Fred Hoiberg knows what it feels like to cut down nets in March after winning two tournament championships at the helm of Iowa State in 2014 and 2015.
It has been nearly 10 years and two career changes since, including a four-year stint coaching the Bulls. Some would say the teams he coached then and the 11th-seeded Nebraska team he’s leading now couldn’t be more different.
In Ames, Hoiberg had a two-time All-American in 76ers power forward Georges Niang and stars who left their mark on the college game to surround him including Wizards guard Monte Morris.
This season, in Lincoln, Hoiberg has a stalwart group that has been decimated by injuries but still is looking to make some March magic happen.
For Hoiberg, there are some similarities between his championship teams of the past and this group of Huskers that gives him confidence they have what it takes to pull off something special.
“The one thing that we had at Iowa State was such great leadership,” Hoiberg said. “You have to have that, you have to have mental toughness. You rely on your leaders to instill that in your group. [The leadership] has been the one thing I’ve been impressed with our group at Nebraska this year.”
The Huskers take on Minnesota in the second game of the Big Ten Tournament’s opening round Wednesday at the United Center. The winner faces Maryland in the second round. The team that will take the court is not the same one Hoiberg and his staff fielded at the start of the season.
“You don’t see that very often where in the middle of the season you have to flip how you play,” Hoiberg said.
Midseason injuries to senior guard Emmanuel Bandoumel and junior forward Juwan Gary coupled with a season-ending injury to redshirt freshman guard Quaran McPherson wiped out the Huskers’ depth.
In the absence of two of his best defenders (Bandoumel and Gary), Hoiberg’s team shifted away from their stifling man-to-man coverage to a zone defense intent on slowing the pace and stealing possessions. As a result, they pieced together wins, going 6-2 to close out the season.
“We’ve come back from some big deficits,” Hoiberg said. “We were down 17 against Wisconsin in the second half and came back and won in overtime. We beat Maryland after being down eight with five minutes left. The game at Iowa, we were down seven in the second half. It’s really been impressive how they’ve stuck together. It’s not a team that hangs its head when [opponents] take a big shot.”
Purdue is the top seed but has proven it’s no lock to win the tournament after suffering losses to Indiana (twice), Rutgers, Northwestern and Maryland. Hoiberg’s team took the Boilermakers to overtime in December before losing Bandoumel and Gary. A controversial foul call in the final seconds gave Purdue two free-throw attempts — which guard Braden Smith sank — and the win.
One glance at the conference records shows there is little separating No. 5 Purdue from the pack. Indiana and Northwestern both finished 12-8, Michigan State was 11-8, four teams finished 11-9, Penn State and Rutgers finished .500 and Wisconsin and Nebraska had 9-11 records. Ohio State and Minnesota were the outliers with seven combined conference wins.
Northwestern’s win over Rutgers in the final game of the season secured their place as a two-seed. Had they lost, the Wildcats would have fallen to a nine-seed.
For Nebraska, a program in search of its first NCAA tournament bid since 2014, all this mediocrity presents an opportunity.
“The resolve of this team has been a strength and that’s what it takes in March,” Hoiberg said.
