If you are a Nebraska basketball fan who is wondering if the bad news is ever going to stop, you’re almost certainly not alone. Things started to go downhill when the Huskers lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Since then, it’s been an almost steady stream of bad news.
The latest piece of bad news once again involved the transfer portal. Since the loss to Texas A&M, there has been quite the exodus of players. What once seemed like a bit of a roster crunch to add transfers from the portal is no more. Now there’s at least a little concern that the Nebraska basketball team will have enough bodies to field a team.
The concern only deepened on Tuesday afternoon when reports surfaced that Matar Diop plans to seek greener pastutres. He is now the sixth Nebrasketball player to enter the portal in the last 10 days. One has to wonder at this point if he’ll be the last.
Diop’s departure means that the Huskers have lost two big men and four guards/small forwards. However, it’s the loss the big guys that’s going to hurt the most in the short term as Hoiberg’s squad was already outsized compared to most other Big Ten teams.
Nebraska basketball can’t stop transfer portal bleeding
If there is a bit of good news here, it means that Fred Hoiberg has seven scholarships to play with now. He can certainly reshape the roster in any way he sees fit. It’s also worth pointing out that of the six Cornhuskers to leave, Diop is another whose impact was minor in 2023-2024. As with the others, the concern is whether he could have contributed later on.
Diop appeared in 19 contests and averaged 0.8 points and 0.9 rebounds over 3.8 minutes per game. That production won’t be hard to reproduce by any stretch. It’s more about getting that many bodies out of the portal.
Fred Hoiberg isn’t taking this lying down. Yesterday he paid an in-home visit to a North Dakota player who would be more than an ample replacement for Matar Diop. The nervousness around the Nebraska basketbal program is more about starting to see some additions, than actually worrying about a kid who barely got on the court.