Palmer Jr. leads Nebraska past Delaware State, 85-68

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) James Palmer Jr. had 18 points and Nebraska opened up a 19-point lead midway through the first half and turned back a second half Delaware State surge to take an 85-68 win Friday.

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Nebraska (9-5) ran off 14 straight to go up 20-6 on Thomas Allen's layup with 12:56 left in the opening half, and stretched that to 28-9 over the next four minutes.

A 10-2 flurry by Delaware State (2-12) cut the Nebraska lead to 11 on Kavon Waller's 3 pointer with 6:34 left in the half. But the Huskers scored eight straight to go back up 19. Nebraska, which hit 60 percent of its shots in the half, led 42-26 at intermission.

Delaware State trailed by 21 when it put together an 11-1 run to cut the Nebraska lead to 59-48 on Demola Onifade's basket with 10:35 left in the game. Anton Gill's 3-pointer two minutes later put Nebraska back up by 15 and Palmer's layup with 6:17 left gave Nebraska a 71-50 lead.

Gill and Thomas Allen each had 14 points for Nebraska, Isaac Copeland had 11 points.

Waller had 16 points to lead Delaware State. Simon Okolue and Artem Tavakalyan had 13 points each and Pinky Wiley had 12 points.

BIG PICTURE

Nebraska: The Huskers were averaging 75.5 points per game entering Friday's contest, the highest scoring mark for a Nebraska team through 13 games since the 1995-96 season. Nebraska has scored more than 80 points in six of its 14 games.

Delaware State: The Hornets have been mired in a season-long shooting slump. Delaware State shot just 39.5 percent from the field through its first 13 games. The Hornets hit 37.8 percent of their shots in the first half Thursday, then made 51 percent of their shots in the second period.

UP NEXT

Nebraska hosts Stetson on Dec. 29, ending non-conference play. The Huskers will resume Big Ten play at Northwestern Jan. 2

Delaware State travels to Penn for its final non-conference game. The Hornets will open MEAC play Jan. 3 against NC Central.