Husker Big Red Daily: Nebraska favored against Illinois, basketball season openers, volleyball still perfect

Welcome to Husker Big Red Daily, your daily stop for the latest Nebraska football news, recruiting buzz, transfer portal updates, and Huskers headlines. Here’s a quick look at the latest storylines surrounding Nebraska athletics.

Even as we sit here on Monday morning, the loss by Nebraska football to Washington on Saturday night stings.

The Huskers should be 6-2. Hell, they should probably be 8-0 based on how all three games played out. Nebraska is actually the first team in the past 25 years to hold three straight opponents to six points or fewer in the first three quarters of three straight games and lose all three.

Teams that have held opponents to six points or fewer through three quarters have won 94% of those games over the past 25 years. Nebraska football just went 0-3.

If you missed any of our fallout, here are our takeaways, lessons learned and grades from the loss. You can also check out our reactions video on YouTube.

Looking ahead to Illinois on Friday night, Nebraska is listed as a 4.5-point favorite. The over/under is 49.5. The moneyline is -188 for the Huskers and +158 for Illinois, a team that just defeated Oregon and Maryland over the last two weeks.

Nebraska basketball season openers

After a historic season that saw the Nebraska basketball team win its first-ever game in the NCAA tournament and reach the Sweet 16, the Huskers open their 2026-27 season tonight against Le Moyne.

First-team All-Big Ten selection Pryce Sandfort is back to lead Nebraska basketball, along with Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year Braden Frager, who averaged 13.7 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists during the exhibition season.

Sam Orme’s status is unclear. He missed time during the exhibition season. Trevan Leonhardt is expected to start at point guard, along with Boden Kapke at center and Cale Jacobsen at the other guard spot.

The lineup could shift around if Orme is available to play, too. According to Huskers.com, “Le Moyne has retooled its roster after going 15-17 last year and earning the No. 4 seed in the NEC Tournament with a 10-8 mark. The Dolphins have added 10 transfers and three freshmen while returning just two letter winners from last season.

“Le Moyne makes its first trip to Lincoln on Monday night to begin the 2026-27 season with a retooled roster. The Dolphins returned just two letter winners from last year — reserves Trevor Roe and Josiah Lee — but added 13 newcomers, including 10 Division I transfers. Roe played in 17 games and averaged 2.9 points and 1.4 rebounds per game, while Lee appeared in 16 contests, averaging 1.4 points on 44% shooting. The group of newcomers includes Jeremy Clayville (6.8 ppg, 1.5 apg at NJIT), Ty Francis (4.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg at Northeastern), Damon King (4.6 ppg, 2.7 rpg at UT-Martin), Jayden Teat (6.0 ppg at Sacramento State) and Kaden Stuckey (4.4 ppg, 0.8 bpg at VMI). Le Moyne won its exhibition game with a 90-84 victory over Canisius on Oct. 17.”

Britt Prince and the Nebraska women’s basketball team will open their season at noon CST against San Jose State. The men play Le Moyne at 5:30 p.m. CST. Both games are on BTN+.

San Jose State has a new coach after a 4-28 season. Nebraska, on the other hand, will benefit from the return of Natalie Potts, who was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2023-24. She essentially missed the past two seasons with an injury.

Potts (6-foot-2) will make her return to the starting lineup tonight. Freshman Ashlyn Koupal, a 6-foot-3 forward from South Dakota, will also make her debut as a starter. Amiah Hargrove (6-foot-2), Prince (5-foot-11) and Allison Weidner (5-foot-10) are the other expected starters. Logan Nissley (6-foot-0) is also back and will come off the bench.

Nebraska volleyball sweeps

Despite losing the first set against Michigan and Michigan State over the weekend, the Huskers stayed perfect on the season with a 3-1 win over the Wolverines (26-28, 25-20, 25-20, 25-14) and a 3-1 win over No. 25 Michigan State (21-25, 25-19, 25-17, 25-12).

Virginia Adriano, sometimes the forgotten attacker on this Nebraska volleyball team, finished with a career-high 14 kills.

Harper Murray, an Ann Arbor native, recorded 16 kills. It was the 22nd career match in which Murray had at least 15 kills. Andi Jackson surpassed 1,000 career kills, becoming the 13th Husker to reach that mark in the rally-scoring era, with 13 kills while hitting .455. Bergen Reilly had 55 assists and nine digs.

Jackson recorded 12 kills on .360 hitting with six blocks, while Murray had 12 kills, two blocks and three digs in the win over the Spartans.

Reilly recorded 45 assists, a career-high six blocks, five digs and a pair of kills, and Mauch recorded a team-high 12 digs.

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