LINCOLN, Neb.—Nebraska’s Yvonne Turner and Cory Montgomery aren’t taking the bait.
Ask them how they think the unbeaten and fourth-ranked Cornhuskers would fare against unbeaten and No. 1 Connecticut, and they’ll politely turn the topic to Wednesday’s game against No. 10 Oklahoma State.
“A lot of people have been asking us about playing against UConn,” the sharp-shooting Turner said Monday. “Ideally, we have to worry about the Big 12. I feel if our team started thinking that far ahead, about playing against UConn or Stanford or Tennessee, we’ll let games slip away from our belt in the Big 12. Those games mean a lot more than playing a UConn or a Tennessee or a Stanford.”
Montgomery also prefers to leave the debate to the fans and their message boards, even though the Husker forward admits to being flattered by the speculation about what would happen if Nebraska got a shot at the pre-eminent powers of the women’s game.
“It’s crazy to me,” Montgomery said. “Never would we have thought we would be mentioned in the same name as UConn and Tennessee and those teams. It’s good for our program and gives us recognition we deserve.”
Though the Huskers are 19-0, Connecticut far and away is the model for dominance in women’s college basketball, what with its 60-game win streak. UConn has beaten opponents by an average of 39.3 points while building its 21-0 record. Nebraska is a distant second to the Huskies in average winning margin, at 24.4 points.
The only remaining unbeaten teams would not meet until deep in the NCAA tournament if both continue on their paths.
For Nebraska, that means the Big 12 schedule is the task at hand. Nebraska has won its six conference games by an average of 17 points and no team has come closer than eight.
Oklahoma State (18-3, 6-1) is a half-game behind Nebraska and features the nation’s second-leading scorer in guard Andrea Riley, who’s averaging 31 points against conference opponents and 26.3 for the season.
Riley scored 27 of her 31 points in the second half Saturday to lead OSU’s 67-63 come-from-behind road win over then-No. 8 Texas A&M. Tegan Cunningham is averaging 17.8 points and 7.9 rebounds for the Cowgirls, whose only loss was 77-63 at nationally ranked Texas.
“They’ve got two really good scorers and other players who are playing their roles well,” Nebraska coach Connie Yori said. “They can space the floor well. When you have a tremendous dribble penetrator like Riley, you become hard to guard. They’re not complicated, but what they do is very effective with the personnel they have.”
Nebraska follows Wednesday’s game with a Saturday meeting in Lincoln with No. 12 Texas A&M (15-4, 3-3).
“It’s really fun to have the season we’re having thus far,” Montgomery said. “Being that we’re undefeated, we take time to enjoy it. We’re not shunning it to the side. But we know we have a long season left in the Big 12.”
Montgomery said she and her teammates aren’t worried about how they’ll react when, and if, the Huskers lose for the first time. Neither is Yori, who has been saying for weeks that a loss is inevitable, even if the Huskers’ growing legion of fans don’t want to believe it.
“We’re going to lose, and when that happens the sun will come up the next morning,” Yori said. “We’ll do the same thing we’re doing, we’ll prepare for our next opponent. We won’t change what we’re doing as coaches, and hopefully it won’t change what our players are doing.”
