White's career night lifts NU to 70-54 victory

For Nebraska to keep its postseason dreams alive, Saturday’s home game against Penn State was essentially a must-win situation.

With star senior Shavon Shields out for a second straight game while recovering from a concussion, the Huskers also knew they needed someone else to step up and get the job done.

Needless to say, junior guard Andrew White more than answered the call.

Behind a career-high 35 points from White on a blistering 11-of-17 shooting performance, which included six 3-pointers, Nebraska took a one-point halftime lead and turned it into a 70-54 victory after blowing the game open in the second half.

White's total tied Shields and Terran Petteway's Pinnacle Bank Arena record for the most points scored by a Husker in a home game. It also helped NU improve to 14-12 overall and 6-7 in Big Ten play, besting last season's total wins (13) and conference wins (five).

"Obviously Andrew White just had a phenomenal night," head coach Tim Miles said. "He probably could have scored as many as I would've dialed up for him. We really needed that. He was a real shot in the arm... That was an important win. We needed that. We needed a shot in the arm, and we got one."

White, who said he had been dealing with a cold and an ear infection since Monday, wasted no time getting going by scoring 15 points in the first 10 minutes of the game to help Nebraska jump out to a 23-17 advantage midway through the first half.

"My coaches just challenged me to have a really big game just because we were in a desperation to win," White said. "That's what' more important. I feel good about the 35, but I feel even better that I could help my team and put us in a position to win this game, especially since people have made a lot of us being without Shavon. That's what's more special for me than the 35."

But the Huskers would go cold from there, going more than five minutes without a point and allowing Penn State to slowly chip away at the lead. The Nittany Lions eventually took a 29-25 advantage on a 3-pointer by Devin Foster with 4:12 left in the half.

Nebraska would manage to score just six points in a 10-minute span, but after getting a defensive stop in the final minute to claim the last possession of the half, freshman Glynn Watson drained a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the Huskers into halftime up 32-31.

Though White didn’t score after the 10-minute mark of the first half, he still shot 6-of-9 from the field and 2-of-4 from 3-point range. The rest of his teammates only managed to go 7-of-19 from floor, and White, freshman Michael Jacobson (eight) and Watson (seven) accounted for 30 of NU’s 32 points.

White picked up where he left off early in the first half by reeling off nine of Nebraska’s first 11 points after halftime.

“You just knew White was going to come out like that," PSU head coach Pat Chambers said. "He played terrific. Watching the Wisconsin game, you knew he wasn’t going to be held down another game like that. It’s just not his makeup. Coach Miles did a great job of getting him shots, and they played really well."

The Huskers would go on to lead by as many as 28 points after a 3-pointer by freshman Jack McVeigh made it 66-38 with 7:19 remaining. Penn State kept it from being a total blowout by going on a 7-2 run inside of seven minutes left in the game, but it would be far too little, too late.

"The separation that we got in the second half, where we got eight straight stops when the game was like 36-33 and we went on a 12-0 or 15-0 run from there," Miles said. "We were then able to lengthen that out even more even after they scored."

Jacobson finished with 10 points and Watson added nine, while sophomore Jake Hammond posted one of the best games of his career with nine points, five rebounds, two blocks, two assists and a steal.

The next step in Nebraska’s road to the postseason is a road trip to face Indiana on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. The Hoosiers handed NU a 79-69 defeat in Lincoln in the second game of Big Ten play back on Jan. 2.

***White said he's been fatigued, slow and sluggish the past week while dealing with his cold and ear infection. He said he was still "a little congested" on Saturday, but it wasn't going to stop him from playing well.

"That's just part of it," White said. "I don't want to make any excuses coming into this game. I didn't even tell the coaches that I was sick. When your leader goes down, you can't go down with the sniffles."

***Miles said Shields is slowly making progress in his recovery, and has been doing light exercise the past couple of days. Miles said having Shields with the team on the bench gave the rest of the players a big boost in motivation.

***Miles said he still wasn't sure on the status of freshman forward Edward Morrow, who didn't play for a second straight game while dealing with a foot injury. Miles said Morrow would try to practice on Monday and see how his foot responds.

"He's still got a fair amount of pain," Miles said.

***White's 35 points marked his second career 30-point game and topped his previous best of 30 against Abilene Christian on Dec. 5. The effort ties for 10th in school history.

***White’s six 3-pointers were a career-high (previous high was 5 on two occasions, most recently at Rutgers on Jan. 10) and the most by Husker since Walter Pitchford had six against Tennessee-Martin on Nov. 28, 2014.

***Jacobson posted his third double-figure scoring effort in the last four games, finishing with 10 points and four rebounds in 18 minutes.

***Nebraska held Penn State to 54 points, which was NU’s best defensive effort in Big Ten play. The previous low was 56 at Rutgers on Jan. 10.

***Nebraska finished with 11 steals today, marking the fourth time this year the Huskers had at least 10 steals.

***Hammond posted his best Big Ten performance of his career with nine points, five rebounds and two assists. Hammond had just five points in his first eight conference appearances this year.

***The win was NU’s 14th of the season, marking the 19th time in 21 years of coaching that a Miles-coached team tied or exceeded the previous season’s win total.