Nobody expected Iowa-Nebraska in basketball. That’s what makes it the Sweet 16 game to watch

Nebraska and Iowa are collectively in the Sweet 16. It’s the basketball game nobody envisioned earlier than Selection Sunday — and nobody expected till the matchup was set.

The No. 4 seed Huskers and No. 9 seed Hawkeyes collide in a South Regional semifinal Thursday night time in Houston. Iowa knocked off Florida, the prime seed and defending nationwide champion, to get right here. Nebraska, the remaining power-conference staff to win a game in the NCAA Tournament, survived a scare towards Vanderbilt in the Round of 32.

This Big Ten border rivalry is sizzling at the second.

For basketball purists, it is much from the most tasty matchup of the subsequent spherical. But Iowa-Nebraska delivers intrigue the different Sweet 16 pairings cannot match.

Path to the current

Nebraska and Iowa followers lived aspect by aspect in totally different conferences with solely a handful of sports activities interactions for a century. Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011, however the rivalry vibes did not take root till 2014, when Huskers athletic director Shawn Eichorst fired soccer coach Bo Pelini, who had overwhelmed Iowa in extra time two days earlier. When requested if the end result mattered, Eichorst mentioned, “In the final analysis, I had to evaluate where Iowa was.”

Whether Eichorst’s phrases have been deliberately condescending or simply naïve, they teed up the disrespect card for the Hawkeyes and their fans. Iowa has gained 10 of the final 11 in soccer, and the collection has graduated from average disdain to full-fledged rivalry. It reached full boil in 2024 when Iowa law enforcement officials prevented Nebraska gamers from gathering at the Tigerhawk brand at midfield earlier than the game after which the Huskers refused to shake hands with the Hawkeyes earlier than the coin toss.

Both applications produce other soccer rivalries that imply extra traditionally, however on the hate scale, it has vaulted to the prime spot for followers on either side.

As for males’s basketball, Nebraska’s lack of historic success and Iowa’s fierce rivalries with different Big Ten applications stored their conferences out of the nationwide highlight. This 12 months, issues modified.

Escalation

Iowa and Nebraska didn’t play a high-stakes basketball game throughout the first 14 years that they shared the courtroom as Big Ten opponents. Just one 12 months in the past, in reality, they met in March not for a visit to the Elite Eight however for the remaining spot in the 15-team Big Ten event.

But when Nebraska visited Iowa City on Feb. 17 as the No. 9 staff in the AP ballot, a brand new form of storm awaited.

Iowa followers serenaded Nebraska ahead Pryce Sandfort, who spent the earlier two seasons enjoying for the Hawkeyes, with boos and insults. Then the Iowa protection clamped down on the Huskers’ record-setting shooter.

Hawkeyes star Bennett Stirtz received unfastened for 25 factors, Sandfort completed with simply 13, and Iowa secured a 57-52 win that prompted a court-storming, throughout which Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg swatted a cellphone out of the hand of a scholar who confronted him at the handshake line. The Iowa administration issued an apology the subsequent day.

All of it added juice to an emotionally charged March 8 rematch in Lincoln, when Nebraska honored maybe the most impactful class of seniors in program historical past.

The Huskers misplaced a 10-point lead in the remaining 5 minutes of regulation as Kael Combs hit a second-chance 3 with 2.7 seconds to play, however Cael Jacobsen and Sam Hoiberg, the former walk-ons in the Nebraska backcourt, hit clutch photographs in extra time as Nebraska pulled away 84-75 to earn a school-record-tying twenty sixth win.

“They know what we like to do,” Sam Hoiberg mentioned. “And we know what they like to do.”

In a matter of 19 days, the depth round this basketball collection jumped from a 4 on a 1-to-10 scale to a 9.

The fan issue

No. 2 seed Houston will likely be the de facto dwelling staff at the Toyota Center, dwelling of the NBA’s Rockets. Right?

The Cougars, enjoying lower than 3 miles from their campus, are positive to really feel the love from followers who’ve anticipated a Houston look in this spot for weeks. Houston and coach Kelvin Sampson are favored to advance to the Final Four, a 12 months after shedding to Florida in the nationwide championship game.

But do not underestimate the impression of touring Big Ten followers. Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa followers charge as a few of the finest nationally in supporting their applications, dwelling and away. And followers of each members in the first regional semifinal Thursday are hungry for a motive to have a good time.

Iowa final performed in the Sweet 16 in 1999. For Nebraska followers, it is a first. The Huskers gained an NCAA Tournament game for the first time in 9 appearances final week in Oklahoma City. And Nebraska followers traveled some 15,000 robust, overwhelming virtually each sq. inch inside and outdoors of the Paycom Center and earning praise from the mayor of Oklahoma City. Media members and different longtime event observers described the scene as the most lopsided they’d ever seen in the first weekend of tourney play at a impartial web site.

(*16*) Fred Hoiberg mentioned.

Nebraska followers should not scaling again their palpable enthusiasm. They’ll descend upon Houston in large numbers, as will followers from Iowa. Some will share an airplane cabin en route to the web site of the Sweet 16. The scenes in Houston on Thursday night time may remind people in Texas of one other traditional border battle: the annual Red River Rivalry soccer game contested in Dallas between Texas and Oklahoma.

Playing with home cash

For some applications, reaching the Sweet 16 is the minimal normal of success. For Iowa and Nebraska, the regional semifinals really feel extra like a vacation spot.

Nebraska’s previous is nicely chronicled. The hope was merely to cap a record-setting season by accumulating the faculty’s first NCAA Tournament victory. Now with two postseason wins, Big Red hearts are full.

Iowa made the NCAA’s second weekend repeatedly in the Eighties below Lute Olson and Tom Davis, however Davis hit a 10-year Sweet 16 drought that led to then-athletic director Bob Bowlsby selecting not to renew the coach’s contract. Davis bowed out in 1999 after taking the Hawkeyes to the Sweet 16. Even with a nationwide participant of the 12 months in 2021 with Luka Garza or an NBA lottery decide in 2022 with Keegan Murray, the Hawkeyes hadn’t returned to the second weekend — till this 12 months.

If Thursday’s opponent have been anybody else, followers on either side would greet a Sweet 16 exit this 12 months with disappointment however delight. They nonetheless will in time. But the successful fan base will lord it over the loser, who will garner nervous power on either side of the Missouri River. —Scott Dochterman

The future

Iowa employed Ben McCollum as head coach a 12 months and a day in the past. McCollum retained one participant from the 2024-25: ahead Cooper Koch, who had redshirted.

Fred Hoiberg inherited an identical roster predicament seven years in the past. The distinction? Hoiberg gained seven video games in his first season (and in his second), whereas McCollum has coached Iowa into the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.

The early ascension bodes nicely for Iowa below McCollum, a 44-year-old hoops wiz. Imagine the place he may take the Hawkeyes when he has ample time to assemble a lineup and permit for gamers to develop in Iowa City.

Nebraska constructed slowly below Hoiberg. Despite the 28-6 mark this season, he is 112-114 general with the Huskers. If Nebraska advances to the Final Four, its coach will get to .500 for the first time since he was 4-4 in December 2019.

Nebraska posted consecutive 20-win seasons earlier than this 12 months however didn’t entice a lot nationwide discover throughout its climb. The Huskers entered this season as a 500-to-1 lengthy shot to win the nationwide championship. They are the lowest-seeded staff to make a Sweet 16 with 500-to-1 or increased title odds at the season’s begin since 2010, in accordance to The Action Network.

No matter the end result Thursday, Iowa and Nebraska will enter the offseason higher positioned than at some other time this century to preserve this degree of success or enhance on it. They do not spend like Kentucky or Duke — or like the perennial powers of the Big Ten — however the methods their coaches run don’t require five-star-laden rosters.

They craft groups that carry out higher than the sum of their elements. Expect neither coach to deviate from the type that received him to Houston. —Mitch Sherman

What to count on

Sherman: Keep an eye fixed on how the game known as early. The extra the officers allow them to play, the higher it is for Iowa, which was whistled for simply 14 fouls in its February win towards Nebraska. Iowa needs to play with physicality and prohibit the Huskers’ move on offense. “It’s going to be tough, but it’s also a game of will,” Nebraska ahead Rienk Mast mentioned. “Whoever imposes their will on the other team is going to win.”

Dochterman: When convention is face off for the third time in barely 5 weeks, the scouting reviews are well-known. The groups know one another nicely. Both are aggressive. It comes down to particulars inside the margins. Who picks up their second foul in the first 10 minutes? Who misses extra open 3-point makes an attempt? Who converts and-1s? It’s virtually unpredictable.