Nebraska has never won an NCAA Tournament game. So how are the Huskers — now 20-0 — doing this?
LINCOLN, Neb. — In late February of 2022, with Nebraska sitting at 1-15 in the Big Ten, third-year coach Fred Hoiberg agreed to a pay cut. Then-athletic director Trev Alberts announced in a news release that Hoiberg had “presented a plan” to turn the program around.
This was a lifeline, the final straw before termination.
At the time, Hoiberg was 6-49 in the Big Ten over three years. Hoiberg restructured because he thought if he didn’t, he would have had to cut staff. “I didn’t want to affect people’s lives that way,” he said.
That offseason was a hard reset.
Nebraska changed how it practiced, prepared and recruited. It focused on roster construction over talent accumulation. Assistant coach Nate Loenser came up with a mantra: “Respect 94,” as in the 94 feet from baseline to baseline. Loenser, a big Chicago Cubs fan, stole the idea from former Cubs manager Joe Maddon, who coined “Respect 90,” referencing the distance between the base paths, and the idea that you hustle between bases no matter the circumstances. That helped the Cubs break a 108-year drought and win the World Series.
Nebraska was, and is, in its own humiliating drought: It is the only power-conference program that has never won a men’s NCAA Tournament game. But in Nebraska’s 130th year of basketball, it looks like the program is ready to slay its own demons.
The Cornhuskers, picked to finish 14th in the Big Ten, are one of three unbeaten teams left in college basketball at 20-0 and head to No. 3 Michigan on Tuesday alone in first place in the league. Nationally, Nebraska is No. 5 in the Associated Press Top 25, the highest ranking in school history. It entered this week as a projected No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, inspiring hope this is finally the year it wins in March. If men’s college basketball is looking for an Indiana football equivalent, the Huskers could be the closest thing.
HE HIT IT‼️
Jamarques Lawrence’s 3-pointer right before the buzzer sends No. 23 @HuskerMBB to a dramatic win at No. 13 Illinois. pic.twitter.com/PhSr8kmnQn
— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) December 13, 2025
On a recent drive to Lincoln, a longtime basketball man called, and when he found out my destination, he asked a question the rest of the sport is wondering: “Are you going to find out how in the heck this team is any good?”
Nebraska’s eight-man rotation includes two former walk-ons — Sam Hoiberg and Cale Jacobsen. Sixth man Braden Frager redshirted last year and played on the scout team. Leading scorer Pryce Sandfort came off the bench for a bad Iowa team last season. Starting point guard Jamarques Lawrence played two seasons at Nebraska, transferred to Rhode Island last year, averaged 9.9 points on a 10th-place team in the Atlantic 10 and boomeranged back to Nebraska. Starting power forward Berke Buyuktuncel averaged just 4.5 points as a freshman at UCLA before transferring to Nebraska. And starting center Rienk Mast, from Groningen, Netherlands, had osteochondritis dissecans in his left knee, a condition, according to the Mayo Clinic, in which bone underneath the cartilage of a joint dies due to lack of blood flow. Mast had surgery in 2024, missed last year, and moves like a savvy old vet at the Y in knee pads.
The Huskers are not exactly a modern college basketball superteam, but they’ve become Hoiberg’s perfect team, an embodiment of the way to reshape the culture of a program. And a change from the blueprint Hoiberg patented in five seasons at Iowa State, when he made four consecutive NCAA Tournaments and became one of the hottest coaching candidates in the country.
Originally, the belief was Hoiberg was going to run it back the Iowa State way. Nebraska was his landing mat in March of 2019, four months after he was fired midway through his fourth season with the Chicago Bulls.
At Nebraska, he found a program with a similarly passionate fan base — one that was actually a second home. Before Hoiberg was “The Mayor” in Ames, where he starred for Ames High in football and basketball and for Iowa State’s basketball program in the early 1990s, Hoiberg was actually born in Lincoln. His grandpa on his mother’s side, Jerry Bush, coached the Huskers from 1954 to 1963. His grandpa on his father’s side was a professor at Nebraska for 30 years. Hoiberg was a diehard Nebraska football fan as a kid and even got recruited to play quarterback by Tom Osborne.
At the time of the hire, Hoiberg was viewed as the savior, the coach who could finally end one of the most embarrassing streaks in college hoops.
There was just one issue: The sport had changed.
At Iowa State, Hoiberg was the original transfer whisperer. He returned to the sport to find a lot of programs winning with transfers. Hoiberg was also the only new coach in the Big Ten in his first season, and as former Michigan coach John Beilein told him years later, he was the only one trying to rebuild.
“A massive rebuild,” Hoiberg said. “Did I think we would be able to flip it a little quicker? Probably. But it was all about getting the right people in the program.”
In his first three seasons in Lincoln, Hoiberg had mostly the wrong ones. Sam Hoiberg, who decided to walk on for his dad and began school in year three, remembers arriving to a fractured culture.
“We weren’t close,” he said. “There were not many guys on the team that were like really good friends. It wasn’t cliquey. It was almost like everyone was kind of separate. The main emphasis at the time was not really winning. We didn’t go into games expecting to win.”
Nebraska’s progression under Hoiberg
YearOverall recordBig Ten recordPostseason result
2019-20
7-25
2-18
N/A
2020-21
7-20
3-16
N/A
2021-22
10-22
4-16
N/A
2022-23
16-16
9-11
N/A
2023-24
23-11
12-8
NCAA Tournament first round
2024-25
21-14
7-13
Won College Basketball Crown
2025-26
20-0
9-0
TBD
The standard has changed. That was apparent last Tuesday when Sam Hoiberg, taking a break on the bench, watched as recruiting coordinator Padyn Borders, playing on the scout team, grabbed an offensive rebound. Borders, who played at Peru State, a rural Nebraska NAIA school, was listed at 5-foot-10 in his playing days. In the land of giants, Borders should not be grabbing any rebound, and Hoiberg shouted across the floor to let his teammates know it.
“Not acceptable red! Finish the play.”
A few minutes later, it was the young Hoiberg hearing it from his pops. Fred Hoiberg watched as Sam had a pass intercepted, then hesitated before running back.
“Get back!” Hoiberg yelled at his son. “What the f— are you doing? Get back!”
After a few days in Lincoln, it was clear Nebraska wins because it plays harder than its opponent. Its players care deeply about the place. And being from Nebraska is not a requirement, but it’s a bonus.
“We have 15,000 that come to every home game,” Jacobsen, a Ashland, Neb. native, said recently. “They’re not coming to watch a ball go out of bounds.”
Del Johnson, a 64-year-old retired CFO who lives in New Jersey, was born a Nebraska fan because his parents grew up on farms in Nebraska. He has been alive to watch the Huskers lose in the first round of all eight of their NCAA Tournament appearances, including in 1991, when the third-seeded Huskers were upset by 14th-seeded Xavier. Danny Nee had it rolling in the early 1990s, making the NCAA Tournament for four straight seasons with Huskers great Eric Piatkowski. Three of those teams were the higher seed in March. Didn’t matter.
Johnson said he became accustomed to Nebraska finding a way to blow a game. But this month, he told his son he wasn’t going to say that anymore.
“This year it just hasn’t happened,” he said last week, watching warmups from the front row at Pinnacle Bank Arena. “They just play well.”
Hoiberg knew he had something special this summer when “the ball went in the basket a lot more than it did a year ago.” That was the byproduct of a decision he made last spring to build around Mast, who was the hub of his 2023-24 team that made the NCAA Tournament and likely saved his job.
Hoiberg’s best teams have always had a playmaking big, and had Mast been healthy last season, Hoiberg believed the Huskers would have been one of the best teams in the Big Ten. Hoiberg was worried if Mast could fully recover from his knee condition. But “he’s the most disciplined, mature player that I’ve maybe ever coached at any level,” Hoiberg said. “So if anybody was going to bounce back and get to 100 percent, it was Rienk.”
He has, averaging a career-high 14.6 points per game.
Rienk Mast (center) has returned from a serious knee injury to have the best year of his career. (Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images)
To space the floor around Mast, Hoiberg needed a shooter. His top target was Sandfort, who Nebraska recruited when he was in high school, and who Hoiberg believed he was capable of a bigger role than what he’d played at Iowa.
The sell was easy. Sandfort, who is from Waukee, Iowa, grew up an Iowa State fan and attended Hoiberg’s camps. He remembered the Hoiberg twins — “They were the popular kids at the camp, obviously,” Sandfort said of Sam and Charlie, a grad assistant this year — and Sandfort also grew up rooting for Nebraska football.
“It was really hard telling them no (the first time),” Sandfort said, “because I knew how well I’d fit in here and the opportunity to play for my childhood hero.”
Sandfort has been one of the steals of the transfer portal. He has already made a career-high 68 3-pointers, is shooting a career-best 41.7 percent from deep, leads the Huskers in scoring (17.3 points per game) and has proven he can be more than a spot-up shooter, occasionally attacking off the bounce in addition to running off endless screens.
At Iowa State, Hoiberg used to watch NBA games and scribble plays on napkins late at night. Social media has expedited the process these days, but he’s still a mad scientist at practice, often inserting a new play when he sees an opportunity.
“He’s a genius offensive mind,” said Sandfort, who has recently started to get face-guarded because teams are scared of giving him an open shot. “It kind of gets me excited seeing how we’re going to get me open or get someone else open.”
Nebraska’s other knockdown shooter is Frager, an even bigger surprise than Sandfort. A hometown Lincoln product, Frager redshirted last season and Hoiberg nearly lifted his redshirt because there were days he would light up the starters on the scout team. Hoiberg wasn’t sure how quickly that would translate in a more organized setting, but suspected Frager would have the confidence because of his “swagger.”
“We needed a guy like that,” Hoiberg said of Frager, who is the team’s third-leading scorer, who scored 43 points in his last two games before spraining his ankle last week in a win against Washington. “We needed a guy with an edge and he’s certainly provided that for us.”
But the biggest surprise may be Hoiberg’s son Sam, who didn’t even want his dad to take the Nebraska job.
The Iowa State years, when Hoiberg and the Cyclones were winning, were a blast, Sam Hoiberg said. But then he endured life as a coach’s son while his father struggled to a 115-155 record in the NBA.
“With the Bulls, it was not fun,” he said.
Hoiberg’s first three years at Nebraska weren’t much better. His son was part of the solution.
Fred Hoiberg had great success at Iowa State, but needed to reset his coaching career after the Chicago Bulls fired him in 2018. (Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images)
Sam Hoiberg initially saw his job as a uniter, inviting his teammates over so they could bond. He didn’t think he was good enough to play at Nebraska, but he started to develop confidence during his redshirt year in 2021-22 when former grad assistant Hallice Cooke encouraged him to guard five-star freshman Bryce McGowens.
That March, the Hoiberg twins played in an alumni game at their old high school in Lincoln, and Sam Hoiberg scored 40-plus and made a bunch of 3s. Charlie Hoiberg, who went to TCU for undergrad, was shocked at how much better his brother had gotten. With his brother’s encouragement, Sam Hoiberg started to believe he could play a role for Nebraska.
The next year, he initially wasn’t part of the rotation, but in late January of 2023, he got a chance because of injuries. He played 17 minutes in a home loss to Northwestern. The next game, he scored 15 points — making all three of his 3-point attempts — against Maryland, and while the Huskers lost that one, a week later, their fortunes started to flip. Guard Keisei Tominaga turned into a sensation, scoring 30 points against Penn State and staying hot throughout February. The Huskers won five of six and cooled Hoiberg’s seat.
“That was honestly one of the most fun times I’ve had playing basketball because I wasn’t too worried about my dad’s job at that point,” Sam Hoiberg said. “That’s pretty important because that would have added a lot of pressure in that moment, but I felt like once we got some of those wins, we really just played free because you weren’t playing to make the tournament. There was a freedom we were playing with and we were having fun playing together and kind of setting the standard for what we play like now.”
His dad joked that he had to figure out a way to play his son more or he was going to get a divorce. Now there’s no debating he belongs. Hoiberg is averaging 9.0 points per game, leads the team in assists (4.2 per game), is knocking down 39.1 percent of his 3s and puts pressure on the rim by flying by defenders on the bounce or with timely cuts. He’s also one of the best defenders in the Big Ten and has become a favorite among opposing Big Ten coaches for how hard he plays.
“He’s like intense energy,” Mast said. “So much passion.”
Sam Hoiberg’s backcourt mate is Lawrence, who Hoiberg surprised in the spring when he was Lawrence’s first call once he reentered the transfer portal. It was an easy decision to return after a year at Rhode Island.
“I missed the culture aspect,” Lawrence said. “It was a level of joy going into practice that I just didn’t feel my year away.”
The Huskers have four players averaging double figures and Buyuktuncel, the sixth-leading scorer, is at 7.5 points per game. Five Huskers average at least two assists. Nebraska will go entire possessions with the ball barely touching the floor, and they move with terrific pace and purpose.
It’s no surprise a Hoiberg-coached team is aesthetically pleasing to watch. The surprise with this group, which Hoiberg says lacks “athleticism and speed,” is its defense is even better.
When Hoiberg hit reset in 2022, he divided his staff like a football team and made Loenser his defensive coordinator, while he would take the offense.
Loenser decided to employ the no-middle defense — a defense that prevents opponents from using the middle of the floor — that Texas Tech made famous when it made a surprise run to the national title game in 2019. Iowa State also employs the defense, so Loenser had a couple of teams to study. But he also needed to adjust the scheme to fit Hoiberg, whose best teams had rarely fouled.
“We didn’t have the depth to necessarily be a carbon copy,” Loenser said. “I still knew that Fred was going to recruit to some skill. We had to have the ability to be more of a system than just straight out-athlete people.”
Nebraska’s defense has been the second-best in Big Ten play this season, holding seven of nine conference opponents below 70 points. (Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images)
The system change worked, with Nebraska going from ranking 178th in adjusted defensive efficiency in 2021-22 to 69th in 2022-23. This season, the Huskers have climbed to 11th. By forcing opponents to the baseline, Nebraska always has a help defender waiting and forces teams into playing in a crowd. The Huskers are also one of the best switching teams in the country, often keeping Mast and Buyuktuncel near the paint.
“We all protect each other,” Lawrence said. “You’re not by yourself, and you know you have help.”
It’s almost like the Huskers transform once they cross half-court. On defense, they play with an intensity that reflects Loenser on the defensive end. At Nebraska’s practices, Loenser is the loudest voice.
On offense, the Huskers have adopted Hoiberg’s quiet calm in the biggest moments. They’ve won on last-second plays against Kansas State and Illinois and rallied from a 16-point second-half deficit at Indiana.
“Not one guy in the huddle was hanging their heads, not one guy was staring at the floor,” Hoiberg said. “There was eye contact, and they just always have a belief to them. Obviously that seemed like a very dire situation, and all of a sudden we go on a run. That’s the maturity of this group. They’ve got a really good demeanor to them. And it’s hopefully going to bode well for us in stressful times.”
The Hoiberg twins are roommates with Mast, and they have basketball discussions constantly. Sam Hoiberg gives Mast credit because he never allows his teammates to get ahead of themselves — last week it was, “we have Washington next” — but Hoiberg brought up that making the NCAA Tournament is a foregone conclusion now, and Mast wanted to address the pressure.
“Pressure is a privilege, like they say,” Mast said. “And yeah, it’s something that we are painfully aware of.
“Playing with a century of that feeling on your shoulders, that’s a lot.”
Two years ago, the last time Nebraska made the tournament, it led Texas A&M by 7 early but trailed by 14 at halftime in a 98-83 loss. Sam Hoiberg said they “rode the emotions of the moment.”
“We didn’t talk much about advancing far in the tournament,” he said. “We just were so focused on getting that one win for this program. We’re not gonna ride the emotional roller-coaster of playing in a tournament game. We’re gonna stay level the same way we have all year.”
It’s the first time they’ve allowed themselves to dream.
Fred Hoiberg knew Pinnacle Bank Arena would become one of the toughest places to play in college basketball once he got it rolling, because Husker fans show up even when they’re losing. Last week, before the Washington game, Andy Katz, the sideline reporter for that night’s game, asked Hoiberg if it was a sellout.
“Every game,” Hoiberg said.
Nebraska fans stormed the court after a win over Michigan State on Jan. 2. (Dylan Widger / Imagn Images)
Johnson, the 64-year-old retired CFO, usually attends the opener every year with his mom, who lives in Lincoln, but the Washington game was already his third this season and he has plans to attend three more.
When he’s asked if Nebraska could end up the equivalent to Indiana football this March, he says “we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” but he admits this is the most fun he’s ever had watching Nebraska basketball.
“Not even close,” he said.
After every win, Hoiberg asks his players if they’re satisfied. Every time, they’ve told him no.
“All right, well good,” he tells them. “Let’s move past it, move on to tomorrow, and get back to work.”
But Hoiberg did tell his players recently that they have to enjoy it. When he looks back on his Iowa State days, he wishes he had enjoyed it more.
“When you’re in this position,” he said, “you remember the heartache so much more than you remember the victories for some stupid reason.”
The Huskers have fought off those heartbreaks thus far. Loenser gave them another new slogan a few weeks back: We signed up for a marathon and not a 5K or a 10K.
“To me, as soon as you get comfortable,” Hoiberg said, “as soon you lose your edge, it’s over.”
