Huskers Open Practice; Meet with Media

The Nebraska men’s basketball team opened practice Tuesday morning in advance of the 2022-23 season.   Following practice, Nebraska Head Coach Fred Hoiberg, sophomore forward Wilhelm Breidenbach and senior guard Emmanuel Bandoumel met with the media to discuss the upcoming season.

Click on the links to watch the videos from today’s media session, as they talked about the Huskers’ offseason, the start of official practice as well as some of the new faces in the program for the coming season.

Hoiberg hit on several topics during his meeting with the media, including a change in Friday’s Opening Night format. Unlike the first two events which featured scrimmages, Hoiberg will use the time on Friday as an open practice to give fans in attendance a closer look at the 2022-23 team.

“I’m really excited about this group,” Hoiberg said. “Friday is going to be a great night for us to get in front of our fans. We are going to go about 30 minutes and get our guys out there to show a lot of the things we have been working on without showing too much. It will be a good night to get out in front of people and to show what this group is all about.”

Hoiberg gave updates on the health of Quaran McPherson, who recently underwent season-ending surgery, as well as progress on Sam Griesel and Breidenbach as they work towards being back at full strength. Hoiberg also talked about the benefit of bringing in experienced players who have enjoyed success at the college level. All three of NU’s Division I scholarship transfers bring postseason experience to the Husker program, including Juwan Gary (Alabama) and Griesel (North Dakota State) who both played in the NCAA Tournament.

The 2022-23 Huskers return two of their top four scorers for Coach Fred Hoiberg, who begins his fourth season at Nebraska. The returning contingent is led by senior forward Derrick Walker (9.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg) has started 48 straight games for the Huskers, while sophomore guard C.J. Wilcher (8.1 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 52 3-pointers) was the Huskers’ sixth man for most of the 2021-22 season. Junior Keisei Tominaga averaged 5.9 points per game in his first season at Nebraska and comes off a summer where he averaged nearly 16 points per game for the Japanese National Team. Tominaga closed his summer with a 33-point effort against Australia.

NU has also retooled its roster with a trio of Division I transfers in Emmanuel Bandoumel (SMU), Juwan Gary (Alabama) and Sam Griesel (North Dakota State) and a recruiting class that ranked in the top 30 nationally by both Rivals and 247Sports. That group includes a pair of top-150 recruits in Ramel Lloyd Jr. and Jamarques Lawrence as well as junior college transfer Blaise Keita, who is the No. 4 overall player by JUCORecruiting.com.

Fans can get their first look at the 2022-23 Huskers this Friday night as part of Opening Night with Husker Hoops. Free tickets for the event, which also features the Husker women and a performance by EST Gee, can be claimed at Huskers.com/Tickets.