Nebraska Basketball sees surge into Top 10 RPI rankings

The Nebraska basketball team is off to its first 2-0 start in the Fred Hoiberg era. That’s one of those stats that makes your eyebrows raise, considering what a vaunted hire Hoiberg was when he was brought in to replace Tim Miles.

While the two victories, over Maine and Omaha, didn’t seem that impressive on their face, in the early part of the basketball season, it turns out they were impressive enough. Even if the level to which certain ratings systems are “impressed” seems like it would be extremely short-lived.

Thanks to that 2-0 start and some weird struggles by traditional powers like Louisville, the Nebraska basketball team is currently ranked 9th in Warren Nolan’s RPI ratings.

It’s worth noting that the high RPI rating appears to even be a surprise to the people that make that metric. According to the rankings, the Huskers jumped a whopping 73 spots since the last time the rankings were updated.

It helps that since beating the Maine Black Bears, the America East school managed to pull off an upset of Boston College. The Omaha Mavericks, meanwhile bounced back from their loss to Nebraska basketball with a win over Idaho. There’s also the fact that Omaha gave the Kansas Jayhawks a very good game for at least  a half.

Of course, this early in the season, an RPI of 9 is more a mirage than anything else. Hoiberg’s boys are expected to get spanked by St. John’s on Thursday. It’s a safe bet the rating will sink like a stone if that happens.

For it’s part, KenPom has the Huskers ranked as the 109th best team. That might seem rather low compared to RPI but the Nebraska basketball team has jumped up the ranks a bit with its 2-0 start there as well.

The question is whether the team can continue finding success in the early season or return to what has been the unfortunate normalcy of the last few years.