MADISON, Wis. – As he watched Nebraska guard Keisei Tominaga torch Indiana in the second half Wednesday night, déjà vu dawned on Max Klesmit that he’d seen it before. It’s not a pleasant memory.
In knocking off the Hoosiers, 86-70, Tominaga scored 18 of his season-high 28 points in the second half, including 16 in less than five minutes, giving the Huskers their best start since 1990-91.
It was strikingly similar to what Tominaga did to Klesmit last February, scoring 17 of his game-high 22 points after halftime in a 73-63 Nebraska overtime victory that severely damaged UW’s fragile NCAA Tournament resume.
“That bites at you when you think back at it,” Klesmit said.
Klesmit and No.21 Wisconsin (10-3, 2-0 Big Ten) will get another close look at the 6-2 senior and his hot shooting when Nebraska (12-2, 2-1) travels to the Kohl Center in what promises to be a challenging Saturday afternoon (1:15 p.m./BTN)
Klesmit has been Wisconsin’s best defender since arriving on campus, routinely getting his assignments permanently out of rhythm offensively. That was the case last season as he chased Tominaga in the first half, giving up only two of Tominaga’s five points.
But after Nebraska simplified its offense in the second half to get Tominaga in rhythm by utilizing simple screens, Klesmit and UW watched him and the Huskers offense ignite, scoring 33 points over the final 16 minutes of regulation after scoring 28 points in the first 23 minutes and change.
A year later, Tominaga leads the Huskers in scoring (14.0 ppg) and three-pointers made (25).
"He's moving really well without the ball in terms of not shaking guys off of him," Klesmit said. "He's not having to get too physical with anybody or run off screens and have someone in his hip pocket. He's got a lot of good looks so far."
Despite playing only four games in Quad 1 and Quad 2, Nebraska ranks 49th in KenPom’s overall ratings and is sparked by its defense. The Huskers’ 37.9 opponent field goal percentage is a tenth of a point out of first place in the conference and its 43.8 percent effective field goal percentage ranks eighth in the nation, per KenPom.
Tominaga is a big piece of that, too, having four games of at least two steals and a road win at Kansas State where it had five swipes. He had no steals against the Hoosiers, but his teammates picked up the slack with 15 steals, a part of the 19 Indiana turnovers that turned into 27 points.
“I thought (Indiana) was about as consistent as we’ve been for 40 minutes,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. “We played a complete game … From start to finish, I was really pleased with the effort our guys gave.”
The hot start has been a rarity in Lincoln since Nebraska joined the conference in 2011. The Huskers have had 10 seasons of double-digit conference losses under three different head coaches and made only one NCAA Tournament.
That’s not to say they haven’t been proven to be a thorn in Wisconsin’s side in the last two meetings. In the 2022 regular-season finale, the last-place Huskers took advantage of a Johnny Davis-less Badgers and registered a 74-73 upset at the Kohl Center that prevented the hosts from clinching the outright Big Ten title.
And then there was last season’s debacle. UW’s NCAA Tournament profile was already tenuous, so the Badgers squandering a 17-point lead marked the most painful of the eight losses the Badgers had last season in which they led at one point in the last four minutes.
“They do a lot of stuff different than a lot of teams in the Big Ten do,” Klesmit said. “You see a lot of run guys into screens, chase people over the top, force baseline drives, they don’t want to give up the middle. They guard ball screens a little bit differently, and their defense has improved a lot. They’ve raised their intensity on that end of the floor, which has obviously raised their game as well.”
Not directly because of Tominaga’s success, but Klesmit challenged himself in the offseason to get his body into better shape to take on quicker guards. Estimating that he shredded three percent of his body fat and added more muscle, the result has led Klesmit to feel lighter on his feet and
“It’s given me different ways to guard,” Klesmit said. “I can crawl up into a defender’s ball space a little more because my feet are quicker. Having a year under your belt of the Big Ten guard play, you get a better feel for what teams like to do, what actions they like to run, and guys you saw last year, so you know what you’re getting into.”
Tominaga wasn’t the only reason for UW’s failure in Lincoln. Steven Crowl and Tyler Wahl were held to 5-for-19 shooting as Nebraska used the “Big Big Lineup” to defend the two in the low post. The Badgers gave up 32 points in the paint, went 3-for-19 from three-point range after halftime, were ineffective in scoring at the rim, and attempted only six free throws compared to 23 for Nebraska.
It was one of the more disappointing losses of the season for Wisconsin and head coach Greg Gard, who said at the time that his players had undergone a complete change in personality from one half to the next.
As the players have said multiple times throughout the first two months of the season, Wisconsin is a more talented, deeper team than the one they took to Lincoln last season. It’s just a matter of proving it 18 more times in Big Ten play.
“We need to stick to what we do,” Klesmit said. “We aren’t going to change what we do at all. We’re going to stick to our game plan, what we do, and believe in what our coaches give us and execute that to the best of our ability.”
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