Gonzaga women look to limit Nebraska’s balanced scoring in first round of NCAA Tournament

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Nebraska women can do a lot more than make long shots.

If Gonzaga is going to win Friday’s first-round NCAA Tournament game in Louisville, the Zags also must contend with the Cornhuskers’ solid inside game .

During Thursday’s news conferences, both coaches talked about the other team’s versatility, depth and toughness in the paint.

“They really can come at you in a lot of different ways,” Nebraska coach Amy Williams said. “They can shoot the 3. They execute well. They can come off ball screen actions.”

“They can just hurt you in so many different ways and I think the thing I’m the most impressed with it is that they outrebound their opponents by 10,” Williams said.

Then again, Nebraska is outrebounding opponents by almost seven per game while playing in the rugged Big Ten Conference.

“Nebraska is a really good team who I think we have areas where we can be strong and areas where if we don’t maintain focus, we’re going to struggle,” GU coach Lisa Fortier said.

Tipoff is at 12:30 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville. The winner will almost certainly face a daunting second-round game against host and top seed Louisville, which faces Albany in Friday’s nightcap.

Gonzaga, the No. 9 seed in the Wichita Region, is riding a five-game winning streak that included the West Coast Conference Tournament title.

The Zags (26-6 ) are a regular in the NCAAs. They’re also eager to make up last year’s first-round upset loss to Belmont.

“None of us forget what happened last year,” GU senior Abby O’Connor said. “We were obviously disappointed to have lost that one. But I think for most of us, it’s really just made us more focused, more ready to go.”

The eighth-seeded Cornhuskers are back in the tournament for only the second time in six years. Sparked by Oregon transfer guard Jaz Shelley and freshman post Alexis Markowski, this year’s team is the fourth-winningest in school history.

The Huskers are 24-8 overall and finished 11-7 in Big Ten, which sent six teams to the tournament.

Along the way, they overcame a 10-day COVID pause in late January and the dismissal last month of assistant coach Chuck Love and one of their best outside shooters, Ashley Scoggin.

Nebraska’s resume is impressive, with late-season wins over No. 5 Indiana and No. 10 Michigan.

Six of Nebraska’s eight losses have come at the hands of current AP Top 25 teams.

For that, Nebraska fans can thank an outside shooting game that combines volume and accuracy. The Cornhuskers have put up 759 long-range shots – ninth most in the country – and hitting 35.6% .

Their most accurate shooter, Scoggin (42% from 3), was dismissed from the team last month, leaving Shelley (40.7%) and Isabelle Bourne (36.8%) to carry most of the burden.

Williams said her teams aren’t over-reliant on the long ball.

“I think that what we have really attacked is to be able to have balance and we want to be able to attack the paint,” Williams said. “But I think a lot of it starts with inside/outside action and when we have teams and defenses that collapse on our post players and try to collapse on penetration, then that usually leads to some better looks from the perimeter for us.”