The point guard position for the 2025-26 Nebraska men’s basketball team has been a topic of conversation this offseason.
The Huskers have multiple options to fill the position. Sam Hoiberg and Cale Jacobsen have been part of the program for years now. Jamarques Lawrence transferred back to Nebraska after one year at Rhode Island, and Kendall Blue, the St. Thomas transfer, was brought in to initiate the offense as well.
The adage is if you have two or three or even four options, you don’t have one. However, in Nebraska’s system, there isn’t a ‘traditional point guard. In the multi-ball-handler system the Huskers run, there doesn’t need to be one.
The 2025-26 roster was built on shooting, particularly spreading the floor around Rienk Mast in his return to the court after missing last season due to injury.
“You know the one thing about this team is, it could be somebody different every night,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said. “It could be anybody’s night and our guys have to be OK with that. You may not play as much on certain nights, and we’ve talked about that, and I think this team is very selfless and very unselfish.”
Think of the position more as an initiator of the offense, instead of the designated point guard. After all, we are in the age of positionless basketball.
You could see Mast at the top of the key initiating the offense in the half court, like he did in 2024-25. Bringing the ball up up the floor could be a number of different options. Depending on the defensive matchups, it could be more than half the roster.
Lawrence, Jacobsen, Hoiberg, Blue, Connor Essegian, Pryce Sandfort and — with his straight-line speed — Braden Frager could all initiate the offense consistently.
What look to be the constants in the starting lineup, at least through the two exhibition games, were Berke Büyüktuncel, Mast, Sandfort and Lawrence.
In the exhibitions, the starting lineup has changed in the primary initiator of the offense role. Against No. 8 BYU, Jacobsen got the start in that role and was a plus-11 in his 11:55 of game action. Hoiberg got the nod over Jacobsen against Midland and was plus-21 in 18:06.
After the Midland game, Blue drew praise from Hoiberg.
“I thought Kendall Blue gave us good minutes out there at the point with five assists and zero turnovers,” Hoiberg said after the exhibition win over Midland.
Hoiberg has said in the past it doesn’t matter to him who starts the game, but rather who finishes it when referring to starting lineups and tightly contested games.
“I think Jamarques has been great with it,” Hoiberg said. “Kendall, like I said, gave us good minutes. Sam and Cale both can initiate for us and then you’ve got Rienk and BK (Büyüktuncel) brought the ball down the floor quite a bit tonight as well. I know I talked early about being kind of a point guard by committee and we’ve got a lot of guys that can initiate for us.”
The positive for the 2025-16 Huskers is there is plenty of depth the coaching staff seems to trust for the offensive initiator role.
