The Huskers (14-7, 5-3 Big Ten) toppled No. 23 Michigan (16-5, 5-3 Big Ten) for the first time since 1964 with a 72-52 masterpiece of a performance. The Huskers clicked offensively and stifled defensively en route to their largest win over a ranked opponent since 2004 and the Wolverines worst loss this season.
Here's what they had to say after the game.
Michigan head coach John Beilein on Nebraska's season:
“I think you can see tonight why Nebraska is 11-1 at home. They played Kansas really well. Playing small right now is a really difficult challenge for people to play against. They were playing on short rest and we were playing on really short rest with the run we are in right now. So credit Nebraska, they have a great team plan. They played much better than us and they get the ‘W’.
"They have a chance this year to be a very good team. I don’t think we will be the last team that will come out here and not come away with a win."
Nebraska head coach Tim Miles on the crowd atmosphere:
“Pinnacle Bank Arena is one of the best venues in the country. You watch even the opponents warm up and they have a little extra skip going in their step, and it was phenomenal all night. It’s so nice to send the Huskers home early with a big smile on their face and not wait until the very end, or the bitter end, and really enjoy one.
"It was really cool, especially that first half when we started to kind of take a lead, it was one of those things that, like I said, I got chills. Students were phenomenal. I thought they really did a great job.”
Forward Isaac Copeland on grading the defensive performance (38 percent against, 22 percent from three against):
“Probably like an ‘A’. They still scored. We take pride in it. A good team like that, we want to lock them up and win the game.”
Guard James Palmer Jr. on the defensive gameplan:
“We did a good job. We wanted to switch one through five so they don't get the pick-and-pop threes. We tried to take that away as much as possible. I think we did a good job with that.”
Miles on potentially taking a timeout when Michigan cut the lead to 12 with eight minutes left before Palmer's big three:
"That's my wife's rule, anytime it gets to 12, automatic timeout so it doesn't go to 10. That's what she's instructed me for years. It would have been Kari Johnson's timeout but not mine. I was going to sit on this one."
Copeland on sharing the ball offensively:
“Everybody touched the ball. Everybody was aggressive. On the stats, you’ll see everybody scored that played pretty much. When we’re like that, we’re hard to guard.”
Miles on momentum from this win and mentality going into the upcoming road trip:
“You got a big road trip and whenever you go two in a row on the road you obviously have to start with, we got to get a split, and that starts the goal, and then you hope you get the first one and then you try and sweep them. That’s just kind of the old-school mentality that I’ve got and we'll be ready for Monday.”
Forward Isaiah Roby on how they frustrated Michigan on defense:
"They were verbally frustrated because they were like yelling at each other. We could see that, we were feeding off it and the crowd's feeding off it. It started early."
Beilein on the toughness of playing inside Pinnacle Bank Arena:
“People in Nebraska should be really proud of what they have here right now. It’s a really good team and they appear to be really good kids. They have a heck of a team. I saw Greg McDermott from Creighton earlier this year and he said ‘watch out, Nebraska is really good,’ and he was right.”
Derek is a newbie on the Hail Varsity staff covering Husker athletics. In college, he was best known as ‘that guy from Twitter.’ He has covered a Sugar Bowl, a tennis national championship and almost everything in between (except an NCAA men’s basketball tournament game… *tears*). In his spare time, he can be found arguing with literally anyone about sports.
