Fred Hoiberg probably doesn’t get the credit he deserves for being an innovator.
An argument can be made he invented modern NBA offense when he coached the Bulls. During the 2017-18 season, they had three big men who could hit 3-pointers (Lauri Markkanen, Bobby Portis, Nikola Mirotic), plus Kris Dunn slashing into the lane, and were a matchup nightmare. That team went on a 14-7 run until Dunn took a hard fall on a dunk attempt against Golden State and missed time with a concussion. Trades then put that group to bed pretty quickly.
“That was fun,” Hoiberg said this week before facing Northwestern on Sunday in Evanston. “That was as much fun as I’ve had in coaching. That team was awesome. We had a really nice stretch there.”
During his first stint as a college coach at Iowa State, Hoiberg rebuilt his team with seven transfers, then made the NCAA Tournament four years in a row for the first time in school history. These days, seven transfers is a typical offseason.
“That was in the old days when transfers actually had to sit out for a season,” Hoiberg said. “It wasn’t called the portal back then.”
The former Bulls player and coach, also an ex-Hinsdale Central basketball parent, is doing well in his sixth year as head coach at Nebraska. He cleared a major hurdle by taking the Huskers to the NCAA Tournament last season.
Nebraska (17-9) is a contender to return to the tourney. The Huskers got an important victory Sunday, rallying from a 20-point deficit in the second half to beat Northwestern 68-64. Nebraska took its first lead of the game with 3:26 remaining.
After the game, the knuckles on Hoiberg’s right hand were bandaged. He admitted there may have been a collision with the whiteboard at halftime.
Hoiberg’s time as a player with the Bulls from 1999-2003 was pretty much the worst of the rebuilding years. As head coach from 2015-18, he endured some crazy times. His first year as head coach was the last in Chicago for Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Pau Gasol. He went to the playoffs in 2017 and took the 2-0 lead over top-seed Boston in the first round. Then he had to start up the next rebuild with the Jimmy Butler trade in 2017.
Does he ever reminisce about what would have happened if Rajon Rondo didn’t suffer that thumb injury in Game 2 against the Celtics, which knocked him out of the series?
“I do. I think about that a lot,” Hoiberg said. “(Rondo) was our advantage in that series and was very close to two triple-doubles in those first two games, which we won going away.
“The way we finished that year, we played so well, we were together, we were connected. Unfortunately, you lose one of your most important pieces and you end up losing the series. But I do think about that a lot.”
Another Hoiberg ‘What if?’ is there’s an alternative universe where twins Sam and Charlie Hoiberg play on the same Hinsdale Central team with Bulls rookie Matas Buzelis. But when Hoiberg was fired by the Bulls, the twins went to high school in Lincoln, while Buzelis headed to prep school during the COVID year.
Now Hoiberg is coaching Sam, a junior guard, which is a nice silver lining to his run as Bulls coach ending early.
“It’s been great,” Hoiberg said. “I’m not sure I ever would have played Sam had we not had the injuries two years ago that got him on the floor. When he plays over 20 minutes, our win-loss record is pretty staggering (10-4).
“If the coach was smarter, I guess he’d be playing more. We got him in the starting lineup a few games ago and that’s when we went on our four-game winning streak. He’s one of our better defenders, unlike his dad.”
Nebraska has been to the NCAA Tournament just eight times in school history and never advanced. But there’s a chance the Huskers could hit 20 wins for the second straight year. Not bad for a football school sandwiched between basketball powers like Kansas and Creighton.
“I’ve coached two programs in college that mean a lot to me, one my alma mater at Iowa State, and now Nebraska where my grandfather was head coach and I was born in Lincoln and spent a lot of time here growing up,” he said. “Everything happens for a reason. I’m very happy with where I am.”
Northwestern’s Nick Martinelli scored 23 points in his quest to clinch the Big Ten scoring title. Heading into Sunday’s action, the Glenbrook South grad was in first place, averaging 19.7 points, with Nebraska’s Brice Williams and Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn tied for second at 19.4 points. Williams finished with 21 points against NU, hitting several important free throws down the stretch.
