NCAA Basketball 10 Simulation: Illinois at Nebraska

Despite being nearly five years old, NCAA Basketball 10 still plays remarkably well. Even when it's the CPU playing itself. In this edition of the video game series the Fighting Illini were once again on the road, and they were in Lincoln taking on the Nebraska Cornhuskers. While it was a back-and-forth battle for most of the first half, Illinois managed to pull away and win easily. Here's a full summary of how it went down:

1st Half:

The Illini were without Rayvonte Rice as he continued to heal his broken hand, but that didn't seem to matter much in this simulation. They came out hot from deep including two Aaron Cosby three-pointers that put them on top of the Huskers 12-7 early and that helped silence the crowd. But Nebraska was pesky and Terran Petteway put together a little 5-0 scoring run of his own to bring the score back to even.

It was about halfway through the first half when the Illini made their run, a run that would dig a hole so deep the Huskers never managed to climb out of it. Backed by Cosby and fellow guard Kendrick Nunn, Illinois went on a 16-2 run where they seemingly couldn't miss. Egwu had two tremendous dunks, Starks hit from deep several times, and even Jaylon Tate made a couple of mid-range jumpers. Tim Miles called two timeouts during the midst of the run, but the Illini never let up and went into halftime with nearly double the Huskers' score.

Halftime: Illinois 40, Nebraska 23

2nd Half:

However, it was a different story in the second half. The Illini seemed content to bleed the clock and were no longer running their up-tempo offense. Nebraska switched to a full-court pressure defense which led to many sloppy turnovers. Nunn committed four bad ones and Hill threw in three more. A 9-0 Huskers run made it 53-46 with just under seven minutes left in the game, and it looked like Illinois was about to choke away another game.

But then Kendrick Nunn and Aaron Cosby hit back-to-back three's that forced Nebraska to call another timeout. Suddenly the Illini were back up by thirteen and with only a few minutes remaining they were well on their way to victory. Leron Black, Austin Colbert, and Mike LaTulip finally entered the game for Illinois and managed to combine for six rebounds and three assists. It was an all-around solid effort by John Groce's squad, and Rayvonte Rice, who was in a suit on the sidelines, managed to fist pump and clap several times throughout the game. I guess that virtually broken hand of his is getting better already?

Final: Illinois 63, Nebraska 51

You can check out the complete box scores from the simulation below.