois coach Bruce Weber tried to stop the bleeding with a timeout, but the Huskers kept coming.

The Illini didn’t score again until D.J. Richardson hit a jump shot with 1:13 left in the half, a drought of more than seven minutes. Brandon Richardson countered with a 3-pointer to end the half on a 17-2 NU run.

If any halftime adjustments were made, they didn’t affect the outcome. McCray hit a 3-pointer 12 seconds into the second half and the Huskers were off again, outscoring the Illini 26-5 over the first nine minutes.

Sadler’s explanation was simple: The ball hasn’t been going in the hoop very much lately. Saturday, it did.

“The difference is we made a lot of shots,” he said. “When shots go down, you probably think you played a lot better than you did. Give our guys credit for making shots.”

Much of the credit belongs to a technical move Sadler made midway through the first half. A firm believer in playing man defense almost exclusively, Sadler said that injuries to his post players would force him to play more zone. The Huskers made the switch, and Illinois had no response. The Illini shot 31.3 percent in the second half and were 4 for 20 on 3-pointers after making two of their first three.

“We got a little stagnant and turned it over,” Weber said. “They got in transition and got going and it didn’t stop. They made every shot. Once they made the run, I think the weight of the world really caved in on our guys and there was no stopping it.”

The defense that had been a staple of Sadler’s teams had been absent recently, so the coach intensified pregame practice Saturday, calling it the hardest NU’s had in a couple of years.

“For 5½ years, the emphasis of this program is that we’ve been at the top or near the top of every defensive category, and the last few games that hasn’t been the case,” Sadler said. “We’re going to get back to being that team.”

Spencer led the Huskers with 27 points on 9-of-11 shooting, and Walker and Richardson chipped in 13 and 12 points, respectively.

But even the season’s largest margin of victory can’t erase all the scars of a 12-13 record, something Spencer acknowledged after the game. There’s much work left to be done to ensure that he doesn’t have to answer the “Where has that been?” question again.

“It’s good that (the win) happened,” Spencer said. “We’re going to have some fun today. But after today is over, we’ve got to stay in the gym and work on our jumpers and keep having practices like we’ve had the past few days.”

Contact the writer:

402-444-1201, sports@owh.com

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