New Mexico ends Nebraska's season in NIT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Daniel Faris had a career night, and now it's Back Home in Indiana for New Mexico coach Steve Alford.

Faris logged career highs with 28 points and 13 rebounds, lifting New Mexico to an 83-71 win over scrappy Nebraska in the NIT's first round on Tuesday night.

The Lobos (22-11) advanced to play Thursday at Notre Dame, which earlier beat Alabama-Birmingham 70-64.

"The coaches will work through the night," said Alford, who faced Notre Dame during his playing days at Indiana but never has done it as a coach. "We'll have breakfast in the morning and get on the plane and go."

Faris, a 6-foot-9 center, had a big night against the Cornhuskers (18-13), the nation's smallest Division I team. He scored 18 points and collected nine rebounds in the second half.

"I knew they were undersized," he said. "I was just going to try to get up and get offensive rebounds, get putbacks, get good defensive position in the post and get easy scores. My teammates were finding me."

New Mexico's Tony Danridge scored 18 and Chad Toppert, who went 0-for-17 from 3-point range over the last three games, broke out of the shooting slump with 15 points.

"It felt really good to get that first one out of the way," Toppert said. "My shot hadn't been feeling too good for some reason. But if I would have stopped shooting, my teammates would have killed me for it."

Sek Henry led Nebraska with 13 points while Steve Harley scored 11. Ade Dagunduro, who averaged 17.6 points over the season's final five games, got in first-half foul trouble and was held to eight points on 2-for-13 shooting.

Nebraska cut a 19-point second-half deficit to 74-67 with 2:09 remaining when Ryan Anderson made two free throws.

But the Lobos, spurred on by a noisy but small crowd of 7,974 fans, held on down the stretch by making made 7-of-8 free throws in the final 1:15. Faris was 4-for-4 and Toppert made two during that span.

"Both halves got away from us at different points," Nebraska coach Doc Sadler said. "To our guys' credit, they kept fighting back and we still had chances late in the game."

New Mexico, which shared the Mountain West regular season title with Utah and BYU but didn't receive an at-large NCAA tournament bid, led 39-34 at halftime and opened the second half with an 17-3 burst.

Freshman Phillip McDonald did the outside work, swishing three 3-pointers, including two on consecutive possessions to stretch the lead to 56-37 with 14:38 remaining. During the same span, Faris scored three buckets inside.

"Not too many centers have the success that Daniel had against them," Alford said. "I thought Daniel was terrific tonight. He was a big key to our win."

But the Huskers didn't go easy, challenging the Lobos again and again with an aggressive trapping defense that helped them trim the margin to 63-54 on Brandon Richardson's 3-pointer with 9:10 to go.

Every time New Mexico tried to pull away, Nebraska found an answer. When Faris scored on a putback, Cookie Miller answered for the Huskers with a 3-pointer that cut the deficit to 69-60 with 5:07 remaining.

Harley made 1-of-2 free throws to make it 69-61 with 4:22 to go. But it wasn't enough, not after New Mexico shot 27-of-35 from the free throw line.

"We made some free throws and that was good," Alford said. "It's been at least a month since we shot more free throws than our opponent."

Nebraska couldn't overcome a poor defensive first half. After leading the Big 12 and ranking 17th nationally by allowing just 59.4 points per game, the Huskers allowed New Mexico to score 39 first-half points -- more than any other opponent.

"That's the most points we've given up all year, probably the most free throws, too," Sadler said.