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Nebraska Cornhuskers Head Coach Fred Hoiberg and Assistant Coach Matt Abdelmassih met with media yesterday to discuss the upcoming season that begins next week. Here is a brief overview of some of the highlights along with the full videos below of each’s questions and comments.
Coach Hoiberg
On the uncertainty of the upcoming season and the lack of details on it:
Huskers are relatively confident they will play their first game on Nov. 25, but are still not 100% sure who that opponent will be. Hoping that the details will be public within 24-28 hours.
On any notion of when the conference schedule will be out:
We have six practices left, and we’re not sure when to expect the conference schedule. THe first opponent will be Nov. 25 and then there will the the tournament in Lincoln and the remaining non-conference schedule. The schedule release will be made when the full conference schedule is available as well.
On how the lack of a schedule impacts opponent preparation:
The coaches are adding new things everyday and the approach is focus on improving ourselves. Regardless of the non-conference schedule, the preparation for the first opponent regardless will be a few days out from the first game.
Last week the team got into PBA for the first time for an inter-squad scrimmage and instead of having graduate assistants and assistant coaches officiate (who are awful per Coach Hoiberg’s joking remark), the program arranged for actual Big Ten officials to referee the scrimmage.
On the 2021 recruiting class:
Very excited, and feel like it’s three really high quality players. Tominaga should be as good of a shooter as there will be in the country next year. Breidenbach just blew him away with his skill set at a recruiting event last year, and is an incredible passer. Bryce McGowens commitment is a great feeling to show the direction of the program. To get the first five-star commitment to commit to the program, and talking with his brother about the overall things the program can offer a player was important.
On COVID concerns:
The team can only control what it can control, and thus far only two players have been positive through all of this. The team is doing daily testing on team and staff. Each morning at 7:30 they come in and test everyone. Son Jack who plays at MSU, as some might be aware Coach Izzo up there was as careful as anybody and still managed to catch it.
Has there been any discussion of hosting multiple games at a time in a single location:
The Big Ten has not discussed that and the important thing we focus on is controlling what we can control and being ready as much as we can for anything.
There was plenty more discussed and you can watch the full press conference below along with assistant coach Abdelmassih’s Q&A following below.