The question kept being asked, year after year after year, in the first 16 years of this century: When will Northwestern EVER make it to the NCAA Tournament? When a program has never registered a significant yet less-than-extraordinary achievement such as MAKING the NCAA Tournament (not reaching the Final Four or Sweet 16, but merely getting in), that is the only question which will matter. It will suck up all the available oxygen in the atmosphere. It will consume the attention of the fan base. It will occupy any journalists who cover the program… and necessarily so.
Interestingly, after Northwestern made the NCAA Tournament in 2017, the Wildcats have acted like a program which has lost its way. It is as though the chase of the NCAA Tournament animated everyone in that program so much that the attainment of the goal left everyone drained and confused. Northwestern is stumbling around in the dark, tripping over rakes and slipping on wet mops. The current reality of Northwestern basketball isn’t pretty. Yet, it is hard to say that the program exists in a state of crisis… because it is dealing with an unprecedented situation: trying to deal with the greatest moment in program history, which occurred a modest three years ago.
When the history of success at a program is so minimal over a very long period of time, it is difficult to say that the current coach is the central problem (even if that might be true). A coach’s flaws and limitations might matter in an immediate sense, but the larger reality of the program demands patience (unless — and this is the only exception — an obviously and massively better coach can be brought aboard to take the program to the next level).
Nebraska basketball — often referred to as the combination term “Nebrasketball” (which is so much easier to say than “Nebraska basketball”) — is not very good this year under first-year head coach Fred Hoiberg. It is very possible that Nebraska won’t be very good next season, either. Yet, this isn’t a crisis — not when Nebraska labors under a burden similar to Northwestern’s.
The Cornhuskers are the only Power Five conference program (as a result of Northwestern’s 2017 NCAA Tournament win over Vanderbilt) without an NCAA Tournament victory. As was the case with Northwestern, people in and around Nebrasketball are asking that one question, over and over and over: When will the Huskers win their first NCAA Tournament game?
When there is no history of previous NCAA Tournament success, a new coach cannot be expected to turn around the ship immediately. There is a history dating back multiple decades in which Nebraska has reached the Big Dance, but there has not yet been a single instance of the Huskers winning a game in the round of 64 in America’s favorite bracketed tournament.
Fred Hoiberg doesn’t inhabit the same world Scott Frost does. Yes, there is disappointment and frustration and dissatisfaction in Lincoln, but the reasons for the disappointment are different.
In football, the fundamental reality of Nebraska’s situation is that the Huskers are not where they SHOULD be (at least in the minds of Nebraskans).
In basketball, the fundamental reality of Nebraska’s situation is that the Huskers are not where they COULD be. There is a huge difference between those two realities.
Scott Frost is trying to bring Nebraska back to a familiar place of prominence, back to something Nebraskans once enjoyed for several decades without any prolonged interruption.
Fred Hoiberg is trying to do something in Lincoln which has literally NEVER been done before.
If Fred Hoiberg hasn’t turned around Nebraska after three seasons on the job, his tenure won’t be in especially huge trouble. More importantly, people won’t worry if Nebraska has reached a dead end as a program. It’s hard to reach a dead end when consistent progress and improvement have been so foreign to a program’s entire existence. Football elicits a lot more worry about what will happen if Scott Frost, who came home to “mama” when his alma mater called, can’t fix things in the next two years or so.
No, the outlook for Nebrasketball isn’t great, but Fred Hoiberg will get all the time he needs. This isn’t “just like football.” Not even close.