Huskers ready to tip-off season with two exhibitions

Here is a full recap of what head coach Fred Hoiberg had to say on Monday while previewing Nebraska’s two exhibition games vs. Peru State and Colorado this week…

***Hoiberg said the main thing he wanted to get from Wednesday night’s exhibition opener vs. Peru State was to carry over the things they’d been working on for the last few months.

“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel out there,” he said. Hoiberg just wanted his team to “play solid basketball,” make the right plays, and play with the right defensive intensity.

He’s expecting there to be some “butterflies” the players would need to get over in playing in front of fans for the first time since 2019, but hopefully, those go away quickly.

***Hoiberg said he was still trying to figure out what NU’s rotation would be this season, but it wouldn’t be a situation where these two exhibitions would decide that going into the actual games. He said the staff would look at the “overall body of work” from the entire offseason to make those decisions.

Hoiberg said he still didn’t know if the rotation they used on Wednesday night would be the same for the season opener vs. Western Illinois on Nov. 9.

***Hoiberg said NU held an intrasquad scrimmage last week, and he put just as much stock into those as he would the exhibitions. With two exhibition games and then another week before the opener, Hoiberg said a lot could change between now and Nov. 9.

***Hoiberg said he wasn’t “100 percent sure” on who the starters would be vs. Peru State because a few of the top candidates were “in and out” of Monday’s practice. He said a decision on that would come tomorrow after practice.

***Hoiberg said he decided to give the team this past weekend off “to recharge their batteries a little bit” going into a week with two games coming up.

***Monday as a quality practice, but Hoiberg said the Huskers still turned the ball over too much and “reverted back” to some bad habits after making some progress in that regard this offseason.

***Hoiberg also emphasized that rebounding was still as important as ever for NU’s success this season, especially in Big Ten play.

***Asked if he needed to make sure Bryce McGowens didn’t try to do too much to live up to the expectations set for him this season, Hoiberg said that was the case for all of the players. He said his message all offseason was that the Huskers needed to trust each other, not “put too much on yourself,” and play within the system.

***Hoiberg said Nebraska would “go harder” in Tuesday’s practice than they usually would on the day before a game. They will also hold a light practice on Wednesday morning before the game for essentially a two-a-day setup.

***Hoiberg said Bryce McGowens had been “great” all summer and was “really good” in Monday’s practice. Hoiberg said he loved McGowens’ aggressiveness and said the freshman had taken a step in the right direction defensively, which was always a big jump.

***Hoiberg said he had an idea of how the minutes and rotation would be split up in the two exhibitions, as they would be far more “scripted” than for a regular-season game.

***On how important it was to show tangible progress in Year 3, Hoiberg said he and his staff knew there would be “growing pains” in their first year, and he was “proud of how we grew” in Year 2.

That said, Hoiberg acknowledged that this season was “important” because “we have expectations, which is what you want.” He said he spoke with the team every day about the significance of this season and the opportunity this group had “to do what’s never been done” at Nebraska.

Hoiberg jokingly added: “It sucks for sleep, but it’s fine.”