1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Nebraska MBB road win over the Hoosiers: January 12th, 2026, 11:00am

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Huskers erase a second half deficit to keep their undefeated season alive. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-the-ticket and the Ticketfm.com, sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation. Here is your host, Derek Pearson. A Monday morning, boom to you here on one-on-one with D.P. on 93-7, the ticket one-on-one. Today is myself and Nick Sainert,

as D.P is still making his way back into Lincoln. So Nick, I guess no shortage of anything to talk about this. This had to be one of the biggest sports news weekends. Never mind the fact that you've got the college football playoffs in my finals. You got the NFL wildcard weekend. Your Cubs took one of my Red Sox. You know, a lot of stuff going on. Yeah.

Alex Bregman. Thanks for playing. Yeah, well, good luck not trading him, I guess. The no trade clauses. He wants to be a cup. Yeah, he does. That's the problem. Here we go.

So that'll work. But the biggest news for, as we want to start off here, is Nebraska basketball just keeps getting it done. 16 and 0, 5 and 0 in the Big 10 after an 83, 77 win in Assembly Hall, which we might as well just call Jamarcus Lawrence Arena because Jamargoes Lawrence going off once again, maybe maybe years from now he'll regret that he never signed with the Hoosiers. Maybe the Hoosiers will regret they maybe never offered him.

I don't know for that for sure. I didn't go check that. but in any case, 27 total points for Jamarcus Lawrence. Of course, this wasn't a one-man show. He definitely helped them early on kind of get it going. But Nebraska fell behind in this game by as many as 16 in the second half and wasn't looking good. But that second half completely did turn things around. 53 points in the second half for the Huskers.

They storm back. Of course, I know you were talking about I was talking about 80 as well. the defense, the defense that Nebraska put on. And we're going to look at, of course, again, the highlight, what did I just bring up 53 points in the second half? Sometimes the offense can get going and really kind of steal the show. But Nebraska's defense was able to kind of fight through it and keep Nebraska in this game when the shots weren't falling.

And then when they started falling, Indiana had no response to it. Yeah. I, Bach, man, I think maybe we need to start having the conversation. about J. Marr, DeMarcus Lawrence. I'm going to, Kent Pavolka calls him J. Mar. And ever since I heard him say that, I've started to call him J. Mar. I used to call him, or refer to him as J. Law. But J. Marr is just, it rolls off the tongue smoothers.

But Jamarcus Lawrence, man, the steady ascension that we've seen him have over his career. Obviously, his first two years at Nebraska transferred out after the 2024 season, Nebraska, or he goes then to Rhode Island and starts in all 31 games for the Rams out there. But then comes back to Nebraska, his steady ascension, just his growth, his development that we talk about, one of those buzzwords in a year where he's averaging very similar statistics to what he did at Rhode Island. He's doing it at a much better program in a much more difficult conference. And I think when we saw that Jim Marcus Lawrence was coming, coming back to Nebraska's program.

We didn't know maybe what to expect. Is he going to be the Sam Greasel type that kind of just directs traffic and doesn't try to score a whole lot of points? I think this is the best of both worlds. You have a guy in Jamarcus Lawrence right now who is averaging almost four assists per game, which is a career high for him over the course of his four-year career. You have him doing an okay job rebounding the basketball, averaging almost three rebounds per game as well.

Average is a steal a game, less than, than two turnovers a game for somebody that touches the ball as often as he does. He's averaging double figures at 10 and a half points per contest as well. He's shooting it well from the free throw line, 76% on the season. Could be a little bit better, sure, but it is fine in comparison to some of the other guards that Nebraska has. And he's playing fewer minutes than he did last year at Rhode Island. And as well, he's playing two minutes fewer per game on average than he did last year

at Rhode Island. this is he has become a true scoring threat that teams in addition to price in addition to a small sample of Sam Hoyberg in addition to obviously rank mass as well this is somebody that teams have to game plan for because Jamarcus can show up maybe not to the tune of 27 points every game but he can show up and score 15 16 and kind of be that silent killer that you look up and go okay this dude's gotten to the free throw line five times today and he's and he's 10 for 10. from the free throw line, you know, whatever it might be. And so he's been, his ascension steadily has been really, really fun to watch over his

four-year career. Yeah, it's going to be fun too. One, you know, as we as we kind of see guys go in and out of the portal in football, of course, there's all like the Willis McGeigh's and guys with the fourth coming back. I think we've got to get used to this world that, you know, you might play him again, start somewhere. Yeah, come back around. So, you Marcus Lawrence, obviously, one of the first stories of that.

that happening at Nebraska. But I think that we might see some more. Daniel Kaelin, obviously, the one specifically to kind of point out here. But so, you know, don't get, don't get your, don't start getting your, your pitchforks and all that out once somebody leaves. Maybe, maybe they might come around and be a Husker once again. I do not see a Dylan, Dylan Riola reunion coming, though. Maybe not. Maybe not.

That one's probably where I try to draw the line at there. So pitchforks are fine for Dylan. Yeah. Maybe not. I'm anti-pitchfork. Okay. Just also anti-reunion. Yeah, okay. Well, fair enough. But yeah, so I mean, when getting back to Nebraska basketball, you know, again,

this is just the best, the most recent highlight of you don't necessarily know where it's coming from. And again, as having watched Nebraska basketball for many, many years, you know, you kind of get these rankings and you get these, you know, these different kind of feelings about where are these guys going to fit in Nebraska basketball history. And I don't know if there's a great answer for anybody individually, Rick Mass probably, you know, has definitely built up a case in certain areas. But for this team and what they do and so well fit together and like we're saying, like if Mass has an off night, either Sanford or Frager or Lawrence,

I mean, you got to worry about him. Hoyberg, like you mentioned, at times can get it going. Berke is definitely playing better in his role and has popped up for a few big nights in the scoring column as well. I mean, so it's just so tough to defend this team. And we talked about it, you know, kind of the five out basketball. that they're able to play. Shout out to Bear Cape for hitting a big three.

Yeah. As part of that five out, we're going to count it. And he's struggled a little bit from beyond the arc, but he's slowly moving up. He's up the way, up the way, by the way, at the 25% was down, was that like 11%? I think it was as low for the year. So at least working on that and getting back to it. But just, you know, as far as like all this excitement and through all of it, you kind of forget what are our most, you know, questions that we usually have about.

Nebraska basketball. And we had coming into the year. One, will rank mass be able to kind of be the guy to take the big time shot, right? Can you, you know, we understand he can still in an offense throw him. But if you need him, can he be that guy? And again, he didn't have his best game here. And it was great to see other guys step up. But time and time again, he has shown, it doesn't matter what he's shooting, go to him when you need it. But, you know, the other thing is, especially with Lawrence and Hoyberg, how often have we had, but do they have a true point guard? I mean, that was that all the time is the question for Nebraska basketball and even coming into the year and look at them now. You mentioned it earlier.

Their assist to turnover ratio, they both have, you know, Lawrence is at 3.6 to 1.9. And as we know, Sam Hoyberg, one of the best of the nation, 3.9 to 0.8. So they might not have the true, you know, it might not be John Stockton out there, but together they get it done. It's so fascinating because we also thought at the beginning of this year. Kendall Blue was going to play a part. Like I remember when they brought in Kendall Blue from St. Thomas? And it was like, okay, this is the one-year guy in addition to Jamarcus, that maybe you expected Jamarcus to be out there more than Kendall Blue.

But we haven't seen Kendall. Kendall's just not there, not there. And for whatever reason, right? But I look at Rinkmas. And this is in no way me saying that Rinkmas has played bad because he hasn't. But do you remember that stretch that he went on where it was like the Purdue, Wisconsin at home and he was like unconscious from anywhere on the floor? Oh, yeah.

And nobody could stop him. And I think there was a lot of fans, myself included potentially at times in the early stages of this season, that said that they're going to need rank to score 15 plus a game. They're going to need rank to be not necessarily unconscious, but close to lights out, every single game. Let's look at the last five games for rank. shooting from three, if you take out, so he was six of 13 from three against Michigan State, which is crazy. But if you take out that Michigan State game, he is, let me see if I can do quick math here,

two for 20 in his last four games against Indiana, Ohio State, New Hampshire, North Dakota. He's two for 20 from three. Not very good. Not, not, when, when you're looking for a stretch big that Nebraska has and that they run their offense through, not necessarily great. Now, to be fair, and in all fairness to rank, he shot six of 13 from three against Michigan State. But even with that, he's eight of 33 in his last, in his last five games. Um, eight of 33. A game against, he struggled, man, against Indiana at times. He, he shot five of seven from the field, but just there were, there were, there were times. where he was not what we're used to seeing from rink mast. And now it's almost as if Nebraska's in a better spot. Because we know rink in his consistency, he's going to be out there.

And he's going to be available. He's going to make himself available. He's not going to get into foul trouble. There's very few people that we see, I think, at the Big Ten level with how inconsistent just college basketball officiating is, the ability to just stay walled up nonstop for rinkmas is is really fun to watch. And like those are little details where if you can keep rink in there.

And I think Nebraska and Fred Hoyberg has found a rotation that whether it's, it's limping to the under eight minute media timeout. Like I think against Indiana and fans can correct me if I'm wrong if they remember watching this. Listeners can correct me if I'm wrong. There was a moment in Nebraska or Indiana took a time out with less than 10 minutes left in the game and they took rink out and Nebraska was losing but it was like okay let's just limp to the under eight and we can get rink back in and as long as you're able to

somewhat stop the bleeding with some of your reserves you can you can afford that and in situations like those you can avoid you know foul trouble for a guy like rinkmask yeah and he did i mean he had four fouls this past game but it is good that you highlight that it doesn't happen often that he is in that situation i mean when was the if i can't remember the last last time Rink had to sit down in the first half because he got two or the ones. Right, yeah. Which Foyberg basically does religiously to get two. Yeah.

Yeah. He did it with Brayden Frager on Saturday. Yeah. That was the biggest thing. That was the biggest thing I think that Nebraska was missing on Saturday in the first half. And why Indiana, frankly, got out to such a large lead to end the half and went into the halftime locker room with a nine point lead in Nebraska's struggle to stop the bleeding. It was because there were times that you had to lean on Kale Jacobson out there.

And Kale plays a very vital part. Like, do not get me wrong. That kid, it looked like at times right when he got in there that he was a little nervous to shoot. But then he knocked down the three, the very next possession, he ends up taking it to the rim and scores on a layup as well. But he does, Braden Frager does things differently than Kale Jacobson. He moves a little bit differently than Kail Jacobson as well. And there were times, I think, that Nebraska in that first half when Brayden Frager was on the bench with two foul, that Nebraska missed the Braden-Frager ability to maybe get to the rim and score the basketball.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and Braden-Frager, I mean, watching his ascension to, and again, this is, you know, had the big time to talk to me, you know, which was maybe the highlight of the game. It's really, is really fun. And again, I just can't wait to see him get better. And I don't know if Nebraska, I mean, you think about the last time Nebraska's had a freshman kind of rise the way that he has. You can think about certain, you know, like a Bryce McGowan's, obviously.

much, much different kind of category. Very. But to watch Braden Frager and, and Kel Jacobson, I'm, I'm somewhat, I don't say jealous, but, but happy for them, I think every kid that watched Nebraska basketball,

when I'm a 35 year old kid, you know, and whatever age you are, count yourself as a 50 year old kid or whatever, because it is, you know, you've watched this whole thing and never get that tournament win. Everybody's, you know, the question that always is supposed to is like,

if you were top recruit, would you go to Duke or would you help Nebraska win an NCAA tournament game. And here they are possibly living the dream that every Nebraska fans had that grew up in the state for quite the long time. So I think that's got a funny as well. I'm telling you guys also next year, Nebraska is getting one of the more underrated shooting guards in the recruiting class coming in.

And Jacob Lanier. He's from Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas was slightly under recruited coming out of high school, has offers Texas Tech, has a crate an offer, excuse me, Mississippi State, Florida, State, Arkansas is in that conversation as well. Rated the number 13 shooting guard out of the in the country. High four star guy top 90 recruit in the country. Six foot five, 180 pounds. When you talk about whether they decide to redshirt him next year,

and kind of he takes over for price like in two years, that's the other part is, yeah, this is a veteran team. But if you look at what they're going to have coming back, it also provides, it's not like it's a one year championship window for number and it's crazy that I'm saying championship window. And I'm talking on the Big Ten scale. Hey, go ahead. We're one of the few undefeated teams.

And I'm talking on the Big Ten championship scale. But like, you know, it's here's Nebraska, 5 and O in the conference. You feel good about, you know, their ability to potentially win tomorrow night against Oregon. You have to go back on the road against Northwestern on Saturday. And then I think it's Washington and then Minnesota in that order. You feel really good about these next couple of games. You got through more of a gauntlet. than these next four.

The last four big 10 games are sure as heck tougher than these next four that you're going to face. Now, it's maybe not going to be a perfect four and no record, but like at worst, going into that February or January 27th Michigan game, Bach, at worst,

19 and 1. Yeah. And Michigan ruined it. It was supposed to be two undefeated teams, right? Michigan lost over the weekend, which means Nebraska is the only undefeated team. To it seem that Nebraska beat by 30.

That's right. People forget. Yeah. So Nebraska against 16, no, the only undefeated team in the Big Ten. Only one of their undefeated team in Big Ten play, by the way, is Purdue at five and no. So look out for that as well. But it really is opening up. And it's kind of funny how these conversations have evolved because when Nebraska's first kind of kind of started getting the street going, you know, I remember you and I in Austin were probably on the show doing a similar kind of conversation.

And we just kind of let it start to get away from it. It's like, all right, well, what if they go 27? And it's starting to become more of a reality. And again, you don't want to count your chickens before they hatch. But as you mentioned, the next three games and on our DP on one on one here, he always talks about thirds or against bottom third big 10 teams. And it might be surprising to see that for a team like Oregon. But they're only eight and eight, one and four in big 10 played in. Oldman's working against it a little bit there.

So, you know, the expectation is, and we got to get used to this is that. if you're a top 10 team, that you should win these games. And Nebraska, I don't have a whole lot of fear. You know, again, I don't, going back to that segment, I don't think Nebraska is going undefeated. So it probably will happen at some point this year. I don't think, how do I say this? Let's go back to Bart Torvik, my good friend, Bart Torvick.

Nebraska is projected to win the next four games. They're projected to lose at Ohio State and at Indiana, by the way. The projected finished record for Nebraska right now, 27 and 4. On Bart Torvik. 27 and 4. The four games that here's here, okay, now here's where we get interesting. Okay. There are four projected losses.

Now granted, this doesn't mean a whole lot. Four projected losses are Michigan. They're projected to lose that game 86 to 71. I don't see it. I don't see that either. They're projected to lose at home. against Illinois by 1, 75 to 74. They're projected to lose at home by one against Purdue, 74 to 73.

And they're projected to lose on the road at Iowa 70 to 67. Those are your four projected losses. Now, here's the thing, Bach. Just going off of this with the, this is all analytical based. And as we know in sports, you can trust the analytics, you can bet on the analytics, it's not always going to be factual. I get that and realistic. But if you're able to coin flip in your favor, Illinois and Purdue at home, right?

There's two wins that maybe you can make up for a loss or two on the road, certainly, right? Minnesota next Saturday is going to earn two Saturdays is a tough place to play. Nebraska does not play well at the barn. They never have. It's very similar to Columbus, Ohio. They do not play well in the barn in Minneapolis. And then here's this. The road game against Iowa,

it's a Tuesday night at 8 p.m. But do we count Husker fans out for potential travel to that game in Iowa City? I wouldn't count them out now. Iowa, but Iowa's got a pretty good fan base, though. They do have a good fan base. And they're top 25 teams. So I think it would be tough to take over the building. But yeah, I think there.

Do we not expect a decent number of Huster fans? Yeah, there could be some red there. Austin and I were talking about driving there. Yeah, not a bad idea. We might make the road trip Tuesday night, 8 p.m. And then drive back and do the shows Wednesday, which should be tough. Well, sure, but it's worth it, right? It's a four-hour drive.

Yeah. Here's the thing. Like, so let's just play per Bart Torvik and the analytics. Projected to go 20 and 0. 20 and O going into Michigan. That Michigan date looms large, obviously. but it is kind of fun to look down a little bit along the line February 10th too, Purdue. You know, Michigan or Purdue, if Nebraska can hang in the top 10,

I think those two are going to kind of hang around the top 10 as well. So potentially two top 10 matches down the line for Nebraska if they can keep it up. And again, there is less doubt every week with the, if they win. I accidentally hit that at the wrong time. I was just speaking greatly about Nebraska. Thanks. That makes me feel great. Yeah.

Well, what's your projected finish right now, Buck? Well, if you look at it last year, Nebraska, or the Big Ten champion had three losses. That's right. In the conference in Michigan State. So I'm going to go above your predictor there and say three losses for Nebraska and Big Ten champs. No, I mean, that's getting excited about it. But I mean, the next true test, again, the beating Illinois and Michigan State is incredible, put your kind of top 15 where Nebraska should be.

The next true test is. is kind of the Michigan's of the Purdue's. You're also going to have to kind of keep it up. As we mentioned, Michigan losing to a Wisconsin team. You might have one of those, or two of those kind of throw in throughout the year as well. But it's hard to, you know, at this point in time,

I don't want to be, I would just say, I still want to say, I think those are kind of the teams you're competing with to win the big 10s. I don't want to go that far. But, you know, I think we're getting into a spot where, you know,

I don't think this is a seven-loss team. No. Right? And so, you know, like, are we talking five? Yeah, five, six losses, probably. I mean, so, so let's just play the hypothetical game here. One of my favorite games to play. Five losses.

Let's just go, I do not think Nebraska loses at home. I just don't. I don't. If they lose one, I think you lose Purdue. But in, in past years, Nebraska has done really well against Purdue. I give, I give Fred Hoyberg so much. much credit for the game plan. That's what I mean.

They haven't necessarily beat them year after year, but the game plan against the height and, and Trey Kaufman, Wren in this case for Purdue, the game plan against those guys. And Braden Smith and Fletcher lawyer have hurt Nebraska in the past. And Fletcher lawyer has maybe one of the more punchable faces in basketball. But I just,

I think that when you look at at Nebraska, they've game planned against them really well. let's say you you lose on the road Michigan Iowa on the road and then I think maybe you drop one in the West Coast trip to USC UCLA I feel like one of those may and then and then let's say you lose one of the next four

let's say you lose at Minnesota okay I that's four losses you're 27 and 4 27 and 4 at four losses you're 16 and 4 in the big 10 conference. My goodness, man. I mean, just with the pace this team's on again, whether it's four or five, you know,

if there's 15 games left, they go 10 and five, which is still big ass in the big 10. Don't get me wrong. But that's the game I was playing. Yeah. I was like, can you go 17 and six? You know, prior to. You're right. Right.

Yeah. But like, can you go. Okay. So at this point, can you win for every one loss, can you win two games? Yeah. That's the question right now. For a team that hasn't lost, I think it feel pretty good about it. So, um, the.

So I just got to text the Nebraska Minnesota game, Nebraska basketball. So the Nebraska Minnesota games at 11 a.m. up in Minneapolis. Same time as you played against Indiana. I don't know. But here's the times of your upcoming games. By the way, if you're trying to get tickets to PBA, you're probably going to be SOL for a while. Nebraska, they do not have the Oregon game.

Oh, no, Oregon is probably going to be at the top here. So the Oregon game is 8 p.m. tomorrow. Then you play Northwestern, which they don't have on this site. Let me go to this one. The official site. Nebraska 16 and 0, 5 and 0 in the conference. Tomorrow, 8 p.m. on the Big Ten Network. That one's presented by Adidas.

Okay, then we go down as my computer refreshes. Saturday, January 17th, Nebraska at Northwestern, also on Big Ten Network. 3 p.m. tip off for that one. next Wednesday, 8 p.m. tip off again, Nebraska versus Washington at PBA. And then you go Nebraska at Minnesota 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 24th. Or 24th. Yeah, 24th. That one's on FS1. How about Peacock getting the big games for Nebraska? I know they really are. Nebraska at Michigan's on Peacock. Which one's Purdue on? Purdue's FS1.

Purdue's FS1. Illinois is FS1. ticket prices, by the way, for Oregon is $47 to get in. If you're looking for a Saturday, you're going to have to wait until February Valentine's Day, by the way, against Northwestern. That's, that's 82 bucks at this point. Penn State, another Saturday game down the line, 93 bucks to get in. I'm going to be fascinated Buck to see, and season ticket holders will have to let us know.

What are the changes going into next year that they hear about? Yeah. because I guess maybe the conversation we can have in the next segment buck is how we expect this thing to continue. Yeah. Because I, the way that Fred Hoyberg operates, I don't think there's many people worried about the wheels falling off. No, I don't think so. And certainly can go back and look at kind of the Iowa State history there as well to help support that point. But we'll take quick break.

We'll be back with more on one-on-one. We're celebrating Nebraska basketball next on 93-7.