All my life, I’ve been an East Coast guy. Never been to Iowa; never been to Nebraska.
If you talk to me about their corn, I’m liable to politely inform you that Jersey corn is superior anyway.
And yet the only game I was interested in among Thursday’s quartet of Sweet 16 contests was Iowa-Nebraska.
Two Big Ten rivals whose football teams regularly put up 13-10 final scores when they play, and who have little to no modern history to speak of in men’s basketball? A 9-versus-4 game in the Sweet 16 with a bunch of Midwesterners and dudes from Turkey and the Netherlands running around?
That’s the sicko stuff. Inject it into my veins.
I wrote about Nebrasketball in this space earlier in the season, and since then the Cornhuskers have polished off their best season in program history by earning a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and winning their first two tournament games ever. Nebraska was the last power-conference school that had yet to win a game in the tourney.
Which makes the end to their season sort of a butt-fumble. I wonder how many people will remember Nebraska’s 28-7 campaign, versus how many will just remember this ending:
“What happened?!” play-by-play pro Kevin Harlan exclaimed.
What they don’t notice in real time is that Nebraska has only four players on the floor, with Rienk Mast half-jogging to the check-in table in the background, surely realizing he’s too late.
That open dunk for Alvaro Folgueiras and ensuing foul shot came after Tate Sage and Braden Frager (yes, their real names) traded threes for a three-point Iowa lead. The dunk was the killer. Final score: Iowa 77, Nebraska 71. Hawkeyes, see you in the Elite Eight against Illinois, ensuring at least one Big Ten team will make the Final Four.
Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg did the right thing and wouldn’t let Mast wear the four-man defense blunder. When Mast was asked to describe what went on, Hoiberg cut in.
“Put that one on me,” Hoiberg said. “It was a miscommunication and I’m the head coach, so put that one on me.”
It must be infuriating for Nebraska fans, because Hoiberg has a reputation as a very good coach from his Iowa State days, but it took a while for him to get the Cornhuskers out of the mud. Sure, this would be true of any coach at that place, but Huskers fans were ready to have his head three years in before Nebraska’s AD put out a statement backing Hoiberg long-term.
Soon enough, Hoiberg did turn it around, with three straight 20-win seasons, the inaugural College Basketball Crown title and now a Sweet 16. And yet his team’s season ends on a coaching blunder that inexcusable.
The real coaching star from that game is Ben McCollum. Many who are just tuning in don’t realize that the dude has gone 38-8 in NCAA Tournament games: He won four Division II national titles and got Drake to the Round of 32 in his only season there. Then he showed up in Iowa City and took the Hawkeyes somewhere they haven’t been since the 1980s, an Elite Eight.
He outcoached the national champions to bring down a No. 1 seed the round prior.
And just look at him. The hair. The shirt and tie, in an era where everyone’s wearing the same athletic wear on the sidelines. He exudes college basketball coach.
So one of the best stories of the 2025-26 season comes to an end in a rather blunt way. Iowa has won 10 of the last 11 meetings with Nebraska in football. The Hawkeyes just eliminated the Huskers in hoops. And we can’t forget…
