Nebraska?

Fred Hoiberg is coaching his 7th season at Nebraska. That’s 2 more seasons than he was at Iowa State. Doesn’t seem possible. Neither does an undefeated Nebraska who is 15-0 and 4-0 in the Big 18. Counting the CBC title of a year ago, Nebraska is on a 19-game winning streak. This isn’t just a woman’s volleyball school anymore.

Nebraska has never made the 2nd weekend in the tournament. Never. Before we get too excited, they are 19th in KenPom which is quite good but doesn’t translate to a 2nd weekend team but that feels irrelevant. What might be relevant is, they’re 27th in KenPom luck metric which means this probably isn’t sustainable.

The good news is, they’ve built some equity and even if they finished 8-8 in their last 16, they’re in the dance. They’re projected to finish 14-6 in the league and that’s a mortal lock.

They have some warts on offense. They fire a ton of 3’s and are average at making them. They’re better at 2’s, 60%, 20th in the nation. When they lose in March, it’ll be a cold shooting night. Since they do not rebound their misses, 2nd chances will be limited. 

What they do at an elite level is, not turn it over, 13th in Turnover %. 47th in AdjO isn’t good enough to be threat to win it all and I have my doubts they get much better offensively but it’s good enough to make that 1st 2nd weekend.

Defensively, they’re quite good. 28th best effective defensive fg% and they do not foul. While they don’t crash the offensive glass, they’re 27th in defensive rebounding %. Basically, this is a team that does not beat itself.

I think it’s likely they tail off and are a bit of an afterthought when we get to March but it’s been impressive what they’ve done so far. The majority of the minutes are upperclassmen, so it’s a veteran squad, even if they haven’t all played together their entire college career. Fun season in Lincoln and after the football team sucked again and the lady volleyballers choked like dogs, a welcome respite.