Fins up! It’s the rallying cry of the LIU Sharks, the first team to punch their ticket to the 2026 NCAA Tournament by advancing to the NEC Tournament Championship, which will take place on Tuesday night. Though the Sharks have not won the NEC yet, they have locked up the automatic bid because their opponent on Tuesday night, Mercyhurst, is in its second year as a D1 program and therefore is ineligible to play in March Madness.
Despite not yet winning the conference crown, the Sharks have already taken college basketball by storm with their student section’s Fins Up free-throw routine. The trend has apparently traveled all the way from Brooklyn, where Long Island University plays its home games, to Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Pinnacle Bank Arena.
In Nebraska’s 84-75 win over Iowa in the regular season finale on Sunday at PBA, Huskers fans recreated the Fins Up routine.
Nebraska’s Student Section has adopted LIU’s iconic “Fins UP” today versus Iowa. This is March.🦈🌽 https://t.co/VS1yEqTX90 pic.twitter.com/QJfebFzQ9p
— Chase Matteson (@ChaseMatteson) March 8, 2026
Nebraska fans surely won’t be the only ones to recreate this trend throughout March, but were one of the only fanbases to latch on in time to get the entire student section involved in a regular-season home game.
Nebraska recreates LIU’s Fins Up free throw routine vs. Iowa
LIU is one of the best stories of March so far, and in some sense, there’s a bit of a connective thread between the two programs as both are searching for their first NCAA Tournament win. The Huskers have been hanging around the top 10 for much of the season, so they won’t have the Cinderella feel of a mid-major like LIU in March, but Nebraska has made the NCAA Tournament eight times in its history, and has never advanced beyond the first round.
As a likely top-four seed in the bracket, which will be released on Sunday at the conclusion of the Big Ten Tournament, the Huskers will be favorites in the first round, but will undoubtedly be channeling some underdog energy for what Huskers fans are hoping will be a lengthy stay in the tournament.
As the NEC’s representative, the Sharks will likely be a No. 15 or 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament field, so Huskers fans are unlikely to meet their muse. Still, it seems there will be a bit of mutual admiration between the fanbases this month.