{"id":556548,"date":"2026-03-22T07:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556548\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T07:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T07:29:11","slug":"husker-basketball-has-night-to-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/556548\/","title":{"rendered":"Husker basketball has night to remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

Braden Frager<\/a>\u00a0hit a layup with 2.2 seconds left to lift the Nebraska basketball team to a thrilling 74-72 victory over Vanderbilt in the second round of the NCAA South Regional at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City in front of a partisan Husker crowd Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The win continued Nebraska\u2019s record-setting season and sent the Huskers to the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history. NU advances to the South Regional in Houston for a Sweet 16 matchup on Thursday against the winner of Sunday\u2019s Iowa-Florida contest.<\/p>\n

NU led for the majority of the game Saturday but faced its largest deficit at 67-62 with just over five minutes remaining. The Huskers then scored six straight points to take the lead.\u00a0 Vanderbilt hit a clutch 3-pointer to regain the lead at 72-70 and the teams traded baskets on their next possessions.\u00a0Rienk Mast<\/a>\u00a0tied the game at 72-72 with less than a minute remaining before the Huskers got a defensive stop and\u00a0Pryce Sandfort<\/a>\u00a0found Frager for his game-winning layup.<\/p>\n

The Commodores had one final chance but Tayler Tanner\u2019s half-court heave rolled in and out as Nebraska survived and advanced.<\/p>\n

Nebraska continued to increase its school-record victory total and improved to 28-6 on the season. Vanderbilt saw its season end with a 27-9 record.<\/p>\n

The Huskers featured a balanced scoring attack and were led in scoring by Frager and Sandfort who each finished the game with 15 points. Mast and\u00a0Berke Buyuktuncel<\/a>\u00a0 also scored in double figures with 13 and 12 points, respectively. For the game, Nebraska shot 56 percent from the floor, and connected on 9-of-19 from the 3-point line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt was led by guard Tyler Tanner who scored a game-high 27 points, including 15 in the first half. The Commodores made 13 3-pointers, including 10 in the second half.<\/p>\n

Nebraska led by seven at the half, 39-32. But behind the barrage of 3-pointers, Vanderbilt outscored the Huskers by five in the second half.<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt immediately sliced Nebraska\u2019s seven-point halftime lead to three by scoring the first four points of the second half. Vandy pulled with one on several occasions, before tying the game at 55 with 9:05 to play and taking its first lead of the game at 58-55 with a 3-pointer with 8:25 remaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt continued to hold the lead until Nebraska\u2019s late 6-0 run and took its final lead at 72-70 with less than a minute remaining before the Huskers\u2019 late-game heroics.<\/p>\n

Nebraska never trailed in the first half, scoring the game\u2019s first eight points and leading 39-32 at intermission. The Huskers connected on 60 percent from the field (15-25) and the 3-point line (6-10) in the game\u2019s first 20 minutes. The Husker defense held Vanderbilt to 37 percent shooting in the first half, and just 3-of-15 from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

Nebraska jumped to an early nine-point lead at 11-2 in the game\u2019s first four minutes behind three 3-pointers, one from Buyuktuncel and a pair from Mast. The Huskers extended the lead to 10 at 14-4 on a\u00a0Jamarques Lawrence<\/a>\u00a03-point play, before Vanderbilt rallied to cut the lead to three points at 18-15.<\/p>\n

Mast connected on his third 3-pointer of the first half to give the Huskers a 21-15 edge with 8:38 left in the first half. Nebraska rebuilt its lead to 10 points at 31-21 on a Frager layup with 3:59 remaining before intermission.<\/p>\n

Vanderbilt twice cut the lead to four points in the final four minutes of the first half, but Sandfort\u2019s two 3-points in the final 3:25 of the first half allowed the Huskers to maintain their seven-point halftime advantage. Nebraska held its halftime advantage for most of the second half but in the end needed its late rally to advance to the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n

Post Game Notes<\/p>\n

Nebraska improves to 28-6 on the season and reaches the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time in school history. Nebraska will play on Thursday against the winner of Sunday\u2019s game between Iowa and Florida.<\/p>\n

The 28 wins extends Nebraska\u2019s single-season school record for wins. NU\u2019s previous school record was 26 in 1990-91.<\/p>\n

Nebraska has now won 49 games the last two seasons, the most the Huskers have ever won in a two-year span.<\/p>\n

Nebraska has now won six straight postseason games dating back to the 2025 College Basketball Crown.<\/p>\n

Nebraska improves to 2-0 against SEC teams this season, adding to a November victory over Oklahoma. Before this season, the Huskers had not beaten a team from the SEC since the 2015-16 season.<\/p>\n

Nebraska improves to 3-5 all-time against Vanderbilt while the win over the Commodores was the first by NU since a 68-57 win on Dec. 22, 1975. NU lost its last two meetings with Vanderbilt (2010 and 1997).<\/p>\n

Nebraska improved to 3-4 against ranked teams this season and the win over No. 16 Vanderbilt evened NU\u2019s all-time record vs. teams ranked 16th in the AP Poll to 7-7.<\/p>\n

This marks the second time\u00a0Fred Hoiberg<\/a>\u00a0has guided a team to the NCAA Sweet 16, as his 2013-14 Iowa State also reached the Sweet 16 before losing to eventual national champion UConn<\/p>\n

Nebraska has now won 12 of its last 13 neutral-site games dating back to the 2014 Diamond Head Classic.<\/p>\n

Junior\u00a0Pryce Sandfort<\/a>\u00a0scored 15 points in the game to increase his season total to 609. Sandfort\u2019s 609 points rank sixth on the NU single-season list.\u00a0 In tonight\u2019s game Sandfort passed\u00a0Dave Hoppen<\/a>\u00a0(598, 1984),\u00a0Andre Smith<\/a>\u00a0(600, 1980) and\u00a0Tyronn Lue<\/a>\u00a0(603, 1997).<\/p>\n

Sandfort connected on three 3-pointers in the game, giving him 123 this season, good for second on the Big Ten single-season list. He broke a tie with Penn State\u2019s Shep Garner (120, 2017-18) in tonight\u2019s game.<\/p>\n

This marked Sandfort\u2019s 24th game of the season with at least three made 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

Nebraska extended its mark for 3-pointers in a season (360) and Nebraska went over 1,000 3-point attempts for the first time in school history.<\/p>\n

Senior\u00a0Rienk Mast<\/a>\u00a0made three 3-pointers in the game, marking the eighth time this season he has made at least three 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

Senior guard\u00a0Sam Hoiberg<\/a>\u00a0had six assists, including five in the first half. With his six assists, Hoiberg increased his season total to 149 to move into ninth on the single-season assists list.<\/p>\n

Freshman\u00a0Braden Frager<\/a>\u00a0scored 15 points off the bench for his 19th double-figure game of the season, with 17 of those outings from off the bench. Frager increased his season 3-point total to 52 to tie CJ Wilcher for second on Nebraska\u2019s freshman 3-point list.<\/p>\n

Berke Buyuktuncel<\/a>\u00a0made a pair of 3-pointers marking the third time this season he has made multiple 3-pointers. He finished the game with 12 points for his sixth game in double figures and his first since Dec. 30 against New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Nebraska had 16 assists as a team, including 10 in the first half. The Huskers increased their season assist total to 611, moving into third place on the single-season team list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Braden Frager\u00a0hit a layup with 2.2 seconds left to lift the Nebraska basketball team to a thrilling 74-72…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-556548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}