Cale Jacobsen is a do-it-all player for Nebraska men’s basketball. If Sam Hoiberg is the ‘ultimate glue guy’ for the 2025-26 Huskers, then Jacobsen is the utility man.
Remember the Huskers’ College Basketball Crown championship run, where he played some lead guard and some center?
That was last season; this season, he wasn’t guaranteed a roster spot. In fact, before the four games in Las Vegas, no one would’ve blamed him if he wanted to leave the program and find a school where he could be a starter and get more playing time.
Luckily for Nebraska and its fans, he stayed in Lincoln, and the four-game Vegas run was a catalyst for the trust Fred Hoiberg has in him.
Right now, he’s the next man up. When someone needed to step up in a big moment Saturday in Minneapolis, his teammates trusted him.
Trailing 42-41 with under 14 minutes left, Jamarques Lawrence found not just a wide-open Jacobsen in the right corner, but the most open any player was the entire game.
Maybe it’s because he had the time, or maybe it was the high basketball IQ he possesses. Jacobsen shimmied his right foot behind the 3-point line to knock down just his third 3-pointer in nine Big Ten games, and sixth of the season.
With Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year candidate Braden Frager out of the lineup due to an ankle injury he suffered on Wednesday against Washington, the Huskers needed to find the next man up.
They needed a spark, and Jacobsen, like he normally does, provided it.
The Jacobsen corner 3 gave Nebraska its first lead of the second half, one which they would not relinquish, and produced the third, fourth and fifth points of a 14-2 Husker run.
It was more than one shot. When all eyes were on Jared Garcia as the player who needed to fill a void for the Huskers, it was Jacobsen who stepped up. He finished the game with seven points, three rebounds, two assists, one steal and just one turnover.
In the Huskers’ nine Big Ten Conference games, Jacobsen is second on the team, behind Hoiberg in assist-to-turnover ratio (5.0 to 6.0). He’s played just over half (50.3%) of the Huskers’ minutes this season and is second on the team in steal percentage (2.6) behind Sam Hoiberg’s 3.7.
“I think Cale has been unbelievable for us all season long,” Husker coach Fred Hoiberg said Wednesday after the Washington win. “I’m not sure he scored tonight, but I thought he had a huge impact on that game.”
Jacobsen’s 25 minutes on Saturday were the most he has played since Nov. 29, when he played 31 against USC Upstate. Garcia, Nebraska’s seventh man, played just under six minutes as Hoiberg leaned heavily on his top six. Jacobsen has played at least 20 minutes in each of the past five games, and that likely will continue as he remains committed to doing the little things to help the Huskers win.
“He’s a huge part of our rotation, and we’re going to continue to rely on him,” Hoiberg said. “Yes, his minutes probably will go up even more than they already are.”
