Nebraska and New Mexico will meet for just the second time in men’s basketball when the schools square off in the first round of the Hall of Fame Classic in Kansas City, Mo., on Thursday.
Kansas State and Mississippi State round out the four-team field.
Nebraska (4-0) has the longest active win streak in Division I at eight games, spanning to last season when it won the College Basketball Crown tournament in Las Vegas. The Cornhuskers’ win on Saturday saw them rally from down 16 to beat Oklahoma 105-99 in Sioux Falls, S.D.
It was a pro-Nebraska crowd at the Sanford Pentagon and the same is expected in Kansas City, approximately 200 miles from campus.
“That was a huge factor, the crowd, they willed us to victory,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said.
New Mexico (3-1) is coming off an eight-point loss at in-state rival New Mexico State, the first setback under first-year coach Eric Olen. Olen had coached the previous 12 seasons at UC-San Diego, leading the Tritons to their first NCAA Tournament appearance last March.
The Lobos have held opponents to 63.5 points per game on 37.7% shooting, but Nebraska has scored at least 86 in three of four contests and is making 12 3-pointers per game.
“They pose a ton of challenges for us, both personnel and schematically,” Olen said. “We’ll have to execute really well, specifically on the defensive side of the ball.”
Pryce Sandfort leads Nebraska in scoring at 17.5 points per game, including a career-high 28 against Oklahoma. New Mexico’s leading scorer is Deyton Albury, who averages 13 and scored 18 against New Mexico State, and the Lobos also have a freshman averaging a double-double in forward Tomislav Buljan.
The only previous meeting between the schools came in the 2009 NIT, with New Mexico winning at home.
