Fred Hoiberg gives update on Blaise Keita ahead of trip to Spain

Nebraska forward Blaise Keita will not be playing during the program’s summer trip to Spain this summer as he recovers from ankle surgery. But head coach Fred Hoiberg is confident that Keita will be able to be ready to go for when the season opens in the fall.

“I do feel good that he will be back,” Hoiberg said in a press conference ahead of the trip. “We don’t play ’til November and we start essentially with our training camp September 27, I believe, is the first day of official practice. So we’ve got some time with Blaise. We want to get him to a point where this doesn’t keep reoccurring, the pain in the ankle. Some days are better than others for him. We’re trying to push him through the pain threshold on certain days.

“The biggest thing right now is getting the mobility back in his ankle. He’s probably about where he should be right now expected. Josiah is way ahead of where he should be right now. It’s just making sure we’re patient. Blaise gave us some great minutes at the end of the year, and obviously we missed him in a big way the last game of the year, so it’s important to continue to get him on track and hopefully get them healthy for the start of this season.”

The 6-foot-11 forward from Mali played in 21 games with five starts last year, his first with the program.

Keita isn’t the only player missing out on playing in Spain due to an injury. Josiah Allick, Juwan Gary and Sam Hoiberg will also not play across the pond.

The Cornhuskers will be playing three games in Spain against local teams. They played a Madrid-based team July 30, a Valencia-based team August 2 and a Barcelona-based team August 5.

The entire trip will last 10 days from July 28 to August 7. It is the second time the program is going to Spain after also making a trip in 2015.

“We’re going over there very short handed,” Hoiberg said. “These trips to me, it’s all about bonding. It’s all about chemistry, opportunity to go over to a beautiful country and really learn a lot about their culture. And we’ve got a lot of sightseeing things that we will do over there. [I’m] just looking forward to getting our guys over there on a trip so they can really spend a lot of quality time together.”