Fred Hoiberg doesn’t sound like a coach clinging to last season’s memories. He sounds like someone who has already filed them away.
Nebraska’s memorable run from a year ago is “behind us now,” Hoiberg said Monday, and the focus has shifted entirely to what this group can become. He pointed out that the Big Ten is stronger and the rosters are longer, which means there won’t be any room for nostalgia once the season starts.
“We've moved past that. If you still think about that, you're done before it even starts,” Hoiberg said.
“So we're beyond it. This team, they've got lofty goals and they should.
That's where you want to be as a program, to have that.”
The urgency is real, too. Nebraska plays in a couple weeks, and Hoiberg made it clear the Huskers are still in the middle of building their identity. The early work has included a pair of scrimmages, with the second one showing more progress than the first, even if the turnover problem is still hanging around.
“We're still turning it over too much. Some of that is the defense and the activity and having some length out there - the deflections,” Hoiberg said.
“So part of it is that. But the other part is making simple plays.”
What’s different this year is the way Nebraska wants to move the ball. Hoiberg said the Huskers are spreading players around the floor more instead of locking them into fixed spots, and he hasn’t really installed traditional plays yet. For now, it’s about reading the defense and reacting.
“As far as having guys all over the court as opposed to having them maybe in a specific spot,” Hoiberg said. “And I really have not put in any plays.
We're still just trying to play through flow and teach guys how to play reads. When the defense takes this away, where do you go?”
That teaching process is ongoing, and Hoiberg said it starts with forcing players to think through what the defense is doing before they decide where to go next.
If a player asks Hoiberg where he goes on a play, the coach asks, "What did the defense do?"
More work is coming soon. Starting Tuesday, the Husker staff gets 20 hours with the players, and the team will scrimmage again Saturday. Hoiberg said the staff plans to add the switch attack and keep sharpening the offense against the different looks Nebraska is seeing, along with more station work.
“Get our switch attack in, playing against different defenses that we're seeing. So we'll start to add that.
Now that we're going to get more time out there. We'll do more station work.”
For now, Hoiberg likes what he’s seeing from the group’s grasp of the system.
“Excited to add to it, but our guys, they have picked things up well. To me, it's a smart team.”
He also singled out Trevan Leonhardt for having the best assist-to-turnover ratio, though Hoiberg added, “It hasn't been him,” when asked about that distinction.
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Fitzgerald also singled out Dana Holgorsens system as a major reason the attack has taken a step forward, along with the effect of playing with a more mobile quarterback. For Nebraska, that kind of outside respect matters because it suggests opponents are no longer treating the offense like a work in progress, but the more interesting question is how far this version can go once Big Ten defenses start adjusting to it in real time. [Read more 🡒]
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Nebraska Basketball Just Landed The Kind Of Commit Fans Doubt Hoiberg Could Get
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If he signs, Battie will become the highest-ranked recruit in Nebraska history, a benchmark that says as much about the programs trajectory as it does about his ceiling. He now joins four-star forward Ty Schlagel in Nebraskas 2027 class, giving Fred Hoiberg and his staff an early foundation to build around while leaving plenty of attention on what this kind of commitment could mean for the next wave of Huskers recruiting. [Read more 🡒]