Nebraska men’s basketball is rounding out year seven with Fred Hoiberg as its leader.
Thursday, the Huskers will play in their second NCAA Tournament since Hoiberg took over as head coach of the program in 2019.
After three seasons of losing, accumulating a 24-67 record from the 2019-2020 season through the 2021-22 season, the Huskers needed a culture transformation.
Since the start of the 2022-23 season, Nebraska has an 86-47 record. The 64.7% winning percentage in that timeframe is the 25th best amongst Power Five Conference (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC) teams.
In the last three seasons, including the current one, the Huskers are 70-31. Its 69.3% winning percentage is 17th amongst Power Five teams during that span.
A paradigm shift, change agents and extending the culture beyond one season have all paved the way for Nebraska’s historic season.
Paradigm Shift
The paradigm changed with a new recruiting strategy. During Hoiberg’s first few years in Lincoln, Matt Abdelmassih, Hoiberg’s long time confidant who helped him turn Iowa State into a college basketball power, almost single handedly ran the recruiting operations. That changed after Nate Loenser joined the staff prior to the 2021-22 season. Abdelmassih left the program after that season.
Loenser, another long time Hoiberg connection, worked with Hoiberg at Iowa State from 2013-15 and in the Chicago Bulls organization 2015-18,
Loenser is almost indispensable to the current Husker program. His extensive role includes touching nearly every facet of the program. He now leads the Huskers’ individual skill development programs, opponent scouting, game planning and recruiting.
“He’s meant so much to me over the years and we’ve coached a lot of games together, going back to my early days at Iowa State when I brought him on and he was basically in the video room,” Hoiberg said. “He became our head video coordinator and then moved up to a coach. He was so valuable to me I brought him to Chicago when I went to the Bulls and he was the G League head coach at the inaugural season of the Windy City Bulls, did an unbelievable job and brought him back on the bench … He’s meant everything to me.”
Change Agents
There were more staff changes and additions, but the culture shift happened when primarily two players, Sam Griesel (North Dakota State) and Emmanuel Bandoumel (SMU) transferred to Nebraska.
“I just want to make sure that Sam gets recognized for everything that he helped us as far as flipping things here, and Emmanuel and Derrick (Walker) and Juwan (Gary),” Hoiberg said.
Griesel and Bandoumel seemed to bring joy and a team-first mentality back to the Husker program. They gave the fans a recognizable player in Griesel to cheer for. A Lincoln East graduate, Griesel was familiar to in-state fans and his unassuming personality, along with the work ethic, brought new hope to the fanbase.
“We wanted the group to be really just a together group and a team instead of, I guess, individuals,” Griesel told Hail Varsity from Berlin, Germany, where he is currently playing professionally. “Obviously, individually you have your goals and your dreams in the basketball world, but I don’t think those really get accomplished without having a team mindset first.”
They also brought a sense of community to the program. They didn’t shy away from taking photos with fans or spending a few minutes with a child to brighten his or her day.
“We just had a really together group,” Greisel said of the 2022-23 Huskers. “We were doing stuff off the floor together but also in the community and at different events. I think that stuff really translates to what happens on the floor.”
A team together off the court is generally better on it, Griesel said. That is what he sees with the 2025-26 Huskers.
“I think you can really tell if a group is really together off the floor by the way that they play and if they’re sacrificing their bodies for their teammates or just playing unselfishly,” Griesel said. “I feel like in my year we did that and every year that I’ve watched Nebraska basketball since then I feel like you can see that as a fan.”
Fast forward four seasons and the Huskers have done what the 2022-23 seniors — Griesel, Bandoumel and Walker — instilled in them. They are connected, they play for one another and they play for the fan base.
Three freshmen on that team still around, and two are key rotation pieces for the now No. 4 NCAA Tournament-seeded Huskers.
Griesel, Bandoumel and Walker were seniors when Lincoln Pius X grad Sam Hoiberg was a redshirt freshman and Cale Jacobsen (Ashland-Greenwood) and Henry Burt (Elkhorn South) joined the team as walk-ons. The latter two redshirted that season.
The veteran trio taught the current Huskers how to be teammates and not individuals. They were the agents that changed the trajectory on the court and off. They made basketball fun for a fan base that has suffered without an NCAA Tournament win for the entirety of its program history.
“Collectively, we just wanted to win; we didn’t care what our stats looked like,” Griesel said. “Winning was the most important thing to us, and being good people. I think throughout our time there, we tried to build that type of culture at Nebraska.”
Culture Extended
The last four Husker men’s basketball teams are fun to watch, teams that play for each other and likely rejuvenated Hoiberg and his coaching journey in Lincoln.
“These last four teams specifically have been some of the most fun that I’ve been around,” Hoiberg said before the Big Ten Tournament, the day after receiving a three-year contract extension. Hoiberg’s well-deserved extension now means he is under contract to be the Huskers’ coach through 2031.
“We have a long family history with the University of Nebraska, and the support we have received over the last seven years is truly remarkable,” Hoiberg said. “We are blessed with world-class facilities, but the people are what make Nebraska special. Our goal is to continue building a program that our fans can embrace and have pride in because it represents the values of Nebraska.”
The Huskers, who have won 20-plus games in three consecutive seasons for the first time in school history, enter the NCAA Tournament with a 26-6 record. The team has had plenty of firsts this season. A single-season 20-game win streak to start a season and a program-best No. 5 national ranking are just two of them.
The culture is now built to win at a high level. Thursday, the Huskers can take the program to another never-before-seen height with a win against Troy.
