Morgan's Double-Double, Essegian's 5 3S Help Nebraska Beat Murray St. 66-49 At Diamond Head Classic

HONOLULU (AP) — Andrew Morgan scored 12 points and grabbed a season-high 12 rebounds, Connor Essegian hit five 3-pointers and added 15 points Sunday night and Nebraska beat Murray State 66-49 at the Diamond Head Classic.

Nebraska (8-2) plays host Hawaii in the second round on Monday. The Racers take on Charlotte in the consolation bracket.

Murray State (6-5) missed its first eight shots and started the game shooting 1 of 16 from the field.

Juwan Gary made a jumper to open the scoring with 18:44 left in the first half and Nebraska led the rest of the way. The 6-foot-6 senior converted a traditional three-point play about 4 minutes later that sparked a 16-0 that made it 22-4 when Brice Williams stole a pass from Jacobi Wood and went the other way for a layup with 9:05 remaining the first.

Kylen Milton made back-to-back 3s, was fouled and the second and hit the and-1 free throw to complete the four-point play to cut Murray State's deficit to 11 a little more than a minute later. Essegian answered with a 3-pointer 24 seconds later and then hit another from behind as the Cornhuskers scored 12 of the final 15 points to take a 34-14 lead into halftime.

Milton led Murray State with 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting — including a high-flying dunk along the baseline with a little more than 10 minutes to play. The rest of the Racers players combined to shoot 25% (10 of 40) from the field.

Rollie Worster scored 11 points for Nebraska.

___

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball