OKLAHOMA CITY — Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg sets the standard for calm and measured among the 16 head coaches left in the NCAA Tournament.
Dan Hurley, Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino, Brad Underwood, Kelvin Sampson, Rick Barnes and Sean Miller need not apply. Hoiberg’s adversary Thursday in Houston, Iowa’s Ben McCollum — in the first Sweet 16 ever for Nebraska and first in 27 years for Iowa — just sent it right back the other way to vicious trash-talker Todd Golden amid a shocker over Florida. Of the rest, demeanors vary, but only Hoiberg can yell at officials and still manage to do it in a sort of friendly way.
But no, he isn’t always like that.
“Oh, there’s an intense side that you guys don’t really see at all,” Nebraska guard Jamarques Lawrence said.
“He’s very kind of level in front of the media and everything, but he’s actually a pretty goofy guy,” said Hoiberg’s son and starting point guard, Sam Hoiberg, citing his father’s behavior during epic family sessions of the board game Catch Phrase. “He’s kind of the family clown.”
Fred Hoiberg himself has bristled when asked if he yells at his team — of course he does — and last week gave a real-life example of emotions getting the better of him: the “meltdown” he would have as a kid on the rare occasions his beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers football team would lose. As with the screamers left in the field, there’s more to the person than relatively brief public glimpses convey.
The next question is whether there’s more to his program. The next one after that: How much more? South Region No. 4 seed Nebraska (28-6) is a rubber-match victory over No. 9 seed Iowa (23-12) away from following up the first NCAA Tournament win in program history and the first Sweet 16 with the first Elite Eight — and if No. 3 seed Illinois (26-8) beats No. 2 seed Houston (30-6) on the other side, the Huskers would square up for a Final Four spot against another team they split with, winning on the road.
This is the best story, the closest thing to a Cinderella, remaining in the tournament. That’s because of the program history unfolding. It’s the fact Nebraska fans are beyond melting down about football losses and deserved something like this. It’s Hoiberg’s own history — a grandfather who used to coach Nebraska basketball and another who taught sociology at the university — and the family experience he’s sharing with Sam and Sam’s twin brother, graduate manager Charlie.
It’s the seven-year journey to this point, including two seven-win seasons, a pay cut and a philosophy change. And it’s the general likability at hand. You’ve got the Hoibergs but also Lawrence returning home to his rightful basketball home after a year at Rhode Island, and Pryce Sandfort starring after playing with his brother as a reserve at Iowa, and Lincoln’s own fiery freshman Braden Frager scoring the basket to beat Vanderbilt in a classic, and Rienk Mast leading and facilitating on a knee that probably shouldn’t allow him to play.
Now the idea is to make this the norm. To cease reducing lifelong fans to tears with each March triumph. To get less likable.
Moments after Thursday’s win over Troy to taste the first NCAA Tournament success in nine all-time Nebraska attempts, that’s what athletic director Troy Dannen was talking about outside the victorious locker room — sustained success.
“He’s found the formula for winning at Nebraska,” Dannen said of Hoiberg. “There’s a lot of (recruits) who are gonna like the way that the program treats the athletes, and the way the fans treat the athletes.”
Hoiberg has two four-star, top-100 recruits signed for next season in 6-foot-8 Colin Rice from Waukee, Iowa — Sandfort’s hometown — and 6-foot-5 Jacob Lanier from Little Rock, Ark. Hoiberg beat out Iowa and Illinois for Rice, and TCU and Ole Miss for Lanier. Those are quality adds. But Hoiberg’s here with an old team right now, will lose three foundational seniors from this team and, like most other coaches, must count on transfer-portal scores each spring.
Nebraska general manager Luca Virgilio said the NCAA Tournament success “will definitely help the perception out there” of Nebraska basketball. It also gives Hoiberg a platform to sell. He took advantage in Oklahoma City.
“What it does to help us moving forward, I don’t know,” Hoiberg said. “We live in a weird world right now with NIL and all those different things, and the portal, that we deal with. But it doesn’t hurt. I think the system and the style that we play, if you’re a skilled big, it’s a great system for you. … If you can shoot the basketball, you see what Pryce is doing in our system this year, and Braden, and multiskilled players. Yeah, I mean, when everything opens up and we try to reconstruct the roster, we’ll talk a lot about this. We’ll have edits and be able to show potential recruits on what it looks like if they come here.”
They’ll have financial discussions, too, of course. As fulfilling as this season has been for Nebraska, the view from the Sweet 16 also reminds of the difficulty of the neighborhood.
Look at what McCollum did in his first season in Iowa City. Look at Dusty May’s two-year rocket ship of success at Michigan. Izzo at Michigan State, Underwood at Illinois, Matt Painter at Purdue — they aren’t going anywhere.
And football school Indiana hasn’t stopped investing in the search for its former hardwood glory. Same with basketball school Nebraska and its former gridiron glory.
“I can tell you we’re not at the top,” Virgilio said of the program’s payroll compared with the rest of the Big Ten. “I think we’re right around the bottom. Not bottom, bottom, bottom, but we navigate those waters. Retention is important; we’ve got to do more with less. Our margin for error is not big because of the resources available. We’ve been working with the administration a lot recently to try to maximize the resources, and that’s been great. We’ve just got to keep finding ways to find guys who fit our system on and off the floor.”
And perhaps Hoiberg’s breakthrough team, with an as-yet-undetermined finish line, will motivate donors just as Curt Cignetti did to keep Indiana football rolling. “More with less” is impressive, but sometimes means you miss on that one player who could put you over the top. It can lose you a coach, too. Rest assured, Hoiberg’s name will be on speculative lists for openings at programs with more resources.
Luckily for Nebraska, this is more to Hoiberg than just his latest job. And while he may have his moments — cheating at Catch Phrase, really? — that gentle, unrattled public demeanor is Hoiberg’s default, according to those who know him best. His consistency is a powerful trait, more and more reflected by his basketball program.
“When we were struggling, now that we’re winning, he’s been exactly the same,” said Cale Jacobsen, a fourth-year junior and former walk-on. “He’s never changed how he treats everybody, and he treats everybody the same.”
