Fastbreak: No update on Walker as Huskers head into season opener

Nebraska basketball’s 2022-23 season will officially tip-off in Monday night’s opener vs. Maine at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Head coach Fred Hoiberg and senior guard Emmanuel Bandoumel previewed the game and recapped the Huskers’ play through two exhibitions. Here is a rundown of what they had to say…

No update on Derrick Walker

The pressing news going into Nebraska’s opener is the status of senior forward Derrick Walker. He was held out of the second exhibition at Colorado with what Hoiberg would only specify as “healthcare reasons.”

Hoiberg had no update on Walker’s availability on Friday.

“I’ll say the same thing that I said the other night after the Colorado game: that he missed the game for healthcare reasons,” Hoiberg said. “Right now, Derrick is day-to-day, and Derrick will address everybody when he’s ready to do so.”

Nebraska started Blaise Keita at the five in Walker’s absence, with Oleg Kojenets playing 15 minutes off the bench. The Huskers also used Wilhelm Breidenbach at center and even a “small-ball lineup” with 6-foot-6 Juwan Gary at the five.

Hoiberg didn’t confirm what lineup NU would start against Maine should Walker miss the opener. Even if Walker was on the bench, Bandoumel said he would still be one of the team’s top vocal leaders.

“He’s still vocal. He’s still there. We still hear him,” Bandoumel said. “Every time we’re coming down on defense or offense, he’ll be the first guy to echo the call and tell Oleg what to do or tell Blaise where he’s got to be. 

“Even though we’ve got to fill his void on the court, he’s still been huge on the bench.”

More small ball coming?

Should Walker be out, Nebraska might experiment a little more with the small-ball lineup that featured Gary at center.

Maine boasts a roster with seven players listed at 6-7 or taller, including two 6-10 centers. But Hoiberg liked what Gary showed at the five against Colorado offensively and the mismatch he presented facing the basket.

How much NU uses that lineup will depend on Gary’s post defense and, maybe more importantly, his defensive rebounding.

“I did like some of the things that I saw out of that lineup,” Hoiberg said. “Juwan, at that position, showed his ability to go by a bigger defender. The biggest thing is can we compete on the glass. With the size and physicality of teams that we’re going to be playing early in the schedule, we may have to throw some different combinations out there. But I did like what I saw out of that small ball lineup.”

Gary is a curious case. He was one of the top offensive rebounders at his position at Alabama but struggled on the boards defensively. The coaches have pushed Gary to make better “first contact” after opponents’ shots. Hoiberg said the junior sometimes forgets to “find his man” on the block out and “just runs to the ball.”

“Juwan, he’s got those instincts of knowing where the ball is, but he’s got to make contact on the defensive end, and he had grown in that area,” Hoiberg said.

Huskers far more encouraged than discouraged after CU loss

Unlike last year’s blowout exhibition win over Colorado, Nebraska got to experience some true on-court road adversity on Sunday.

Hoiberg said the game played out “perfectly” for NU to learn from adversity in a game that didn’t count. Bandoumel echoed that sentiment on Friday.

“For me, personally, I didn’t panic, but I was like, ‘OK, how are we going to react?’” Bandoumel said. “It was a little bit out of my control. I could talk to my teammates, but how are we going to react to it? We did a lot of good stuff. Yeah, we were down, but we were still disciplined… 

“I felt like we trusted the coach a little bit more than usual, and we trusted each other more. So it’s cool to see that we didn’t just fall down with what happened. We just said, ‘Hey, we’re in that hole. Let’s get out of here.”

Bandoumel felt the Huskers grew as a team after that loss. He said this week of practice felt different than any other this offseason.

“You never want to be fat and happy,” Bandoumel said. “You always want to be striving for more… We haven’t shown anything yet, and we haven’t done anything yet, and we need to keep that hunger, and we need to keep working every day and bringing it every day.”

Around the rim

***Hoiberg said Nebraska would enter the season with a nine-man rotation, but that would also fluctuate from game to game depending on the opponent and situation.

***Hoiberg said one of the keys to this season was Nebraska starting fast and building early leads, especially at home. After two sluggish starts in the exhibitions, Hoiberg said NU needed early confidence to get the home crowd going.

***Nebraska shot a combined 24.5% from 3-point range in exhibition play. That has left plenty of concerns about its perimeter shooting going into the regular season. 

Hoiberg put much of the blame on himself for only running 2-3 designed offensive sets in those games. He expects NU’s perimeter numbers to “steadily climb” as the playbook opens up.

He admitted there was a point against Colorado when the Huskers fell behind 10-0 out of the gate where he was ready to scrap the “basic” game plan altogether.

“I’ll be honest with you, I almost threw that out the window when we got down 10-0 at Colorado, but we kept fighting,” Hoiberg said.

***Kojenets’ performance against the Buffaloes was one of the bright spots for Nebraska in the loss. Bandoumel said he wasn’t expecting the 7-foot-2 redshirt freshman to have that type of impact against a formidable CU frontcourt.

“He gave us some great minutes,” Bandoumel said. “I was even surprised – I was shocked – because Oleg is a great dude, and he’s going to do his job, but he was there offensively, scoring and getting big buckets, walling up on guys and getting some good rebounds. 

“We expect that from Oleg, but at the same time, he kind of raised that expectation, and now we’re like, ‘OK, we really can trust you, and now we can put some more responsibility on your plate.’”

***On the heels of three straight losing seasons, Hoiberg isn’t shying away from the pressure he’s facing for Nebraska to show tangible progress in 2022-23.

“I know it’s a huge year,” Hoiberg said. “It’s a huge year for me; it’s a huge year for all of us to go out there and show significant progress and play the right way. With what I’ve seen from this group, I’m confident that we will do that.”