Official visit was everything 5-star Wilcher, family had hoped

As the large group of Nebraska basketball official visitors stood on the sideline in the southeast corner of Memorial Stadium before Saturday night’s home football game vs. Northwestern, the student section began chanting recruits’ names and cheering for head coach Fred Hoiberg.

That’s all Sergio Wilcher, father of current NU freshman C.J. Wilcher and 2023 five-star Husker visitor Simeon Wilcher, needed to go ahead and turn the energy up a notch.

After he was done pumping up the crowd and throwing the ‘bones’ to the crowd, Sergio and Simeon went on to continue their memorable weekend in Lincoln during Simeon’s official visit.

“Oh man, it was amazing,” Sergio said. “You really get a taste for what sports mean in Lincoln. When I got there on Friday, I said, ‘I need to hurry up and change because I have to put this (Nebraska) hoodie on because I’m the only guy in town without a Nebraska shirt on.’ You know? Moms, grandmas, babies – whole families had red on.

“That’s an amazing feeling. We have a lot of sports over here. You have two (NFL) football teams, three (NHL) hockey teams, two (MLB) baseball teams, so everybody has a different team. So it’s really different to experience that. You hear people talk about it, but to be in the stadium with that many people in it all cheering for the same cause, it was extremely impressive.”

The visit marked the second time in four months that Simeon and his family were on NU’s campus, as they were in town on an unofficial visit at the beginning of June while helping C.J. move to Lincoln.

Sergio said that while their first trip this summer was great, this weekend was an entirely different experience.

Taking in one of the better Nebraska home football game environments in recent memory was one thing. But on Friday night, there was the basketball team’s “Opening Night” event at Pinnacle Bank Arena, where they watched C.J. make his unofficial Husker debut in front of nearly 7,000 fans.

“I mean, it was just an exhibition game, and people we so excited,” Sergio said. “Some of the best things I heard – I was walking out of the arena afterward, and I heard some cheerleaders talking amongst themselves about how excited they were for basketball season. I felt good about that, that energy, and that positivity.

“Then I had people at the hotel come up and talk to us, and I’d tell them my son played there. They’d ask, ‘What’s his name?’ And I’d say, ‘C.J.’ And they’d go, ‘Oh yeah!’ That’s wild for a city that big. I didn’t have any questions (about the fan support), but if I did, all the boxes were checked.”

Rated the No. 15 overall player and regarded as one of the nation’s top point guards in the 2023 class, Simeon has his pick from almost any college program in the country.

North Carolina, UCLA, Oregon, Kansas, UConn, Ohio State, Michigan, Illinois, and Syracuse are just a few schools that have been in hot pursuit of his services recently.

But while Nebraska might not have the same tradition or pedigree as some of the other suitors on his list, Sergio made it clear that the Huskers were firmly in the mix because of the relationships they’d built over the past three years.

“Nebraska will always be an option for Simeon,” Sergio said. “It’s not even a question because of the way the basketball fits, our relationship with Matt (Abdelmassih), and we’ve been talking with Coach Hoiberg since C.J. was in high school back in 2019. After meeting him and spending time with his family, of course, I would feel comfortable with Simeon in that space.

“I still want him to enjoy and go through the entire process because I think these days, a lot of kids are microwaved into situations, and life is about experiences. You only get to do this once. I don’t want him to feel like he’s missing out on anything. So we’ll visit the schools he wants to visit because we want to base this decision not only on what was great for C.J. but what’s going to be best for Simeon.”

Sergio said the recruiting plan for Simeon going forward was to take two more official visits in October and then two more in November before Thanksgiving.

The only trip that’s locked in at this point is to North Carolina this weekend. They will also likely take officials to Oregon and Ohio State this fall and a few unofficials to nearby schools like Maryland, UConn, and Syracuse.

Sergio added that while they’d like to go on as many visits as possible, they also had to make sure academics remained a priority for Simeon, an honor roll student at Plainfield (N.J.) Roselle Catholic.

“Once it was out there that he was going on an official to Nebraska, the phone started ringing,” Sergio said.