Rare to compare, ASU men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek often shies away from using superlatives when discussing his team.

Sunday, though, even the skilled question dodger himself heaped praise upon the No. 19 Sun Devils after their 64-44 win over visiting Nebraska.

When asked if his team had just played its best defensive game of the season, Sendek responded, “I’m not good at comparisons. The only game I can hardly remember is this one. But so far this year, that would probably be a yes.

“I think I think that’s a yes.”

The Sun Devils (7-1) held Nebraska to just a 28.9 percent shooting on the day. The Cornhuskers made 13 of 45 field goals, including eight from 3-point range.

Nebraska (6-1) looked flustered by ASU’s matchup-zone defense, enduring prolonged dry spells on a couple of occasions, the first of which came right before intermission.

Junior guard Ryan Anderson hit a close bucket to put Nebraska up 16-15 with 6:21 left in the half, but it was the team’s final lead of the game.

ASU closed out the half on a 15-2 run, getting a 3-pointer from sophomores James Harden, Ty Abbott and Rihards Kuksiks along the way.

The Sun Devils also held Nebraska scoreless for a key stretch in the second half. With 14:09 left in the game, freshman guard Toney McCray nailed a 3-pointer to cut Nebraska’s deficit to 35-27. The team didn’t score for more than seven minutes after that.

The contest did get a bit heated at times; after all, ASU was trying to exact revenge on the same team that handed it an embarrassing 62-47 loss last year in Lincoln.

“We remembered what they did to us last year,” Harden said. “We had to come out with more aggressiveness and just [execute], doing what we do.”

Against Nebraska last season, Harden managed just eight points and had seven turnovers. Sunday, he ho-hum’ed his way to a game-high 20 points after having just six points on 1 of 5 shooting at the break. He also grabbed nine rebounds.

Senior forward Jeff Pendergraph (four points, 10 rebounds), Abbott (15 points, eight rebounds) and Kuksiks (18 points, six rebounds) helped out on the boards too.

In all, ASU outrebounded Nebraska 37-25.

“We’re doing a better job of pursuing the ball, going after the ball and rebounding,” Harden said. “Not letting our man get inside position on us and get the rebound. If we don’t, we’ve got three hours of film [study] coming after the game or practice, and we don’t want that.”

It didn’t hurt to play a Nebraska lineup that featured five guards at all times, none of which are taller than 6 feet, 6 inches.

Aside from defense and rebounding, Abbott’s and Kuksiks’ performances highlighted the contest for ASU.

The pair combined for six 3-pointers and more than half of the team’s scoring output.

Reach the reporter at alex.espinoza@asu.edu.