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Brooke Pryor
Multiple Authors
OKLAHOMA CITY — With a little more than two minutes until his team officially made history, Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg sent in a pair of substitutes to relieve junior forwards Pryce Sandfort and Berke Buyuktuncel.
The overwhelmingly pro-Huskers crowd roared to life, just as it had throughout the landmark afternoon as No. 4 seed Nebraska captured its first-ever NCAA tournament win in a 76-47 drubbing of No. 13 seed Troy, raucously celebrating two of the men who helped the program finally capture the milestone that had eluded them in their past eight trips to the Big Dance. The pair joined senior guard Jamarques Lawrence and senior forward Rienk Mast on the bench, where they began soaking in the atmosphere and the impending victory.
“The five-minute mark hit, and you kind of know like, ‘Hey, this one’s in the pocket,'” said Mast, who put up 11 points, six rebounds and seven assists. “You start looking around and just the amount of smiles you see from everyone in the crowd. It was truly special.”
Less than 30 seconds later, Hoiberg pulled his son Sam Hoiberg and sixth man Braden Frager for an ovation of their own. When the final horn blew, the Huskers emptied the bench, embracing each other, their coaches and longtime program staffers as they set a new single-season program record with 27 wins.
The moment was the culmination of seven seasons of hard work by Fred Hoiberg, who had three consecutive losing seasons to start his tenure as Nebraska’s head coach from 2019 to 2022. But after going 16-16 in 2022-23, Nebraska has three consecutive seasons with at least 20 wins, plus two NCAA tournament berths and now a tournament victory.
“It’s almost like a storybook ending in this tournament win,” said Sam Hoiberg, a fourth-year senior who was part of the Nebraska team that lost to Texas A&M in the first round of the 2024 NCAA tournament. “We kind of felt like the last thing that we needed to do to get this program on top.
“It was tough being on those teams that were not winning games, especially when I was on the bench. … So just being able to reap the benefit of all the things we’ve done this season has been unbelievable.”
Entering this year’s NCAA tournament, the Huskers were the only team from a major conference (ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East) without a win in the event. Their 29-point win marks the largest margin of victory in a team’s first-ever win since Fordham beat Furman by 31 points in 1971, according to ESPN Research.
Sandfort led all scorers with 23 points coming on seven 3-pointers and a pair of free throws. The junior transfer from Iowa poured in 17 first-half points as he buried five of eight triples to help Nebraska surge past a fast-starting Troy team. Sandfort’s seven 3-pointers were one off his career high set earlier this year and set a program record for most 3-pointers in an NCAA tournament game.
Before the game, he was surprised by his brother, Payton Sandfort, who made his NBA debut for the Oklahoma City Thunder in Brooklyn the night before.
“These guys were looking for me in transition off of rebounds,” Pryce Sandfort said of his teammates helping him get open. “They gave me great passes. And Payton, seeing it out there, really special. He’s been to, like, one game this year. So getting him to come to this game was special.”
But for all of the relief and jubilation that came with Nebraska’s first-ever tournament win, Hoiberg was quick to remind his players that they’re not done with the round of 32 on the horizon.
“This is the most emotional of all of them, for me,” Hoiberg said, adding that he started to let it soak in with 1:13 to go. “Both benches were empty, and it’s emotional for me. I think of my dad, who is in a home right now. I hope he got a chance to watch this one. I can’t wait to talk to him just because of what it means for our family. And it is emotional. There’s no doubt about it.
“But these guys all year long have moved on. They’ve been so resilient. They’ve got over big wins. They’ve got over tough losses, and I’m confident that they’re going to do that again and be locked in.”
