Norlander's Court Report: Fred Hoiberg's Huskers the feel-good story of season; Boozer-Yax NPOY race heats up
Matt Norlander's college hoops insider notebook also has scoop on Mick Cronin's new contract and good news for the lone remaining undefeated mid-major.
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14 min read
Nebraska is the feel-good story of the first six weeks of the college basketball season. The undefeated Cornhuskers own the nation's longest winning streak (15 games), which doubles as the longest winning streak in program history. In October, Fred Hoiberg's team was ranked outside the top 50 in advance metrics and was picked 14th in the Big Ten preview here at CBS Sports. Oops!
They fooled just about everybody.
Every year, like clockwork, we get a couple of schools that emerge in the first month-plus that overshoot expectations and present an uplifting plot twist. Nebraska is that team for 2025-26. The Cornhuskers are 11-0 after their enthralling 83-80 win at 13th-ranked Illinois on Saturday, the victory-clinching shot via senior Jamarques Lawrence.
Jamarques Lawrence came in CLUTCH. 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/hkG1ZtF0Uz
— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) December 13, 2025
The result validated Nebraska's reputation and vaulted it into a new tier of respectability. Beating Illinois was the team's third straight conquest of a power-conference opponent. Six days prior was the annual rivalry game against Creighton, which turned into a cruise-control 71-50 win over a down Bluejays squad. Two days later, a head-turning 90-60 thwacking of Wisconsin.
"Then our prize was two-day prep to go to Illinois," Hoiberg told CBS Sports by phone earlier this week. "We wanted to get selfish and get all three. … You've got 17,000 people in a smaller building, the ceiling is right on top of you and when they went on their runs, the concern is how is your team going to be able to handle it."
They handled it with encouraging sangfroid. The win gave Nebraska a second straight victory over Illinois, the first time that's ever happened, as is the 11-0 start. Nebraska quite literally never does this. The Cornhuskers are one of seven undefeated teams in college basketball.
"I think we've been better than a lot of people thought, than I thought, going into the season," Hoiberg said. "It's rewarding when you have a group that's all about the right things: no distractions, they're on time, academically they take care of exactly what they're supposed to do, and I'm a firm believer that if you take care of that stuff it works out on the court. Since the win, they've gotten over things very quickly. Great locker room celebration, but when we got back on the practice court today, no one even talked about it."
The win bumped them up to No. 15 in this week's AP Top 25, Nebraska's third-highest ranking in any season. Even though Nebraska didn't load up its nonconference schedule (rank: 203), this looks like a team plenty equipped to make only its ninth NCAA Tournament in school history. Quite the turnabout after Hoiberg was trending toward wash-out status three years ago in his return to college coaching.
After thriving at his alma mater, Iowa State, Hoiberg had to take a chance on himself in the NBA. He coached the Bulls for three years, from 2015-18. In 2019, Nebraska brought him back to the NCAA ranks, offering a new lease on the profession ... but an even tougher task than Hoiberg's reconstruction at Iowa State almost a decade prior.
"We took over the largest rebuild in the history of the Power Five conferences," said Hoiberg, "had one player who averaged two points the previous year, and this was before NIL where you could buy a team. The Big Ten was maybe the deepest the league ever was then, and then we lost a whole team, a whole season to COVID."
The nadir hit midway through the 2022-23 season. Nebraska lost starters Juwan Gary and Emmanuel Bandoumel to season-ending injuries 11 days apart. Nebraska dropped to 10-13. At that point, Hoiberg was 34-80 in Lincoln.
Then the team rallied and won six of its final eight regular season games.
"That really, to me, was the team that flipped the script for Nebraska basketball," Hoiberg said.
The aforementioned injuries also gave opportunities to younger guys like Sam Hoiberg and Lawrence. And as surprising as this undefeated start is, here's why it's not a full-on stunner. Look deeper at what Hoiberg's pulled off the past two years and a half years. Since 2023-24, Nebraska has gone 55-25, a .688 win percentage. That's 19th best out of 79 Power Five programs in that span, just behind Alabama (.714) and Illinois (.702), while just ahead of Creighton (.679) and Kentucky (.675).
In 2024, Nebraska made the NCAAs as a No. 8 seed. Last season, no NCAA Tournament but the Huskers did win the patchy postseason event that is the College Basketball Crown and landed at 21-14.
The only reason Nebraska wasn't an NCAA Tournament team last season, per Hoiberg, is not having Rienk Mast. The 6-foot-10 Dutch forward sat out due to left knee surgery. Now a 24-year-old senior, Mast has returned as one of the best players in the Big Ten by posting 17.9 points, 6.5 rebounds and shooting 42.6% from 3.
There was no silver lining in missing the Big Dance, but a fun run in Vegas resulted in a $300,000 payday for the players and made for a good experience to finish the season.
"Last year there's no doubt we make it to the tournament if Rienk was healthy," Hoiberg said. "We lost three games in a row in one-possession games in all different ways. We didn't protect home court last year but we found a way to win. It gave us momentum going into the postseason, the way we played, we changed things up a little bit and, shit, those guys won $300,000 that they split. And it's carried over into this season. It helped with the way we played, [it helped] in getting Pryce Sandfort to come aboard."
Hoiberg's doing this while overseeing a Nebraska team that, according to my sources, at best ranks 15th (and potentially as low as 17th) in the league in NIL in men's hoops. Hoiberg's NBA experience -- as a player and a coach -- has been massive in offsetting some of Nebraska's disadvantages.
"We're not going to put boundaries on this group," he said.
Nebraska is infamously the only high-major program to never win an NCAA Tournament game. That drought has a healthy chance of ending in 2026, but to do that you need to get there first. Here's the really good news, Husker fans. Nebraska's next two opponents are North Dakota and New Hampshire, almost definitely automatic wins for Big Red, which means improving to 13-0. According to CBS Sports research, in the past 30 years there have been 96 teams from high-major conferences to start a season 13-0. Of those 96, 86 were good enough to qualify for the NCAAs, which equates to an 89.6% success rate.
See you on Selection Sunday, Nebraska.
Boozer is NPOY for now, but Yaxel's not far off
With Christmas coming next week and almost all of the non-con slate over, the race for National Player of the Year is Cameron Boozer's to lose. The Duke five-star freshman had 26 points, 13 rebounds, a season-high six turnovers and three assists in Duke's rickety-yet-inevitable 97-73 win Tuesday night against Lipscomb. Boozer's averages now check in at 23.3 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists with 56.3/34.8% FG/3P shooting splits.
Eleven games in, Boozer's been the definition of outstanding. But he's no lock for the NPOY at this point. Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg has exceeded the hype and is Boozer's closest competition. After what Big Yax did Saturday, the gap could be closing.
Michigan's 101-82 road win at Maryland was the setting for another loaded Lendeborg production: 29 points, nine assists, eight rebounds, three blocks and two steals. One hell of a game. But because Lendeborg was a dime and two snags shy of a triple-double, and because Maryland is non-threatening in its first season under Buzz Williams, his performance didn't prompt a flood of reaction or flashy headlines.
It was rare, though. How rare? What Lendeborg did Saturday was only the fifth game of its kind in the past three decades. It deserves more recognition. That's why I'm here to tell you more about it.
Since 1995-96, there have been only five instances of a player logging a stat line of 28+ points, 8+ rebounds, 8+ assists, 3+ blocks and 2+ steals in a game. Lendeborg is responsible for two of the five -- and both happened this year. Here's the other four times it's happened:
- Maryland's Greivis Vasquez: 35 pts, 11 rebs, 10 asts, 3 blks, 2 stls vs. North Carolina on 2.21.09
- Charleston Southern's Phlandrous Fleming: 31 pts, 11 asts, 9 rebs, 6 blks, 4 stls @ Gardner-Webb on 1.25.20
- Coppin State's Anthony Tarke: 34, 10 rebs, 8 asts, 4 blks, 4 stls vs. UNCG on 12.10.20
- UAB's Lendeborg: 30 pts, 20 rebs, 8 asts, 5 stls, 4 blks vs. ECU on 3.14.25
Meaning Lendeborg is only the second player since 1995-96 to do it vs. a power-conference opponent.
A marvelous player, and yet his production at Michigan is not shocking. CBS Sports/247 Sports rated Lendeborg as the No. 1 portal prospect last spring after he was the only player other than Cooper Flagg to lead his team in all five major statistical categories. At UAB, Lendeborg was a monster dominating in semi-obscurity -- so good that he nearly went the NBA route. Instead, Lendeborg bet on himself and is now the focal point on a deep Michigan team that rates No. 1 in almost every predictive metric.
His averages: 16.4 points, 7.2 rebounds, 3.7 assists in a couple fewer minutes per game than Boozer (28.0 to 30.2). His shooting splits are better than Boozer's right now: 59.6% from the field, 40.8% from 3 (on 4.9 attempts per game) and 86.4% from the foul line.
We'll see how the NPOY race brews over the next two months, but it could come to a head on Feb. 21. That's when Duke and Michigan meet in Washington, D.C. in a blockbuster nonconference tilt. It might be the game of the season with the two best players in the sport.
Cronin quietly signed new contract in May
Last season saw UCLA coach Mick Cronin at his crankiest (and, I'd argue, funniest). He had a number of postgame rants that went viral amid a just-OK 23-win run that ended in the second round of the NCAAs with Cronin capping the season by crapping on the NCAA's flight arrangements. As Cronin's continued to speak his mind the past two years, there had been steady gossip in college hoops circles that he might have a wandering eye for other jobs. Well, if he did, that's now almost certainly off the table.
In mid-May, Cronin signed a two-year contract extension with UCLA that increased his salary, buyout and severance terms.
CBS Sports recently obtained the new contract, which when unreported until just this week, when the LA Times first got word out. Unlike in 2022, when Cronin renegotiated, UCLA never announced the updated deal. (This isn't typical at a public university with a high-profile program, though UNC was sluggish to announce Hubert Davis' contract extension last season after it was signed in December of 2024.)
Cronin, 54, is now paid $4.5 million annually -- but that's before factoring in a plethora of bonuses that will easily bump his income well above $5 million per year with the easy-to-achieve incentives in his contract. For example, if Cronin is still UCLA's coach as of April 15, 2026, he'll be paid an additional $500,000 ... just by holding on to the job. That perk will increase to another $600,000 come April 15, 2027, and then 700K the subsequent two years so long as he's still fit to coach in the Westwood sunshine.
Cronin had $10 million guaranteed coming to him on the previous contract (if he'd been fired), but by working a new deal, he more than doubled his payout in the revised paperwork. If the two sides sever in the next five years, here's the amended money structure.
If fired without cause, UCLA would have to pay Cronin ...
- Before April 1, 2026: $22.5 million
- Before April 1, 2027: $18 million
- Before April 1, 2028: $13.5 million
- Before April 1, 2029: $9 million
- Before April 1, 2030: $4.5 million
If Cronin takes another job, here are his updated buyout terms ...
- Before April 1, 2026: $15 million
- Before April 1, 2027: $12 million
- Before April 1, 2028: $8 million
- Before April 1, 2029: $6 million
- Before April 1, 2030: $4 million
The conditions almost certainly lock up the two sides through the end of the decade. Cronin is 145-67 at UCLA in this his eighth season. He's taken the school to the NCAAs four times, including the 2021 Final Four run in the COVID bubble tourney. The 7-3 Bruins are unranked and face Arizona State on Wednesday night.
What does it mean to be last unbeaten mid-major?
I started this week's Court Report writing about one 11-0 team, now let's look at another. The Miami University RedHawks won at Wright State on Tuesday night to reach mid-December without a loss. There are only seven undefeated teams left; Travis Steele's group is the lone mid-major without a scratch.
The RedHawks -- who naturally made my preseason Top 100 And 1 teams list -- have done this by playing a terrible schedule. Their difficulty ranks 362 out of 365. Still, every mid-major coach dreams of making it to December without a loss, let alone Christmas. After four seasons of not taking Xavier to the NCAA Tournament, Steele has found a place to thrive in the MAC. This is Year 4 for him in Oxford, Ohio, and it's setting up to be his best season in eight campaigns as a head coach.
Now, what can an 11-0 start get you? More specifically, if you're the last mid-major team to take a loss, what does that portend for your NCAA Tournament chances? Well, over the past 25 seasons, 15 mid-majors that took their first loss last wound up making the Big Dance. That's a 60% hit rate. Last season it was Drake. The year before, James Madison. And both those teams won an NCAA tourney game.
On average since the 2000-01 season, the final mid-major to lose a game finishes with a 26-7 record.
Here are the five best undefeated starts for mid-majors in the past 25 years. If you want the full list, I posted it on Bluesky.
» 2013-14 Wichita State: 35-0, first loss on March 23, finished 35-1 in R2 as No. 1 seed
» 2003-04 Saint Joseph's: 27-0, first loss on March 11, finished 30-2 in E8 as No. 1 seed
» 2011-12 Murray State: 23-0, first loss on Feb. 9, finished 31-2 in R2 as No. 6 seed
» 2010-11 San Diego State: 20-0, first loss on Jan. 26, finished 34-3 in Sweet 16 as No. 2 seed
» 2020-21 Drake: 18-0, first loss on Feb. 7, finished 26-5 in R1 as No. 11 seed
Norlander's news + nuggets
• Two weeks ago the Court Report detailed the history-making pace of non-con ranked matchups. At the end of this week, we'll be at 44 ranked-on-ranked games outside of intra-league play. Hitting 50 is a bridge too far, but with Louisville-Baylor, Ohio State-Virginia and Michigan-Duke all happening in February, topping out at 46 or 47 would still be the record, per my research.
• I love that the Big 5 Classic is still a thing. I would prefer for it to always be a thing. College basketball is actually special in Philadelphia. But I also worry that it could be a relic by the end of the decade.
• This didn't exactly fly under the radar, but I don't think it got quite the reaction it deserved last week: Michigan State getting a $400 million infusion for its athletic department is the kind of thing that could vault MSU in the overall college sports hierarchy by the end of the decade. And will be the second most important factor (beyond picking the right successor) in Sparty's chances at staying elite in basketball after Tom Izzo retires, whenever that day comes.
• The most baffling team in the sport is Loyola Chicago. The Ramblers are 3-8, play in California tonight against San Francisco and are under threat for one of their worst seasons ever. This after LUC was expected to be a dark horse candidate to win the Atlantic 10.
• A different early season surprise at the high-major level: UCF. The Knights are 8-1 (best start in 10 seasons under Johnny Dawkins) and will likely get to 11-1 by Christmas. Many agents expected Dawkins to be off the job after last season. Not yet. Still a lot to prove, though.
• USC is 10-1, but it could be headed for a slide in January. Trojans coach Eric Musselman revealed on Monday that star transfer Rodney Rice (20.3 ppg, 6.0 apg) might be done for the season after injuring his shoulder at the Maui Invitational in late November. This is the exact scenario that coaches stress over when they opt in on paying millions of dollars to transfers amid the portal frenzy. If Rice is done, through no fault of his own, then it's money poorly spent.
• Creighton plays Xavier tonight. The Bluejays are in no man's land. Sitting at 5-5, it's the program's worst start in the first 10 games of a season in 16 years. Will Greg McDermott walk away in March and end it like this?
• I'll take home-and-homes between high-majors no matter what, so that being said: Georgia and North Carolina teaming up is an unexpected combo. They'll play in November of '26 and again November or December of '28.
• Longtime readers know I love tunes just as much as hoops. Here's an interesting article on the best-selling tour acts of the 21st century. If we did this for college basketball, the top ticket sellers since Jan. 1, 2001 (only for the regular season) would be: Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina, Louisville and Tennessee.
• Neglected to get this into my column last week when I covered UConn vs. Florida at the Jimmy V. It was of course a matchup of the two most recent national title winners. Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, we've been treated to a game between the two most recent title winners 21 times. A lot more than I would have guessed, but that's significantly boosted by intra-conference play. What's rare is to have a nonconference regular season battle between those teams. Huskies-Gators was only the fifth such matchup in 40 years. Here's the list in reverse chronological order.
