Huskers 'Bear' down vs. Eagles
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BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
Remember the AAU coach who made what some people considered rather overzealous comments about Bear Jones last summer?
“If he’s not averaging 15 or 20 (points) a game as a freshman,” Eric Vaughn said when Jones was visiting Lincoln, “something’s wrong.”
Maybe the guy’s onto something.
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Jones — who prefers “Bear” to his real name of Eshaunte — scored 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting Friday in the Nebraska men’s basketball team’s 85-54 exhibition victory against Chadron State at the Devaney Sports Center.
“I just wanted to go with the flow of the game,” said Jones, a 6-foot-4 freshman guard. “Paul (Velander), the real shooter on our team, just said, ‘Why don’t you start shooting the ball, man?’ I said, ‘OK.’ I hit one shot, then the other one fell, and then I got another one I got fouled on. I just started getting comfortable throughout the game.”
Jones, who played 16 minutes, also had three assists and three rebounds.
And that’s all on a bad foot.
“It started to hurt toward the end,” said Jones, whose plan is to wait until season’s end to have surgery to remove scar tissue from his previously broken foot. “They just keep telling me to keep getting treatment … keep it day-to-day.”
Another new face, redshirt freshman Toney McCray, led Nebraska with 18 points and seven rebounds. He was 6-of-8 from the field.
In both players’ cases, Nebraska coach Doc Sadler was pleased … from an offensive standpoint.
“I thought he made shots,” Sadler said of Jones, who was 2-of-4 on three-pointers. “He got wide-open shots and he can shoot the basketball. I don’t know how good of a defensive game he played.”
As for McCray?
“Toney, again, defensively, he’s got to get a lot better. Young guys fouling way too much at times they don’t need to foul.”
Nebraska, which had Sek Henry, Steve Harley, Ade Dagunduro, Ryan Anderson and Chris Balham in its starting lineup, missed open shots early in falling behind 10-3. The Huskers responded with a 15-0 run to take control for good.
The score was 22-12 when Jones entered for the first time with 8 minutes, 48 seconds remaining in the first half. By the 6:20 mark, he’d scored nine points.
Jones had one turnover, and one of his missed shots — his last three-point attempt — was an air ball.
Sadler said he was disappointed in Nebraska’s ball movement offensively, and that the Huskers took too many three-pointers. The Huskers were 8-of-23 in their first game with the extended three-point line.
Defensively, Sadler was pleased, for the most part, with his team’s half-court defense. He could’ve lived without some of the 23 fouls, though. Nebraska’s penetrating game drew 20 fouls, however, and the Huskers were 23-of-31 at the free-throw line.
Harley scored 13 points and Henry had 10. Anderson didn’t score in 19 minutes, and Balham had three rebounds in 11 minutes. With nobody on the court for either team taller than 6-foot-8, the teams had 33 rebounds apiece.
Tim McLaurin scored 17 points to lead Chadron State, which shot 40.4 percent.
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
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