Connor Essegian’s Career High Lifts Nebraska Basketball Over South Dakota

Nebraska men’s basketball followed up the domination in Omaha with a dominant showing at home.

NU topped South Dakota 96-79 Wednesday evening at Pinnacle Bank Arena. The Huskers improve to 5-1 as the Coyotes fall to 6-3.

“It’s been a good week for us obviously with the Creighton win,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. “Last year, we had a game that we won on the road at Kansas State, and we followed that up against North Dakota and they were up 16 on us in the first half. We talked a lot about that the last couple days, so I really did like our start. I thought we had the right mentality going into it, I thought we did a good job going out there and playing with energy, and playing with physicality.”

For the second consecutive game, the Huskers did not trail for a second over the 40 minutes of game time. Nebraska built the lead to 19 points at halftime and up to 23 early in the second half, but the Coyotes put together some runs to close the gap to close as 12. Unfortunately for the visitors, the home side answered the call each time and held off any chances of a full comeback.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t put them away, again we have to keep that edge for 40 minutes,” Hoiberg said. “That being said, there were a lot of positives in this game tonight. We’re going to enjoy tomorrow, a lot of them will be over at my house for Thanksgiving, and then we’ll get back to work on Friday and have a two day prep for an early game on Sunday. We have a lot of work ahead of us for a really good basketball team.”

Nebraska got the shooting going from deep, finally. The Huskers shot 48.5% overall and finished 13-of-33 from deep. NU was 9-of-16 at one point on 3s, but the pace fell off in the second half.

“It’s a confidence builder,” Hoiberg said. “You see what happens when the first couple go down, it’s the domino effect that goes on to the rest of the team. It’s just a confidence builder. And Connor (Essegian), I thought our guys did a good job finding him.

South Dakota shot 43.3% for the game, including 8-of-28 on 3s.

Connor Essegian scored a game-high 29 points on 10-of-22 shooting, including six made 3s. That mark is a new career-high for the Wisconsin transfer.

“It definitely doesn’t hurt to have a night like this for the team,” Essegian said. “To be able to score 96 points as a team is pretty good. It definitely boosts a lot of guys, the energy is going into it with that. We really have got to lock in on the defensive side of things. If we can score but we can’t defend, it usually doesn’t end very well.”

Brice Williams added 21 points. Braxton Meah had his best night as a Husker, scoring 12 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting.

“It took a minute trying to understand everything,” Meah said. “There’s a lot Coach Hoiberg puts into his system, so it just took me a little while to figure it out. We’re getting there.”

Juwan Gary and Berke Buyuktuncel both left the game early with injuries. Gary took an elbow to the face while Buyuktuncel left with a hip injury.

“We’ll know a lot more about those two in the next 24 hours,” Hoiberg said.

Nebraska stays home Sunday to host North Florida. Tip is set for 3 p.m. CST on the Big Ten Network.

Box score

Nebraska Athletics Notes

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