{"id":115418,"date":"2025-08-03T11:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T11:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/115418\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T11:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T11:03:08","slug":"good-morning-illini-nation-courtside-countdown-nebraska-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/115418\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Morning, Illini Nation: Courtside Countdown &#8211; Nebraska | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/secure.tecnavia.com\/cp2_payments\/champaignnewsgazette\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">To subscribe, click here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.news-gazette.com\/newsletters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Welcome to \u201cGood Morning, Illini Nation,\u201d your daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Richey. He\u2019ll offer up insights every morning on Brad Underwood\u2019s team and college basketball at large:<\/p>\n<p>Nebraska<\/p>\n<p><strong>Last year\u2019s finish:<\/strong> 21-14, 7-13 Big Ten (12th)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notable losses:<\/strong> Brice Williams; Juwan Gary; Andrew Morgan; Rollie Worster<\/p>\n<p><strong>Returning players:<\/strong> Connor Essegian, Sr., G; Sam Hoiberg, Sr., G; Berke Buyuktuncel, Jr., F; Rienk Mat, Sr., F<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key additions:<\/strong> Kendall Blue, Sr., G; Jamarques Lawrence, Sr., G; Ugnius Jarusevicius, Sr., F; Pryce Sandfort, Jr., F; Leo Curtis, Fr., F<\/p>\n<p><strong>One extended thought:<\/strong> There\u2019s plenty to like about the Nebraska frontcourt with Mast returning after missing all of the 2024-25 season following knee surgery. The Dutch standout put up 12.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and three assists per game his last season on the court. The Cornhuskers also got reinforcements up front in Jarusevicius (averaged 16.2 points and 7.3 rebounds last season at Central Michigan) and Curtis (coming off an impressive run at the FIBA U20 EuroBasket with Iceland).<\/p>\n<p>The question, though, is how Nebraska replaces Williams. The do-everything guard was one of the best players in the Big Ten last year, and there\u2019s no obvious stand in for this coming season. The \u2018Huskers are going to have to hope Sandfort turns into his older brother or the jump from Summit League to the Big Ten isn\u2019t too big for Blue, who was St. Thomas\u2019 second-leading scorer last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To subscribe, click here Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here Welcome to \u201cGood Morning, Illini Nation,\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":115419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,15347,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-115418","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-illini-sports","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114964503147173113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}