Fred Hoiberg’s embarrassing blunder just cost Nebraska an Elite Eight bid

Fred Hoiberg was the Big Ten Coach of the Year, and deservedly so. After six fruitless years in Lincoln, he finally broke through, starting the year 20-0 and eventually leading the Huskers to their first-ever NCAA Tournament win and their first-ever trip to the Sweet 16. Then, the dream season turned into a nightmare. 

In the rubber match against ninth-seeded Iowa on Thursday night in Houston, Hoiberg’s late-game blunder allowed the Hawkeyes to pull away for a 77-71 win and a trip to the Elite Eight. 

With 58 seconds, Nebraska’s Braden Frager hit a three-pointer to cut the deficit in half. Hoiberg immediately called a timeout to set up a full-court press, but out of the timeout, the Huskers sent just four players onto the floor and gave up a home-run pass to a wide-open Alvaro Folgueiras, who finished at the rim as he was fouled by Berke Buyuktuncel. The Iowa forward hit the subsequent free-throw, stretching Iowa’s lead to 74-68, which all but put the game out of reach.

Nebraska gave up the game-clinching and-1 with just 4 players on the floor

After splitting two matchups in the regular season, Nebraska led Sweet 16 for 32 minutes and 31 seconds before Iowa finally took control and escaped with a trip to the Elite Eight. Hoiberg coached incredibly well throughout the tournament and forever endeared himself to Nebraska fans with this run, but it will be impossible to look back on the program’s first trip to the Sweet 16 without memories of Hoiberg’s mistake tainting the vision. 

Prior to the timeout, Frager was on the floor with Rienk Mast, Sam Hoiberg, Jamarques Lawrence, and Pryce Sandfort. Coming out of the timeout, Cale Jacobsen, Hoiberg, Sandfort, and Buyuktuncel took the floor together with Lawrence, Frager, and Mast all on the bench. 

Watching the play again, once Nebraska realizes its mistake, Mast gets up off the bench and begins to run towards the scorers' table, but by the time he gets close to the floor, Folgueiras had already caught the inbounds pass. 

Hoiberg did still have on timeout left coming out of his previous timeout.

Whoever is at fault, the players or the coaching staff, it’s an incredibly costly blunder and inexcusable blunder. For a fanbase just happy to be there in many ways, it was hard to imagine a more frustrating way for the Huskers' first NCAA Tournament run to come crashing down. Even harder to imagine coming away from the season with any amount of frustration towards Hoiberg.