No. 1 Nebraska showed off all the skills that have made it a powerhouse program: the offense attacked all areas of the court, the defense never gave up the ball and the fans showed up at the Galena Center.
In front of a sold-out crowd of 9,072, USC's nine-game winning streak ended with a straight loss to Nebraska (26-0, 16-0 Big Ten).
“I just felt like the game was too fast for us today,” USC coach Brad Keller said. “I thought it was slow for them, but fast for us.”
The No. 5 Trojans never led and were limited to a 20% scoring percentage throughout the match. USC (20-6, 11-5) led the way offensively, but its 16 errors proved costly in a 25-13, 25-16, 25-20 loss to the Cornhuskers.
USC's Adonia Faumuina hits the ball over the net against Nebraska at the Galen Center on Sunday.
(Kim Lee/USC Athletics)
“Nebraska is the place to be,” Keller said. “They're really, really good and they showed it today from the first point all the way to the end. They hit .400 and held us to .156, that pretty much shows where they've been.”
“Go Big Red Nation deserves credit and they deserve the fact that they travel and support their team.”
USC forwards London Vijay with 10 kills and Adonia Faumuina with nine kills kept the Trojans at bay as long as possible throughout three sets. After halftime, the Trojans came out with some extra gusto to make the game a little more interesting for the Cornhuskers.
“We literally had nothing to lose,” Faumuina said.
Nebraska committed 10 errors during the match, five of which were scattered throughout the first two sets. The Huskers moved the ball quickly around the court, and if they made a mistake, the team quickly adjusted. In the third set, the ball bounced in the air near the seats on the floor. Nebraska rebounded the ball and it later led to a Virginia Adrian kill to put the Huskers within three points of ending the game.
Nebraska kept USC guessing while simultaneously exploiting USC's weaker backcourt and capitalizing on offensive mistakes. Throughout the match, they continued to hit the ball in the back, which usually resulted in their points.
“They made some plays that I haven’t seen in a long time, and that was normal for them,” Keller said.
As the Trojans look forward to their next matchup against Oregon on Wednesday, Keller doesn't see anything positive coming from the loss.
“I love my team, I don’t care how old they are,” Keller said. “There has to be a standard and we need to execute, and if we don’t execute, we go back to the drawing board, work on those things, get better and execute.”
Vijay said the loss showed how much harder the Trojans have to work to achieve their goals.
“I don’t want to shrug off this loss,” Vijay said. “I think it's good to use as fuel for the next game. It was a good test to see how far we can get to this level. And I feel like the best option is to make sure we're all in the gym working even harder to make sure we're chasing the ball.”
“I think the desire to win made me even hungrier,” Vijay added.
