said Hoiberg<\/a> on Monday when asked about the history the team was trying to make this year. \u201cI guess to answer your question, very well as a team all season. Nebraska is 0-8 all-time, but none of these players were part of the seven before two years ago in Memphis where we had three guys. They talked about it. They got a little bit caught up in the hoopla. There\u2019s a lot of things going on this time of year, and the team that puts up their walls and blocks out the noise, I think, has the best chance of advancing.<\/p>\n\u201cOur guys, I think, have done a solid job of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Nebraska entered the tournament with a 26-6 record and as the No. 4 seed in the South Region, the highest a Cornhuskers team was seeded in the NCAA tournament since the 1990-91 squad that began as a No. 3 seed. But this year\u2019s team rose as high as No. 5 in the AP Top 25, and had their sights made on breaking that streak and making school history.<\/p>\n
Job, done.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s win was in line with how the Cornhuskers took care of business all season, with a defensive approach that allowed just 66 points per game, ranking Nebraska among the top defenses in the nation. They held Troy to just 25 points in the first half, while building a 41-25 lead at the break.<\/p>\n
With under five minutes to go, Nebraska had a 70-45 lead, and the Cornhuskers fans in the stands were ready to celebrate history. The chants of \u201cGo Big Red\u201d rained down from the stands, and it sounded like a Wednesday night at Pinnacle Bank Arena in January, and not the NCAA tournament in March.<\/p>\n
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And when the clock struck zero, Nebraska had their 27th win of the season, a new program record.<\/p>\n
Troy finished the game having been held to 13-of-46 from the field, and a team that averaged 80 points a game was held to just 47 by the Cornhuskers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of emotions. It\u2019s been a special group,\u201d said Hoiberg courtside after the win. \u201cWe\u2019re not satisfied, I can promise you that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is emotional, there\u2019s no doubt about it. With my family\u2019s history here, this means the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Hoiberg, the victory was personal, given his family\u2019s ties to the Nebraska program as he noted to Andy Katz after the game. His grandfather was the head coach at the school for nine seasons, and breaking that streak carried some weight. His son Sam is a senior guard on the team, who had nine rebounds and four assists in the win.<\/p>\n
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\u201cOur team is so close, we have a special bond,\u201d said the senior guard after the victory.<\/p>\n
\u201c[T]his program does mean a lot to me because of my family\u2019s history, and my grandfather was the head coach for nine seasons at the University of Nebraska. I was born in Lincoln. My parents both got their degrees from the University of Nebraska. I\u2019ve got a lot of family in the state. My Grandpa Hoiberg was a sociology professor at Nebraska for 30 years,\u201d added the Nebraska head coach ahead of the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis place means a lot to me. Two programs \u2014 Iowa State and Nebraska \u2014 and I\u2019ve been fortunate to be the head coach at both places. It would mean a lot to our family. It would mean even more to our fans. Again, they\u2019re going to show up. They expect a lot out of this team, as they should. This team has been very easy to root for all season long because of their makeup and how they\u2019ve approached everything with what you have to accomplish in your daily battles.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, it would mean a lot for our family, and again, we\u2019re going to throw everything we have. It\u2019s all about competing and, again, fighting through that adversity that we have to do at this time of season if you want to advance.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Nebraska overcame that adversity, and history, on Thursday in Oklahoma City. The Cornhuskers now play the winner of No. 5 seed Vanderbilt vs. No. 12 seed McNeese on Saturday. Nebraska will the higher-seeded team again, and will have a good shot to keep this run going to the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a statistic that has hung over the program for years now, a streak of futility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,8963,231,772,1544,3422,8905,310,475,46720],"class_list":["post-667377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-fred-hoiberg","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-nebraska","tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-troy-trojans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116257428888145248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}