Nebraska 73, Creighton 61

From Ranked to Rank?

Thanksgiving Week is a time when sweet and warm smells permeate throughout kitchens and living rooms across the country; a time that truly smells like fall, complete with crunching leaves, brisk gusts of autumn wind, and a handful of fireplaces sending billowing smoke above rooftops throughout Midwestern neighborhoods.

But before Thanksgiving Week could even commence, before my yearly ritual of inhaling the delightful aromas of turkey, stuffing, and all the fixings, my senses were completely overrun by the stinker in Lincoln that I watched from my living room Saturday night.

(Side note: You might ask why I wasn’t in The Capitol for this game. I get too worked up when we play Nebraska — plain and simple. I remember being completely embarrassed every year when I was in grade school as I would make my way to my desk the morning after Nebraska usually whipped up my beloved Bluejays. Even as we started to win games both in Lincoln and in Omaha, I can’t stand the ignorant you-only-make-the-post-season-because-you-play-in-a-weak-conference comments. I know that I probably let one or two (or dozens) of bad apples ruin the bunch, but that’s the way it is. Or maybe, just maybe, it is because I still have yet to see Creighton Prep win a State Tournament game in the Devaney Center. Probably the first couple of things.)

So, while the smell of Runzas, stale popcorn, and the intoxication on the breaths of Huskers and Jays fans wafted through the air, I was back at the house with close friends and Jays fans, bracing for what we all knew would be a tough game. The Jays never shoot great in Lincoln, but we didn’t expect this: 31% in the second half, 37.5% for the game, and a loss.

I’m sure that the Jays fans in attendance didn’t expect to smell the opponents’ nets burning, either. The Cornhuskers — a team comprised of some talented, if inexperienced, shooters and smallish guards — were absolutely on fire from the field: 68% from the field for the game (60% and 77% per half, respectively), with an astounding 57% from the three-point arc for the contest. Sure, they had their fair share of open looks, but some of the Bluejays caught some detailed whiffs of Husker armpits during the game, too — on at least three occasions, Nebraska perimeter shots went down even with a hand (or two) in their face and the shot clock expiring.

The Jays played good enough defense to take a three-point lead to the locker room, but who would have thought that the Huskers would shoot almost 20-percentage points HIGHER in the second half after making 12 of their 20 shots in the first frame? Meanwhile, the Jays came out from halftime, stayed close but couldn’t get big shots to fall when they needed them to go, and then spent the last 10 minutes of the game hoisting three-pointer after three-pointer until time ran out and you could invariably smell the rubber burning from all the Jays fans’ tires peeling out of the parking lots, trying to get home as quickly as possible to avoid drunken and boisterous celebrations from the Husker faithful.

How did everything come crumbling down so quickly? Well, the higher you are the harder the fall — in my season preview, I talked about out-of-whack preseason predictions and whether or not this year’s Bluejay team will be able to handle the attention and accolades that were given to them even before the season tipped off. And only a seriously delusional “fan” would think that the Jays’ season is in trouble. Everyone kind of rolls their eyes when they read what Dana Altman has to say in the early-season newspaper articles, about how his team has a long ways to go and how they don’t understand what it takes to accomplish what they’re aiming for. But, he’s right. The effort and charisma didn’t seem to be there from the Boys in Blue, or at least it didn’t translate across the Nebraska public television airwaves.

What did translate, however, was the intensity of the message Altman kept trying to drill into his team during sideline huddles at timeouts. A few players didn’t keep up on defense and made lazy passes on offense, and those same players no doubt could smell Dana’s breath as he hollered at them during the stoppages in play. And I don’t even want to know what rancid mixture of sweat and old stuffy wood the Old Gym at the Vinardi Center smells like after Monday’s closed-door practice. The players might get to enjoy some Thanksgiving Day treats, but they won’t do it without being sore; this team needs repetitions and practice and the opportunity to gel. The offense could use some rhythm lessons from Emmitt and Mario.

Some Jays fans are going to great lengths to bemoan this team and how overrated they are. But, Altman never asked for this team to be rated in any way, shape, or form. In fact, it was quite the opposite — one can argue that Dana’s best teams are the underdog types — and he has said numerous times that the rankings really don’t mean anything, especially early in the season. Altman is still learning with this team, too; he has to figure out a way to get talent on the floor, but make sure the talented guys know what is going on. It is going to take awhile, but that is ultimately what this team’s goal was in the beginning of the season — to be playing its best basketball at the end of the year.

So forget the rank smell from Saturday night’s stinker, enjoy the amazing Thanksgiving scents rising from your stoves and ovens this week, and prepare to take a big whiff of redemption and hustle this Saturday against last year’s Final Four participant George Mason, who are looking to repay Creighton for a 20-point loss the Jays dolled out last November.

Hopefully that smell tickling my nose is a victory on the horizon.