It was the first game, if you call it that, for the 2026-27 Nebraska men’s basketball team on Friday night — and it looked like it.
The Huskers fell 79-74 to Saint Louis in the Friday night exhibition.
“As we talked about before the game, whatever the result was, we were going to learn from it, just like we did the BYU game a year ago,” Husker head coach Fred Hoiberg said.
Of the five Husker starters, only Cale Jacobsen played more than 23 minutes. Thursday at Big Ten Media Days, Hoiberg announced that Jacobsen would start in place of Belmont transfer Sam Orme, who is dealing with a hamstring injury.
“I thought Cale was terrific,” Hoiberg said. “ I thought Cale was as good as anybody on the floor tonight.”
Jacobsen finished with 10 points, seven rebounds, two steals, one assist and just one turnover.
The plan all along for this exhibition was to only play the starters limited minutes and get some of the younger or newer faces more playing time, especially late.
“We were going to play our starters semi-normal minutes in the first half, playing to the first media [timeout] in the second and then get the young guys out there,” Hoiberg said.
The young guys, particularly sophomore Leo Curtis and freshman Jacob Lanier, showed some promising flashes.
Lanier finished with a game-high 15 points on 4-of-9 shooting, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range.
“I think he showed the talent that he has,” Hoiberg said of Lanier. “But also as a freshman, you learn a lot about what you can and can’t do that maybe you could do in a high school setting by driving into the pile a few times … I love the kid’s confidence.”
Curtis had a strong first half off the bench with six points and five rebounds in eight minutes. He finished the game with nine points, six rebounds and didn’t miss a shot, going 4-for-4 from the field including a 3-pointer from the wing in the second half.
“I thought Leo gave us some really good minutes,” Hoiberg said. “Stepping out and hitting a 3, that was great to see as well.”
Getting Better
Nebraska admittedly lost the toughness batlle Friday night. Cale Jacobsen said it, and so did Hoiberg in the postgame press conference.
Freshman Jacob Lanier (13) drives the ball against Saint Louis guard Jermel Thomas (11). Photo by John S. Peterson.
“We got out-toughed tonight,” Jacobsen said. “Hopefully we can learn from that.”
Saint Louis got 53% of their misses back in the first half. The Billikens had nine offensive rebounds in the first 20 minutes and finished the game with 13.
“The disappointing thing to me was I thought they out-toughed us,” Hoiberg said.
The work will continue for the Huskers in that area. Big Ten play is going to come and the size of Michigan State, Illinois and others will be markedly bigger than what Saint Louis has.
“We do rebounding drills every day, and we’ll continue to do it and demand it,” Hoiberg said.
The Saint Louis pressure caused Nebraska some issues. The Billikens’ style of play is to get into the opponent on the defensive end and force ball handlers to make quicker decisions. Nebraska will need to make better decisions and be more decisive when the real games count.
“We don’t face this; it’s hard to simulate when you are working on your own stuff that you have on both ends,” Hoiberg said. “To see this for the first time, get exposed with it, it’s going to give us a great opportunity to really start honing in on it because we’re going to see a lot of that. We’ve still got a couple weeks before it counts, but we’ll see a lot of that this year.”
Takeaways
Nebraska is longer at most positions than last year, and the Huskers’ core defense is predicated on deflections and steals; that length will help.
However, while it was an exhibition and virtually the entire roster played, it felt like there was a lack of intensity on the defensive end.
Saint Louis did a good job of contesting passing lanes with their pressure, finding cutters and being confident to make those passes you didn’t see from the Huskers Friday night.
Maybe it was what Hoiberg, Pryce Sandfort and Braden Frager mentioned on Thursday at Big Ten Media Days about randomness.
Nebraska has been experimenting with not calling plays as often in practice, and you felt that Friday night. The connectivity on both ends of the floor wasn’t crisp or sharp. Part of that is likely due to all of the new faces and wanting the players to jell or figure each other out and play together.
Hoiberg has mentioned more than once in recent media availabilities that they were working on a big-big lineup with two of the team’s three centers on the court at the same time. Friday night must not have been the night to show that lineup as there was a three-man rotation. Boston College transfer Boden Kapke started at center, South Dakota State transfer Damon Wilkinson was the first player off the bench relieving Kapke and Curtis came after him in the middle.
What you did see, and it was likely due to the Saint Louis pressure, was a dual point guard lineup. Two point guards were on the floor at the same time, with San Diego State transfer Taj Degourville and Utah Valley State transfer Trevon Leonhardt playing together. In the second half, Degourville and Jacob Lanier played together in a lineup.
At the end of the day, it was just an exhibition where the two players who received Big Ten postseason accolades, Sandfort and Frager, played just a little more than a half. Sandfort logged 22 minutes and 42 seconds and Frager played an even 21 minutes.
