LINCOLN, NEB. ? If you knew nothing about Nebraska University men’s basketball Saturday before you walked into the Devaney Center, you’d be mighty impressed.

You would walk around the Cornhuskers’ arena and gawk with wonder at the halls of fame nestled in each of the corners of the structure built in 1976 with cigarette-tax dollars.

Then you would make your way to your seat, open your scorebook and notice coach Barry Collier has seven players who stand 6-foot-8 or taller on his roster. Boy, do they look good in pregame warm-ups.

Momentarily, it would be game time and you’d look up at one of the two Dynavision screens high above the east and west ends and watch with amazement a computer-graphics spectacular — a basketball whizzing through Nebraska, then through cornfields and on into the Devaney Center, where the ball eventually crashes into a stone emblazoned with a Jayhawk logo and crumbles it into three or four pieces.

Finally, Lil’ Red, the world’s greatest college mascot (in my opinion, anyway), comes bouncing onto the floor like the Pillsbury Doughboy on steroids, and — wow — you’re ready. Bring it on.

Then they tip it off and not much time expires before you realize the Cornhuskers may look good in airports with all that size, and they may have one of the Big 12 Conference’s best pregame atmospheres, but — whew — the Huskers are really and truly a band of brick-launchers.

So brutal were the Huskers in Saturday’s 81-51 loss to Kansas — the worst NU defeat in the Devaney Center since it opened in 1976 — that the loudest ovations of the afternoon occurred at halftime, when a trio of dogs performed a dazzling array of Frisbee disc-fetching feats.

You know you’re bad when you’re upstaged by a bunch of pooches.

Further evidence of Nebraska’s basketball ineptitude: An Omaha World-Herald columnist, dispatched to Lincoln to wax poetic about the Kansas invasion, departed without writing a word. “I called in sick,” the writer said as he trundled out the door of the media room.

Second-year Nebraska coach Barry Collier certainly gave the Omaha writer nothing to comment upon. Collier, whose emotions appear to run the gamut from A to B and who has been described by some as a human dial tone, delivered his post-game analysis in a matter-of-fact way, saying the Huskers didn’t shoot well enough, rebound well enough or take care of the ball. No kidding.

What Collier didn’t say is that his team will be lucky if it wins another game in the Big 12 Conference. NU’s lone league win was an 80-77 overtime victory over Colorado in Lincoln. How this team could score 80 points in beyond me.

Still, as weak as Nebraska’s basketball team is, I don’t want to take anything away from KU’s victory. This was the Jayhawks’ first league game away from home since that stunning 60-59 loss at Colorado, and it was important to prove the defeat in Boulder was a fluke, a January anomaly.

Kansas shot only 32.8 percent against the Buffaloes — curiously, that’s what Nebraska shot against KU on Saturday — but the Jayhawks made 43.1 percent this time, thanks mainly to 21 offensive boards and several stick-backs.

The Jayhawks’ outside shooting, so ineffective in last Saturday’s 91-74 home loss to Arizona, was again uninspiring. KU players clanked 17 of 23 three-point attempts against the Huskers.

Still, this is the time in the season when you have to win the games you’re supposed to win, and that’s basically what the Jayhawks did on Saturday.

Don’t make too much of the 30-point margin, though, because today is Groundhog Day, and whatever Punxsutawney Phil says doesn’t matter. Nebraska can count on six more weeks of bad basketball.