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Nebraska Cornhuskers guard Brice Williams (3) dunks the ball during the first half against the Michigan Wolverines at Pinnacle Bank Arena. (Photo credit: Dylan Widger-Imagn Images)
Nebraska (17-14, 7-13 B1G) will play postseason basketball on Monday when it takes on Arizona State (13-19, 4-16 Big 12) at 7:30 p.m. CT at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for the inaugural College Basketball Crown Tournament.
After the ugly late-season collapse by the Huskers — five straight losses, including three games by three or fewer points — head coach Fred Hoiberg said his team wasn't ready to shut the lights off, hang up the shoes and end the season.
After the regular-season finale loss to Iowa, which kept Nebraska out of the 15-team Big Ten Conference Tournament, Hoiberg brought the team's leadership group into his office and asked them if the team wnated keep playing.
"To a man, they said we're playing. We're playing," Hoiberg said during a press conference on Wednesday. "Not one guy said, Well, I don't know, coach. I don't know if we should continue on with this."
After the meeting in the office, Hoiberg and the leadership group spoke with the team. It was Brice Williams, the first-team All-Big Ten guard, who told the team it will continue playing.
"Brice was the one that got up and said, 'Guys, we're doing this, and we're going to go out there and this isn't one foot in, one foot out. We are both feet in,'" Hoiberg said. "And we're going to do everything we can to compete for a championship."
Said Williams, who also spoke on Wednesday: "I just wasn't ready to be done with college basketball, the way it ended. That's really it. Wasn't ready to be done. I wanted to continue to play in the uniform. Wanted to play for a championship."
A handful of teams that missed the NCAA Tournament and were invited to play in the Crown and other postseason tournaments, like the National Invitation Tournament, declined the offer to play. Many chose to focus on building their rosters for next season through the transfer portal.
But with college basketball's transfer portal window of March 24 through April 22 running right in the middle of postseason tournaments, it's created a juggling act for coaching staffs playing postseason ball. And on top of that, Hoiberg is also tasked with finding a replacement for assistant coach Adam Howard, who took an assistant job on Will Wade's first NC State staff.
How to watch, stream, listen
Day/Time: Monday at 7:30 p.m. CT
TV: FS1 with Kevin Kugler, Robbie Hummel and Kim Adams on the call.
Stream: Fox Sports app.
Listen: Monday’s game will be carried on the Huskers Radio Network with Kent Pavelka and Jake Muhleisen on the call, including KLIN (1400 AM) in Lincoln, KXSP (590 AM) in Omaha and KRVN (880 AM) in Lexington. The pregame show begins an hour before tipoff and will also be available on Huskers.com and the Huskers app.
Nebraska will be without PG Rollie Worster, and potentially others
Hoiberg provided a few injury updates on Wednesday — you can read the full news and notes here — the biggest of which was point guard Rollie Worster not being available to play in the tournament due to a foot injury he suffered in December and played through.
Worster has already spent a week in a boot. Expect a heavy dose of Williams and Ahron Ulis running the point during the tournament. Sam Hoiberg will be an option as well.
"He's been playing with the plate in his shoe," Hoiberg said of Worster. "He's been really, really sore, and it just got to a point to where it's tough to put a lot of weight on it. So the decision was made to put him in a boot. He talked about trying to fight through it, but the best thing for Rollie and his career is to shut him down and get him in the boot, get the recovery process started and hopefully taken care of."
Braxton Meah, the 7-foot-1 center who was battling back spasms toward the end of the regular season and missed the finale against Iowa, took time off the court to "quiet his back down" according to Hoiberg. Meah has been gradually working back into on-court activities and will be considered a game-time decision.
On Tuesday during practice, Gavin Griffiths twisted his ankle. After treatment and recovery time, Hoiberg is hoping Griffiths will be available for the game Monday.
About the first-ever College Basketball Crown Tournament
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The Crown is a 16-team single-elimination tournament that features teams primarily from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 staged over a seven-day period from March 31-April 6.
Those three conferences have 11 of the 16 spots, while the West Coast Conference (2), Mountain West (1), American (1) and Atlantic-10 (1) all have at last one team in the field.
Here's the full list of 16 teams competing:
Arizona State (13-19, 4-16), Boise State (24-10, 14-6), Butler (14-19, 6-14), Cincinnati (18-15, 7-13), Colorado (14-20, 3-17), DePaul (14-19, 4-16), George Washington (21-12, 9-9), Georgetown (17-15 8-12), Nebraska (17-14, 7-13), Oregon State (20-12, 10-8), Tulane (19-14, 12-6), UCF (17-16, 7-13), USC (16-17, 7-13), Utah (16-16, 8-12), Washington State (19-14, 8-10), Villanova (19-14, 11-9).
Here's the entire schedule, with tip times and TV channels. The first four days are all on FS1 while the semifinals and championship will be on FOX:
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There will be NIL prize money for the Crown champion, runner-up and semifinalists
The Crown will feature a first-of-its-kind NIL prize pool that rewards the championship team with a $300,000 NIL package. The runner-up will earn a $100,000 package while $50,000 will go to the semifinalists through a new venture labeled the Vivid Seats Ambassador Program.
For more information regarding the prize money, click here.
Experimental rule to make debut in the Crown
From Nebraska Athletics:
One change from the regular season in place for both the Crown and the NIT is the use of an experimental rule which will allow a coach to appeal out-of-bounds calls for video replay review in the last two minutes of games.
The experimental rule would eliminate the official's voluntary ability to review out-of-bounds calls on the floor in the last two minutes of the game. Instead, these calls for a video review would be tied to the timeouts a team has remaining.
If a team appeals the call and it is overturned, the team making the appeal would retain the timeout.If the review fails, the team making the appeal would lose a timeout.If no timeouts remain, coaches could still appeal, but if the appeal fails, they would be assessed an excessive timeout administrative technical, meaning their opponents would shoot two free throws and maintain possession of the ball.
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Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley.
Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports
More on Arizona State
The Sun Devils finished the regular season 15th in the 16-team Big 12 Conference with a record of 13-19 overall and 4-16 in conference play. They lost nine of their last 10 games, and injuries plagued head coach Bobby Hurley's team.
Freshman forward Jayden Quaintaince missed eight games and has been dealing with a knee injury. He's averaging 9.4 points and 7.9 rebounds. Senior guard Adam Miller, who's averaging 9.6 points and 2.2 rebounds while shooting 44% from 3-point range, has been slowed by hip and oblique injuries. Miller's status for the tournament is unclear.
Four of Arizona State's players have already entered the transfer portal, most notably leading scorer B.J. Freeman (13.7 points per game), who was actually dismissed from the team midseason, and starting guard Joson Sanon (11.9), a talented true freshman.
When talking about Arizona State, Hoiberg mentioned its a team with talent that scored 100 points on Arizona late in the year and played Texas Tech tough before losing in double-overtime. A loss to Kansas State in the regular-season finale was by only two possessions.
"It's a team, if they're comfortable, they're really good, and they're very talented," Hoiberg said. "So, again, you just got to go out there in these tournaments and hopefully get off to a great start. That is so important in these events. Confidence is a huge thing, it's going to be a big part of this game. But they've got size on their front line and their guards can put the ball in the basket."
Arizona State's projected starting lineup
| Name | PTS | REB | AST | 3PT% | FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G - Alston Mason (6-2) | 13.5 | 2.5 | 4.0 | 38.2% (55-144) | 85.1% (97-114) |
G - Adam Miller (6-3) | 9.6 | 2.2 | 1.9 | 44.4% (56-126) | 76.2% (32-42) |
G/F - Amier Ali (6-8) | 5.5 | 2.9 | 0.7 | 32.6% (29-89) | 74.5% (38-51) |
F - Basheer Jihad (6-9) | 12.5 | 5.4 | 1.8 | 28.4% (29-102) | 76.4% (136-178) |
C - Shawn Phillips Jr. (7-0) | 5.4 | 5.2 | 0.6 | 0% (0-0) | 58.5% (31-53) |
An opportunity to create momentum for next season
If Nebraska beats Arizona State, the Huskers would have 41 wins the past two seasons. That would tie for the second-highest consecutive-year total in Nebraska basketball history. From 1990-91 to 1991-92, Nebraska won 45 games. From the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, the program won 41 games.
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