Nebraska's Steve Harley steps out of bounds against Missouri on Thursday. Harley is Nebraska's second-leading scorer at 9.4 points per game.

Kansas City, Mo. ? It’s not often a first-team all-Big 12 basketball pick fails to score a single point in a pivotal league game.

But that’s exactly what happened on Jan. 26, when Nebraska senior center Aleks Maric went 0-for-6 from the field and 0-for-2 from the free-throw line in the Cornhuskers’ 84-49 loss to Kansas University in Allen Fieldhouse.

“We did a great job on Maric,” KU coach Bill Self said of Sasha Kaun, Darnell Jackson and Cole Aldrich suffocating the 6-foot-11, 270-pounder from Sydney, Australia in his unproductive 21-minute stint.

“How often is that going to happen he’s not going to score? That’s not going to happen again.”

While KU hopes to contain Maric in today’s 6 p.m., Big 12 tournament quarterfinal contest at Sprint Center, nobody’s expecting another blanking.

Since the shutout in Allen Fieldhouse, Maric – he had 19 points against KU in the Jayhawks’ 79-58 victory in Lincoln – has scored in double figures in 13 consecutive games.

He’s also had double-digit rebounding efforts in 12 of those 13 contests, including 13 rebounds to go with 17 points in Thursday’s 61-56 first-round Big 12 tourney victory over Missouri.

“We trapped him some when they had two bigs in the game, but for the most part just guarded him,” Self said of Maric, who has failed to score just five times in his four seasons at NU – two of those games against KU. “He got off some good looks he’d normally make, but for the most part had limited touches.”

Maric admittedly has had a tough time in averaging just 10.0 points and 5.5 boards in nine career losses without a victory versus the Jayhawks.

“They do everything. They’ve got so many big bodies, and they keep rotating and rotating and rotating to try and wear me down,” Maric said after Thursday’s victory. “They trap me, double down, rotate bodies. They keep coming, keep coming. It’s like the ants’ nest. You kill one, and what happens? A million more come.”

Just two Huskers scored in double figures in the victory over Mizzou. Junior guard Steve Harley, who averaged 9.2 points and 1.6 assists overall in the regular season, scored 14 points off 6-of-11 shooting. He hit two of four threes on a night NU made just three of 13.

“Nebraska has played very well the last month. Harley is coming into his own,” Self said. “Doc (Sadler, second-year coach) has them playing at a high level.”

The Huskers (19-11) have won five of their last seven games and appear to be a lock for the NIT if they do not garner an automatic bid to the NCAAs by winning this weekend’s tourney.

“We’ve played Nebraska twice and played really well both times,” Self said of KU’s 21-point win in Lincoln and 35-point victory in Lawrence. “You’ve heard the old adage: ‘It’s always tough playing a team a third time.’ We have to be ready to play and be excited to play. I’d love to say we’d play great again. It will not be one of those games (where) the outcome will be decided early in the game.”

KU junior Brandon Rush is a big reason the Jayhawks have devoured the Huskers twice.

He hit five of seven threes and had 17 points in Lawrence after also making five of seven threes and scoring 19 in Lincoln.

“Nebraska is playing well now,” Rush said. “They have changed since the last time we played.”

He’s hoping for another big game against NU, this one in his hometown.

“I’m from Kansas City. I definitely feel love in Kansas City,” said Rush, who will have his mom, dad, grandmother and brother JaRon in the stands tonight. “I feel good playing in the Sprint Center. It’s a great arena, big like an NBA arena. We had a good game in there before. I’m looking forward to playing in there again.”

Rush had 13 points off 4-of-11 shooting in KU’s 88-51 victory over Ohio on Dec. 15 in Sprint Center, which opened this season in downtown K.C.

A victory today would guarantee KU another game in the arena – Saturday’s 3:20 p.m. tourney semifinals. Finals will be 2 p.m. on Sunday, with CBS’s Selection Sunday TV show set for 5 p.m.