Fred Hoiberg reveals which Nebraska players will be unavailable for Spain trip
Nebraska basketball is going worldwide. However, the Cornhuskers won’t have their full roster in a foreign land.
On July 28, Nebraska will head to Spain, where the team will visit Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona and play once in each city against local teams. Before the team’s departure, head coach Fred Hoiberg updated the press on which players would be unavailable due to injury.
The first player off the list was Josiah Allick. The senior forward must wait a bit longer before representing Nebraska. Allick averaged 8.4 points and 7.3 rebounds per game last season for New Mexico while shooting 56% from the field.
Although Allick won’t be available for the Cornhuskers’ trip to Spain, Hoiberg likes what he sees from the Nebraska native.
“Josiah Allick has recently been cleared for all non-contact activity. He looked really good. We’re putting him through some of the things within our system. We’re playing him at multiple positions, and he’s made great progress, but he will not be ready for any competition,” Hoiberg said. “Once we get back to school on the 21st, we’ll be able to clear him for some contact drills.”
Junior forward Juwan Gary will not participate in the foreign contests, either. Gary is still returning to health after suffering a season-ending injury against Illinois on Jan. 10. In the 17 contests Gary played in, he averaged 9.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and a team-high 1.4 steals per game.
Gary won’t participate in Spain, but was cleared for full-contact activity last week. Hoiberg doesn’t want to rush Gary back into activity.
“Great to have to him back out there on the floor. Just don’t want to rush him back and do anything. These games are good experience for us, but in the grand scheme of things, they don’t mean anything. We’re going to be careful,” Hoiberg said.
Lastly, the Cornhuskers will be without Sam Hoiberg and Blaise Keita. Last season, the pair averaged a combined 6.1 points and 5.3 boards per outing. Despite the duo’s underwhelming figures, the 50-year-old coach expects them to take a significant step forward this season.
While it won’t be easy, Hoiberg expects the games to be great experience for his available players.
“We’re going over there very short handed,” Hoiberg admitted. “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.”