Hoiberg counting on transfers
It is a long time before the Husker men’s basketball team takes the floor after putting up a 25-loss season, with 17 losses in a row.
You would hope that next season the team would hit the floor with more experience, a season of playing together and hopes of improving a bunch.
But next year’s team is going to be one that we will have to learn a lot of new names.
Out of 12 players currently on scholarship, only four will be players that played last year.
And as far as learning new names, I still can’t pronounce or spell Thorir Thorbjarnarson.
I just know it ends in arson and I hope he can light a fire under the rest of his teammates.
Along with Thorir, returners include Kevin Cross, Akol Arop and Yvan Ouedraoggo.
Three members of the squad were transfers that sat out last year. Dalano Banton, Derrick Walker and Shamiel Stevenson hopefully will be an upgrade to the talent last year, but how well they blend in with all the new players is still a guess.
The Huskers need help. From guard to post, from knocking down a jump shot to finishing strong at the rim, help is needed in order to play in the Big 10 and be competitive.
Again, Coach Hoiberg has some players from the transfer route committed to Nebraska.
Kobe Webster is a 6-foot point guard transferring from Western Illinois.
He averaged 17.1 points as a junior and 17.0 as a sophomore and had a career high of 40 points against University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Kobe King is a 6-4, 205-pound guard who played three seasons at Wisconsin. He averaged 10.0 points in 19 games in the 2019-20 season.
It seems like every transfer has a story and King didn’t like how Coach Greg Gard ran the program.
Teddy Allen, formerly of Boys Town, played at West Virginia and Wichita State and ended up at Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsbluff.
He was the leading scorer in JUCO ball last year, averaging 31.4 points per game.
Lat Mayen is a long 6-9 wing player from Chipola College.
He played one year at Texas Tech. He averaged 11.8 per game and he did hit 81% from the free-throw line. That would be a nice thing to have a player who could hit free-throws.
Trey McGowens is a 6-4 guard transferring from Pittsburgh who scored 11.5 per game.
He hasn’t made a final choice but Nebraska is in his final five schools along with Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn and Ole Miss.
Coach Hoiberg built Iowa State into a pretty good basketball program doing the same thing that he appears to be doing now.
Patience is needed to build a program.
We have been hearing that in football at the University and now it is the same situation with men’s basketball. The fan base for both programs is strong.
Not sure how strong the patience part of this situation is but I hope both coaches have better seasons than last year and both programs begin to improve.