Nebraska men's basketball head coach Fred Hoiberg joined 'Sports Nightly' on the Huskers Radio Network on Monday to talk about the end of the regular season and the outlook for the 2025-26 campaign, which will be an important one for the coach.

Nebraska ended the regular season with a 17-14 overall record and a 7-13 mark in the Big Ten. The Huskers failed to take advantage down the stretch and lost their final five games to seal their own fate: no NCAA Tournament and no Big Ten Tournament.

The Huskers will play in a postseason tournament of some sort, like the College Basketball Crown Tournament (CBC) in Las Vegas or the National Invitation Tournament (NIT).

The CBC is a 16-team event in its first year that includes teams from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 that don't make the Big Dance, as well as at-large participants.

Hoiberg and his staff will need to juggle preparing for postseason play with being aggressive in the transfer portal, because there's overlap on the calendar.

College basketball's transfer portal opens March 24 and runs through April 22. The CBC is played March 31-April 6 while the NIT is March 18-April 3.

One was Berke Büyüktuncel's ankle sprain, which came in the final minute of the first Ohio State game. That night Büyüktuncel scored 15 points while going 3-of-6 from 3-point range. The contest with the Buckeyes marked the fifth game where Büyüktuncel had made at least one 3.

The injury came at the worst time, Hoiberg said, just before Maryland's twin towers of Julian Reese and Derik Queen came to Lincoln. Poor timing, too, for Büyüktuncel personally. The UCLA transfer was playing the best ball of his college career at the time of the injury.

But in Büyüktuncel's first three games back, he clearly wasn't himself. He scored a total of four points and shot 1-of-18 from the field and 0-of-10 from 3.

Sunday against Iowa, Büyüktuncel had eight points, seven rebounds and three assists. He also went 1-of-2 from deep.

"I thought yesterday he played better, but obviously he wasn't in the same rhythm that he had been in that stretch where we were playing well," Hoiberg said.

The other areas that bother Hoiberg include the one-possession losses and not taking advantage of the excellent home-court advantage the fan base provides.

"I do believe we will play in one of the postseason tournaments," Hoiberg said. "And then we're going to be very active in getting out there and replacing some really good players and hopefully putting ourselves in a position where we're better."

Hoiberg had a message for the fan base.

"I promise you this, we are going to do everything in our power to put a consistent winner on the court," he said. "The sad thing is we're one or two games away from being in the NCAA Tournament. As heartbreaking as that Ohio State game was, there was several things that happened in that game where, if they go our way, or we get a call, then we might be in the tournament. That's how fine of a line this business is, but we're not (in the tournament). At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

"So I promise you this, Husker Nation, we're going to do everything we can to get this thing back to where we are in the tournament and we are going to be there consistently. This place means the world to me, I absolutely love it. I'm passionate about it. We have staff right now who are out on the road recruiting. And once the portal opens up, obviously we're going to be active in it.

"We're going to put a team on the court that is going to fit the values of Huskers. I think this team was, it was a hard-working team. We just did not close out games the way we wanted to. We're going to do everything in our power to get this thing right and get a consistent winner on the court."

Nebraska is tasked with replacing at least seven known players for next season, including seniors Brice Williams, Juwan Gary, Rollie Worster, Ahron Ulis, Andrew Morgan and Braxton Meah, as well as junior Jeff Grace III, who walked on Senior Day.

The players who could return next season include Rienk Mast, Connor Essegian, Berke Büyüktuncel, Sam Hoiberg, Gavin Griffiths, Nick Janowski, Braden Frager, Cale Jacobsen, Justin Bolis and Henry Burt.

"We do have a good nucleus coming back," Hoiberg said. "And then the players we are adding to the mix, and I look at Braden Frager and Nick Janowski as two guys that I think will absolutely be in a rotation next year."

Janowski and Frager were both true freshman who are redshirting this season. The 6-4 Janowski is a guard out of Pewaukee (Wis.) while Frager is a 6-7 local product of Lincoln (Neb.) Southwest who reclassified to the 2024 class from the 2025 class.

2025 Phoenix (Ariz.) Hillcrest Prep guard Quentin Rhymes will join the roster as well as the Huskers' lone high school recruit.

"He's going to be an older freshman that had a great last year in his prep school. He's a guy who's going to come in and fight for minutes," Hoiberg said of Rhymes.

Rhymes averaged 22.4 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game while shooting 41% from 3, and 52% from the field this season at Hillcrest Prep.

Hoiberg and his staff will be searching for more shooting in the portal. This 2024-25 team has made 225 3s — 94 fewer than the Keisei Tominaga-led offense two seasons ago.

Far too often this season defenses would sink into the paint, not scared of Nebraska consistently connecting on 3s.

"Sometimes when that ball isn't going in the hoop like it was yesterday, that court shrinks and it's hard to get into the paint," Hoiberg said. "We'll get Rienk Mast back next year, which is a huge part of what we do. He led our team in assists last year. You saw how much he was missed at times this year."

Hoiberg is also confident Büyüktuncel will take another step next season now that he's spent time in Nebraska's offense and defense.

"Berke coming back after being in the system and having some success and tasting it," Hoiberg said. "Even when he wasn't scoring the ball early in the year, he was still as important as anybody because of what he did on the defensive end."

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