Tom Shatel World-Herald Columnist – Feb 17, 2026 Updated 6 hrs ago – Lincoln Journal Star

First downs and second guesses:

They aren’t exactly All-Airport.

Nebraska’s Rienk Mast (51) goes up for a shot against Northwestern’s Tre Singleton (8) during the first half of a college men’s basketball game at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. NIKOS FRAZIER, THE WORLD-HERALD

If you saw Nebraska’s men’s basketball team walking through an airport, you’d think it was a baseball team. Maybe golf. Or show choir.

My cmnt: No one, not anyone, would mistake the Husker basketball team for “a baseball team or golf or show choir.” They have very decent size and look like a team of basketball players. Just not in America. What Shatel is trying to say with his whole column is that this Top Ten college basketball team has a majority of white players. Typical top basketball in America is dominated by black players. Hence our team is “high IQ” and should be playing golf or baseball or singing in a college show choir or doing math problems.

My cmnt: This is appears so racist in tone and attitude I’m surprised that basically Left-Lib newspapers like the OWH and LJS would print it. Of course it’s tongue-in-cheek but with today’s hypersensitive snowflakes running the show at all democrat-run institutions I still find it more than a little interesting. Yet it remains an obvious fact that can never be said out loud: People of European and East Asian descent dominate high IQ STEMM fields and professions while people of African descent dominate the “speed” sports.

If they walked onto a playground, you would hear the snickers. You’d half expect them to have hats on backward and knee socks. Where’s Woody Harrelson? Then the laughing would stop when they walked off with everyone’s money.

Northwestern’s Tre Singleton (8) and Nebraska’s Rienk Mast (51) go up for the tipoff during the first half of a college men’s basketball game at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. NIKOS FRAZIER, THE WORLD-HERALD

I’ve seen these Huskers before. They remind me of some of the teams I watched in those 3×3 tournaments. The ones that looked like 30-year-old corporate types, holding onto the game, defying logic, not to mention gravity, on their way to a title.

Old Man League. Rec League. Church League. Tuesday Lunch League.

I’ve heard it all said about Fred Hoiberg’s uniquely connected team this year. It’s accurate. And it’s beautiful.

“I can see that being a compliment, but I can also see that being a team that’s old and not very athletic,” said Hoiberg, laughing. “Which may ring a little bit true with our team.”

Trust me: it’s a compliment. The Huskers are a basketball team, by the strictest definition of basketball and team. What they lack in athleticism they make up in savvy, effort, guts and playmaking. Above all, experience.

Nebraska’s starting lineup goes 24, 22, 22, 21 and 21 years old. That’s an average age of 22. Most college players that age are graduate assistants. These guys are going to practice.

It’s a team that plays with a second sense. Like they have radar. They play like they’ve been a team together for years. And that’s the funny part.

This is their first year together.

Hoiberg tries to build a team each year with players that fit. This one, he said, “has been everything we thought they were and more.”

“They’re very well-connected,” Hoiberg said. “This is as connected a team as I’ve ever had and we have to be. We’re not going to go out and win the layup line. We have to be the more connected, harder-playing team and for the most part I think we’ve accomplished that this season.

“It’s a very high IQ team. And I think you can tell the assist-turnover ratio we have, our basket-assist rate is high. There’s two things when you have that: it’s a high IQ team and it’s an unselfish team. That’s the thing that has made this team easy to pull for.”

Sam Hoiberg, 22, smiled when I told him some fans were calling them an “old man team.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard that,” Sam Hoiberg said. “We play in a way that is different from other teams because we’re not the most athletic. We know we have to play in a way that moves the ball, not dribbling it too much, playing to our strengths.

“We have a lot of high IQ players. That helps when you’re scouting teams on the fly. That’s been huge for us.”

NU plays like a team with five coaches on the floor. No wonder opposing coaches love them — when they aren’t facing them.

“The veteran leadership of this group is so impressive,” Northwestern coach Chris Collins said. “It’s one of my favorite teams to watch, when I’m sitting back. I love the way they play. They’re really together. They’re all about winning.”

All that, plus Nebraska’s NCAA history, will make for a huge national bandwagon come March.

»Collins, who led Northwestern to its first NCAA tournament (and win) in history, was asked if he had any advice for the current Nebraska group. He referred to something Michigan State coach Tom Izzo told him.

“Our guys were feeling the pressure of 80 years (of history),” Collins said. “Everybody was talking about it around them but maybe I wasn’t talking about the pressure. I wanted the ease the air out of the ball.

“(Izzo) said don’t do that. Meet the pressure head on. If you’re going to do something great, there’s pressure involved. This is big boy basketball. You got to be tough and you got to meet it head on.”

»One of the coolest things about this Nebraska basketball season is that, over the years, NU has kept students behind the benches and now they are getting to see this team up close.

»It’s also great to see Danny Nee back at Nebraska basketball games —especially around what’s happening this season.

»This has been a Creighton season to forget. But what the Jays went through last week with the loss of Josh Dix’ mother, going to the funeral and then playing a game the next day can bring a team closer. I know coach Greg McDermott appreciates that. And I think the coach will look back fondly on this team.

»UNO will celebrate a rarity in college basketball on Wednesday: a Senior Day for a four-year senior. Tony Osburn played 114 games and started 88 in four years for the same school. He’s been one of the all-time Mavs, especially when you include his role on the historic 2024-25 team.

One of my favorite things about Osburn is that he’s from Mound City, Mo., the halfway point between Omaha and Kansas City and a popular fueling stop on I-29. The Osburn family are good folks — and he’s the first person I’ve met from Mound City, not counting Quackers Steakhouse and McDonald’s.

»Kansas State’s refusal to pay fired basketball coach Jerome Tang’s $18 million buyout raises a good question: Why are schools still including massive buyouts for coaches? Pay them more up front and much less on the way out.

»One more and I’m outta here: I had an interesting day last Friday visiting my daughters in Chicago. Just call it “Pa Kettle goes to the big city.”

As I stood in line to get on a bus on Michigan Ave., I was being sized up as a mark (tourist). When I got on the bus, a guy cut in front, then he stood on the steps and stopped, to prevent me from getting on. Suddenly, I felt my back pocket begin to move.

I whirled around to see his partner holding my wallet. He said it “fell to the ground” and he was just picking it up. I grabbed it back, without “thanking” him, embarrassed and relieved.

Funny, but all I could think of was “I’m glad he didn’t take my phone.”