Notable quotes from Nebrasketball’s 67-65 victory over Maryland.
Head coach Tim Miles on the team buying in:
“It was a really critical win tonight…You don’t get it without buy in…and these guys have bought into each other. A lot of guys didn’t have their best game, we didn’t shoot free throws well. But you look at a guy like Michael Jacobson with nine rebounds, and a great attitude every huddle. He was really picking it up. Tai [Webster] having to guard Melo Trimble and carry the whole offense. That’s not easy. So, these guys are a tough minded team, they practice hard and they play hard and stay with it. And that was the thing tonight, to not freak out and stay with it.”
On the thought process behind the 1-3-1 zone design:
“We wanted something as we went into Christmas strong on the midline. I’ve never really coached 1-3-1…So we practiced it, and the guys did really well. I just thought we weren’t going to be able to go out and chase them man-to-man. Our other option was to switch everything and I didn’t like that because we needed our two bigs. So our next part would be to trap, but then you feel like you’re having to get way off on the shooters. I ended up doing it for a while, but Kevin had six already. Now odds are that he’s going to miss, but I’m not playing those odds. So we just had to go with it, and the guys did great.”
Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon on Nebraska’s win:
“Got to give Nebraska a lot of credit. I told our guys in the meeting yesterday that you got to knock Nebraska out, because they keep coming. We never knocked them out. We built a 13-point lead. We were very good in the first half, we were terrific in the second half. Kevin Huerter was terrific, our defense was terrific. At about the five, six-minute mark we started to play a little bit slower, couldn’t put stops together. They showed one possession all year, the 1-3-1, didn’t work on it enough and that’s 100 percent on me there. We got some good looks, got a few layups against it, just couldn’t finish. With that said we just needed to make one play. We needed to have one stop and a rebound, or one play offensively. We just never did it. I give them credit.”
Tai Webster on the main difference down the stretch:
“I think just having belief in ourselves and our team. We wanted to play better in moments like this obviously after not having the start of the season we wanted. So to be in this position now is big to have our guys come through and step up and make plays.”
On what the team was thinking when Maryland was up 13 in the second half:
“We definitely felt confident, it was time to rally at that time and put a stop to all the mistakes we were making, bear down and focus on the defensive end and offensively.”
Glynn Watson Jr. on his thoughts on the game:
“I feel good, we stuck with it, we were down (13) points. We never gave up on each other, we just kept fighting, kept pushing.”
On Maryland’s performance:
“It’s tough, we knew it was going to be tough, we knew it would go down to the wire. Coach Miles said that at the beginning. We just stuck with our game plan, kept fighting, had to make some adjustments in the second half and that’s what we did.”
Erin is the Deputy Editor and Digital Marketing Strategist for Hail Varsity. She has covered Nebraska athletics since 2012, which has included stops at Bleacher Report, Cox Media Group’s Land of 10, and even Hail Varsity (previously from 2012-2017). She has also been featured on the Big Ten Network, NET’s Big Red Wrap-Up, and a varsity of radio shows nationwide. When not covering the Huskers, Erin is probably at Chipotle.
