Big Ten Basketball: Ranking all 18 programs after adding Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington

17. Nebraska

While their football program is certainly in rough shape at the current time, there’s no question that Nebraska is not a basketball school. The Cornhuskers haven’t finished over .500 in the four years that former Chicago Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg has helmed the program and their time in the postseason has been largely fleeting.

The Cornhuskers have made just seven trips to the Big Dance in their history and are the only power conference program that has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Worse yet, a bulk of those appearances came in the early 90’s and they’ve only made a single appearance in the NCAA Tournament since the turn of the century. There just isn’t a history of success at any level for this basketball program.

Since Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011, it hasn’t all been bad news. They made their most recent trip to the Big Dance back in 2014 and have had other moments of spotlight. They’ve won a few big games over their conference rivals and were even ranked a couple different times over the last decade, but if that’s worth celebrating then what level is this program really at?

Hoiberg hasn’t figured out how to win in four seasons; is there hope for anyone at this program? If we’re being realistic, nobody expects Nebraska to wake one day and become a basketball power, especially as this league gets even stronger with these new additions. Even though they did just finish 9-11 in conference play, their 3rd best mark since joining the conference, it’s hard to be excited about Big Ten basketball in Lincoln.