Nebraska Basketball: Huskers giving first look at new look team on Sunday

The Nebraska basketball team’s 2022-2023 season officially tips off on Sunday, even if the first game the newest new-look team plays won’t actually count for their schedule. The Nebrasketball team will face off in the first of two exhibition games tomorrow afternoon against Chadron State before heading to Colorado and playing in a charity matchup the day before Halloween.

When head coach Fred Hoiberg opens this season, he’ll be doing it with quite a bit of turnover. It turns out that new faces on the roster is one of the only consistencies that have marked his run in Lincoln. Losing is, unfortunately, the other one.

There’s been a lot of talk about how hard Hoiberg has worked to try and stave off the losing this year. Leaders on the Nebrasketball squad have been leading workouts all summer in an effort to build chemistry.

While their game against Chadron State isn’t going to do much to really prove whether that really worked, it could be a good first step. The Huskers should win, and they really shouldn’t have a problem doing it. So a solid start and solid play throughout the game will certainly be a sign that things are moving in the right direction.

This Nebraska basketball team will need to gel quickly if it wants to save its head coach’s job. Much like Scott Frost entered the fall on the hottest of hot seats, Hoiberg is coaching for his job after restructuring his contract at the end of last season.

Nebraska basketball roster juggling continues

There are a few holdovers from a team that went 10-22 and 4-16 in the Big Ten a year ago. Derrick Walker leads the way among those returnees after averaging 9.5 points and 6 rebounds per game. He’s joined by Keisei Tominaga, who was brought in as a dead-eye from three-point land but struggled in his first season in Lincoln.  Wilhelm Breidenbach is a sophomore who is expected to contribute to this iteration of Nebraska basketball after missing most of last year with a knee injury.

They’ll be joined by Sam Griesel, Juwan Gary and Emmanual Bandoumel who are all Division 1 transfers that saw quite a bit of success for their other programs. Hoiberg has certainly had success bringing those types of players in. He’s had less success finding a way to get them to merge with the group as a whole.

There are still about two weeks until the Nebraska basketball team officially starts its regular season, but Sunday’s game will give people a first look at this new-look team.