Finished 9th in the coaches poll

Posted on: September 7, 2016 at 14:25:54 CT

Rich King was the 14th overall pick in the NBA draft by the Supersonics.

http://journalstar.com/sports/football/college/when-basketball-was-king-at-nu/article_c3a069d8-a6a9-5df0-bc5c-07d1a5c7c446.html

The 1990-91 Huskers were projected to be doormats. Instead, they broke down doors.

“Every time we turned around we were crossing another barrier,” said Tony Farmer, a junior on that team, which will be honored today at halftime of Nebraska’s home game against Texas Tech.

Finishing a school-best 26-8 under head coach Danny Nee, earning a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament, beating bully Oklahoma three times (“Sit down, Bil-ly!”) — the team traversed territory Nebraska basketball had not gone before and hasn’t gone since.

“Of the four seasons I played at Nebraska, that team had the most talent, by far,” said Eric Piatkowski, then a freshman, now a 12-year veteran in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls. “We were probably more athletic than most NBA teams, and the size was unbelievable.”

Looking back, it seems a no-brainer that Nebraska would have been special that year. The Huskers had 7-foot-2 senior center King, who made the NBA. They had a freshman sharpshooter in Piatkowski. He made the NBA. They had Farmer, a transfer from San Jose State. Again — made the NBA.

When it came time for preseason projections, NU was picked by conference coaches to finish last in the Big Eight, having gone 10-18 the previous season.

“When they picked us as the cellar dweller of the Big Eight, it was kind of like, ‘We’re not bad enough for you to pick us here. We got to show you. We’re not whale crap here,’” said Chubick, a freshman on that team who now works as a personal banker in Omaha.

He recounted the story of a memorable first-round Big Eight Tournament win against Oklahoma. In that game, Nebraska rallied from 11 points down in the final three minutes, sending it to overtime on a three-pointer by Keith Moody, then winning 117-113. Four Huskers fouled out in the process. Lucky for Chubick, cause that seemed the only way he was getting in.

“Either (Danny) put me in or the waterboy,” Chubick said. “Luckily, he chose me.”

Beating Oklahoma in those days was a big step for Nebraska. Under coach Billy Tubbs, OU made it a habit of annually kicking Nebraska in the teeth, the gut, the shin, even worse places. In 1989-90, the Huskers exited Norman 105-64 losers to the Sooners.

It was no wonder Nee and his boys took such delight on a January night in ’91 when they stormed out to a lead in Norman and never looked back. NU laid it on Billy by a count of 111-99. It was one of seven times the Huskers, who averaged more than 87 points a game, broke the century mark that season.

“We beat Oklahoma three times (that year). We went into Norman and kicked their ass, ” said Nee, now the head coach at Duquesne, in a phone interview Friday. “That’s special — you beat Billy Tubbs three times.”

It’s tough for Nee to decipher his favorite moment from that season. Where do you start? That was a year in which the Huskers beat Kansas twice in seven days, took down fifth-ranked Michigan State (71-69) on a last-second three-pointer by Reid, beat Illinois (100-73), Wisconsin (75-63), and in-state rival Creighton (97-63).

“I’m flooded with great memories — the three wins over Big 10 teams,” Nee said. “You know, beating Illinois in San Juan. Beau Reid hitting the buzzer shot against Michigan State. Then, going on the road and beating Wisconsin, that’s special.”

For a year, Nebraska was as much a basketball state as football. The Devaney Sports Center averaged more than 13,300 fans per game. And in the final polls, NU finished No. 9 and 11. The football team, coming off a bowl loss to Georgia Tech, was ranked lower than that.

“All season I remember thinking, ‘This must be what the football players feel like,’” Reid said. “Everywhere we went, people wanted to talk about basketball. Everywhere we went there were media people. There would be hundreds of people watching our practice every day. It was like the show. It was showtime.”

And then the curtain closed, late on a Thursday night in Minneapolis. The Huskers, in their first NCAA Tournament game since 1986, laid an egg, losing to 14th-seeded Xavier 89-84.

“We went in and overlooked the first game, thinking, ‘Shoot, we’re from the Big Eight, we’re a 3 seed, we’re playing Xavier,” Piatkowski said. “I think we were more looking toward the second or third game.”

Sadly, that’s still the game that sticks out the most for King.

“To this day, I know if we get past that first game and had gotten that under our belt, I think we could have gone a long way,” said King, who now sells private jets in Washington state.

Had Nebraska won, it would have played UConn. Had it beat the Huskies, NU would have played Duke, which won the national title.

“If we would have had any tournament experience before that game, I would say that anything less than a Sweet 16 bid wasn’t a successful season,” Reid said.

Yeah, an NCAA win or two would have been fitting. Nebraska still hasn’t won one of those babies. But 1990-91 was about progress. For the first time in a while, Nebraska basketball and losing didn’t make good bedfellows.

“We had one goal that year,” Chubick said, “and that goal pretty much was that we were tired of getting our ass kicked.”