Fred Hoiberg explains why Nebraska will back off intensity in practice

The Nebraska Cornhuskers currently sit at 16-6 on the 2023-2024 campaign. They’ve posted an impressive 14-1 record at home, with none of those being bigger than a 16-point throttling of the No. 1 ranked Purdue Boilermakers. It was the Huskers first win over a No. 1 ranked team in over 40 years (Feb. 6, 1982). Following his team’s recent 80-72 comeback victory over the Wisconsin Badgers, Hoiberg said he wants to keep his team fresh following a grueling stretch of games.

“Well, yeah it is. Again, getting Juwan [Gary] back for our team does so many things for us. If he plays on the road, I think we may have one under our belt, but we didn’t,” Hoiberg began.

A few factors played into Nebraska coming back to win, but Hoiberg really liked the bigger lineup they deployed. Juwan Gary is a huge key in getting that five out there, but injuries have been bothering him over the past couple of weeks. Gary came off the bench but played 33 minutes, while recording nine points and four rebounds.

“So, who knows and if we had him if we would have gotten it or not. So, to get him back out there. Played him a few more minutes than I would have wanted to tonight, but we just felt like with the importance of this game, we had to have him out there. Hope he responds well in the morning. He’ll get a treatment and hopefully be back on the floor,” the Cornhuskers head coach noted.

Gary is a player that can do it all for the Huskers, stuffing the stat sheet with 11.5 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game.

“Guys expend a lot of energy today. We’ve had three tough, knock down practices. And I’ll say this about the practices we’ve had. Physically we might be a little bit tired, but they found a way and I think it gave them a little not only physical toughness but mental toughness,” Hoiberg continued.

“With our practices that we’ve had. And you know, we’re gonna have to back it off. We’ve got a lot of games in a short amount of time again. It seems like we’ve had a lot of those this year. But we’ve gotta get over this one in a hurry. And find a way to play a team that puts you in a lot of difficult positions. They just look at the mismatches and say we’re gonna iso with you and they’ve got really good players to take advantage of that.”

Nebraska will now hit the road for the next two games, traveling to Illinois on Sunday and Northwestern midweek. With both of those being tougher matchups, Hoiberg is happy Nebraska could get a signature win.

On3’s Griffin McVeigh also contributed to this article.