Once again, Oregon men’s basketball (8-9, 1-5 Big Ten) tested its mettle against one of the nation’s best. Once again, the Ducks stood no chance against a top-25 opponent. 

This time it was the No. 8 Nebraska Cornhuskers (17-0, 6-0 Big Ten) who welcomed Oregon with a 90-55 trouncing in Lincoln. The Huskers struggled initially to get their high-powered shooting offense going, but eventually overwhelmed the middling Ducks behind Pryce Sandfort’s 28 points on 9/15 shooting and 7/11 from beyond the arc. 

The Cornhuskers effortlessly collapsed the Oregon defense on a Sam Hoiberg (11 points, 5 assists, 6 steals) backdoor cut to open the scoring. Oregon remained close and took the lead at 7-5 after forcing a few Nebraska misses and sinking a gutsy Wei Lin (14 points) logo three-pointer. 

The Ducks made five of their first eight shots, but turnovers gave Nebraska enough possessions to stay ahead while also shooting slightly worse in the early going. Takai Simpkins (12 points on 5/12 shooting) committed his first of three turnovers when his attempt at a strong drive resulted in the ball getting knocked out-of-bounds off his foot and allowed the Huskers to push ahead 17-14. 

The Ducks turned the ball over nine times in the opening half, and 16 total for the game, which led to a Nebraska points-off-turnover total of 23 points compared to Oregon’s four.

Hoiberg was responsible for five of those steals in the first half alone, and finished the game with six. 

Throughout the first ten minutes of the game, Nebraska put up 12 3-pointers and made just four, but the volume only emphasized the weak perimeter defense, as the Huskers took open shots — they just didn’t make them. 

Sandfort broke a three-minute Husker scoring drought with a clean look from beyond the arc with about six minutes to go in the first. The Ducks only mustered up enough offense to tie the game up with two scores in the paint, the first of which broke a three-minute scoring drought of their own. 

Another Lin 3-pointer tied it yet again, and the Ducks positioned themselves to go into the break within striking distance. Unfortunately, basketball is a game of runs, and Sandfort, with the crowd behind him, took Nebraska on a 14-2 run during the last three-and-a-half minutes of the first half. The Ducks went into the break trailing 42-30. 

For the Cornhuskers, the main thing was that they started making those open 3-pointers, to the tune of 9/20 by the end of the half. The second half got even better, as they shot 8/16 from deep in the latter frame alone.  

Sandfort and guard Braden Frager led the way for Nebraska with 14 and 12 points, respectively, in the opening frame and Nate Bittle added 10 of the Ducks’ 30 with little help from other scorers. He didn’t score in the second half, however, and only secured three rebounds.

Counting the opening two minutes in the second half, that Husker run finished at 19-2. Oregon scored its first points of the second half via three Lin free throws, but the Ducks wouldn’t get within 15 points the rest of the night. 

The offense stagnated, not from particularly bad shooting, but from the turnovers that took away key possessions that the Ducks could have used to cut into the Nebraska lead. Oregon shot 42% by the end of the night while the Huskers shot 53%.

Oregon couldn’t work around the stout Nebraska defense that forced the Ducks into contested shots and just 26 points in the paint. For reference, Nebraska tallied 30 and are a notably heavy-outside shooting squad. The Ducks, who are led in scoring on the season by a center, scored less in the paint than a five-out offense that emphasizes the three-ball. 

It was an overall, systemic collapse for Oregon, who stuck with Nebraska for the first 16 minutes of the game, but fell apart over the final 24. The same issues reared their ugly heads: turnovers, poor perimeter defense and lack of fluid ball movement. Nebraska just makes a team pay for those in droves via the 3-pointer. 

The Ducks return to Eugene, now having lost the last three, hoping to pull off an incredible upset against the No. 3 Michigan Wolverines Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at Matthew Knight Arena.