For as ice cold as Colorado was Sunday in terms of shooting, Nebraska was the polar opposite, hitting 49% of its shots and 44% of its three-pointers en route to an 82-67 win over the Buffaloes.

CU, conversely, couldn’t buy a shot, as evidenced by the Buffs’ 28% (8-of-29) conversion rate in the first 20 minutes, which slightly improved by game’s end to 32% (23-of-71).

The Huskers making it rain from all corners of the hardwood, combined with costly early turnovers as well as nonexistent offensive contributions from the likes of Evan Battey, Jabari Walker and Eli Parquet, who scored a combined 10 points on 3-of-21 shooting (Battey was 0-for-10, with Parquet failing to make any of his three shots) ensured that the Buffaloes would not be leaving Lincoln with a victory.

Sunday’s charity exhibition, which benefits numerous organizations in the Lincoln area, a game and design that the Huskers will make their way to Boulder for next season, was looked forward to by Tad Boyle as a way to get his youthful roster experience in playing good competition in a hostile road environment.

After the Buffs beat up on Division II powerhouse Colorado Mines earlier this week, they found a far more capable opponent Sunday in the Huskers.

“Look, this is exactly what our team needed right now, to get smacked in the face like we did, and hopefully learn from it and do something about it as we move forward,” Boyle said after the loss. “That’s why we played this exhibition, to learn about ourselves...it was a good test for us, just to see where we’re at and we learned we’ve got a long ways to go, both defensively and offensively, in order to play big boy basketball.”

Colorado trailed by as much as 22 Sunday, and although the Buffs managed to get their deficit down to 12 points a few times late in the second half, Nebraska kept things very much out of reach for the entirety of the game.

Keeshawn Barthelemy scored the Buffs’ first six points of the game, but by the under-16 media timeout, Colorado was already in a hole, trailing, 11-6.

While that did not exactly constitute an unmanageable deficit, such a deficit proved to be just around the corner for the Buffs, who coughed up six turnovers in about a three-minute span that Nebraska converted into three straight made three-pointers, which in turn gave the Huskers a 30-9 lead.

“They were shooting it at a high clip and we talked about it before the game, that they have a lot of shooters,” sophomore guard Nique Clifford said. “A lot of their players are scorers — they can drive or shoot...We’ve got to be able to guard people who can shoot and drive. I think we have to do a better job of closing out and taking away three-pointers.”

Clifford had a performance worthy of team MVP honors for the Buffs, as he shot 5-of-10 from the field and scored 12 points, which tied redshirt sophomore Keeshawn Barthelemy for the team lead.

Clifford also chipped in eight rebounds, which tied senior Evan Battey for the team lead.

It was a particularly brutal day of shooting for Battey, whose two second half free throws were all he had to show offensively to go along with his aforementioned shooting clip of 0-for-10.

Sophomore Luke O’Brien had a consistent game, scoring five points in the first half and adding six in the second, while fellow sophomore Tristan da Silva managed to score 10 points, as well.

Freshman guard KJ Simpson looked shaky to start the game but settled down nicely in the second half, draining one of only three three-pointers CU made on the day while grabbing six boards and dishing out a team-high three assists.

He finished with nine points.

Barthelemy gave the Buffaloes a nice spark early in the second half, pickpocketing a Nebraska inbound attempt and making a quick layup as well as the and-1 free throw to trim CU’s deficit to 13 points.

Unfortunately for the Buffs, there was no slowing down Nebraska offensively, whether it was from long range or driving through the lane, the Huskers found a way to score the ball.

“They made us pay for our breakdowns,” Boyle said. “That’s really what it came down to. It’s not as simple as just a make-miss game, they made shots and we didn’t make shots, but we had some really, really good looks. We had cut (the deficit) down to (13) early in the second half, we had it down to 12 a couple times — we couldn’t get over the hump because we couldn’t make a shot.”

Shot selection was something Boyle touched on in his postgame press conference. The Buffaloes without question failed to put the ball in the basket on a number of looks near the rim as well as from long range, but multiple players were guilty of tossing up ill-advised shots.

“We’ve got to get rid of the tough 2s,” Boyle said. “We’ve got to take layups and finish at the rim...we’ve got to be able to make shots at the rim, whether (there’s) contact or no contact, we’ve got to finish — that’s part of toughness — and we’ve got to be able to make an open three at some point. Otherwise, we’re going to put a lot of pressure on our defense and a lot of pressure on our offensive rebounding.”

Losing by only 15 points, all things considered, seems a far better result than expected when the Buffs struggled as much as they did offensively.

For Boyle’s youthful Buffaloes, Sunday’s loss to the Huskers proved to be a humbling experience ahead of the regular season opener against Montana State Nov. 9.

With much to address, clean up and figure out before then, Boyle and the Buffs will likely be taking a deep dive into the game film from Sunday's loss at Nebraska.

“The question is, what are we going to do about it, as players and as coaches, to get better? Because that’s the whole idea," Boyle said. "It’s Oct. 31. I was looking forward to this opportunity, and we’re not going to hit a panic button by any means. We’re just going to figure out how we have to get better as we move forward.”