When Lackluster Basketball Becomes a Star
I have been going to Nebraska men’s basketball games for as long as I can remember. My first memories are from the mid 1970s, sitting with my mom and dad, wearing red, watching teams that worked hard and played with pride but rarely won in ways that mattered. Back then I did not know records or history. I just knew the sound of the crowd, the smell of the arena, and the quiet hope that tonight might be different. And the fondest of memories of being with Mom and/or Dad just watching basketball.
As I got older, the names stuck with me. Brian Banks. Carl McPipe. Brian Carr. Moe Iba. Jamar Johnson. Beau Reed. Those players represented effort and loyalty, and for fans like me they represented belief. But belief was often disconnected from results. Nebraska did not win much. We showed up anyway. That became part of the culture. You cheer because it is who you are, not because you expect a payoff.
There were moments when it felt like things might change. The early 1990s gave us a couple of seasons that hinted at something more. Those teams competed. They mattered. And then, slowly and steadily, the familiar pattern returned. Decades of futility followed. Different coaches. Different players. Same outcome. Losses piled up quietly, year after year, until Nebraska basketball became shorthand for frustration. In totality, it has been more than a century of trying to matter on the national stage and coming up short.
One fact hangs over all of it. Nebraska is the only program to have never won an NCAA tournament game. That stat is not just trivia. It is weight. For those of us who have been in the stands for decades, it feels personal. It sits in the background of every good start and every promising roster.
This year feels different.
That sentence alone is dangerous for long time fans, because we have said it before. But this season has a different tone. The team plays with confidence. They handle pressure better. They do not look surprised when they are in close games or when expectations show up. There is a sense that winning is not accidental. It is intentional.
And winning for the first time is different than just winning.
A first NCAA tournament win would not simply advance a bracket. It would rewrite a story. It would validate generations of fans who kept showing up. It would tell the kid in red sitting next to his parents that hope was not misplaced. For Nebraska, that first win would mean arrival, not perfection, but legitimacy.
For those of us who have waited a lifetime, that kind of winning matters more than the score.
