Nebraska Basketball’s Early Success Not Carrying Over

Head coach Fred Hoiberg certainly had his Nebraska basketball team clicking to start the 2024-25 season. Since the calendar has changed to 2025, things haven’t quite gone the way it has needed to. The Cornhuskers continue to slide. The Huskers returned from a road trip to face USC on Wednesday, with plenty of hope of ending their recent stretch of losses.

Despite holding a slim lead late in the game, Nebraska didn’t have the answers and suffered their fifth straight loss. With the team in a free fall, it’s hard to get a lock on what their problems are right now. If you look back to the first week of this month, this team looked like a legit threat. On January 4, they had an upset victory over the then 15th-ranked UCLA on the road. Things are just not the same it seems of late.

Nebraska Basketball’s Early Success Not Carrying Over

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially in the Big Ten. This conference is unforgivable. Every night is hard, and that is true whether you’re at the top or the bottom of the league. The Cornhuskers started the season 12-2. That included a 37-point loss at Michigan State in early December. Despite getting completely outclassed then, Hoiberg’s team responded with six straight wins, and Brice Williams started to look like an All-Big Ten caliber player.

I’m sure before the season, this team wasn’t in consideration by many for the NCAA tournament, but given what they had done up until January 7, they had a nice resume. Now they are 12-7 and 2-6 in the Big Ten and currently are outside of making it to the Big Ten Tournament. That’s a danger zone.

The Rienk Mast injury appears to be catching up with this team. Sure, Nebraska basketball knew they weren’t going to have his services this season. The struggles for this team haven’t been for lack of effort, as Juwan Gary has played well alongside Williams even though they haven’t been able to finish games as of late. Their last three games have been winnable, but they just haven’t finished.

Williams took some responsibility following the loss against USC. He cited his leadership come crunch time and having too many easily fixable mistakes.