The Shot Was In, Then Bounced Out – Nebraska is Going to the Sweet Sixteen

The No. 4-seeded Huskers escaped with a 74-72 South Region win in what may have been the most physical, most heated and most closely fought game of the tournament. And not by much

“My heart sank as that ball went in the hoop and went out,” Nebraska senior guard Sam Hoiberg said. “I think it took me a half a second to register it didn’t go in, and then I just screamed in elation. I thought it was in.”

Added freshman forward Braden Frager, who scored what turned out to be the game-winning bucket: “I had a perfect shot on it from the bench, and I was like – I just froze for two seconds. I thought it went in. I didn’t know how to react.”

A Tanner 3-pointer had put the fifth-seeded Commodores up two inside the final minute before Nebraska senior center Reink Mast tied it with a tip-in and Vanderbilt freshman wing Chandler Bing couldn’t convert at the other end. With 10 seconds on the clock, Nebraska raced down and junior forward Pryce Sandfort found Frager cutting down the lane to take the lead.

“I think all five guys ran at Pryce, and I think everybody expected him to shoot that,” Frager said. “I was calling for the ball. It was all him. He made the unselfish play, and I had a wide-open lane to the rim and I just went and made a play.”

Out of a Vanderbilt timeout with 2.2 seconds to go, Tanner could only get to just short of midcourt before launching his shot from in front of the scorers’ table with 1.4 still on the clock. Like Kentucky’s Otega Oweh on Friday against Santa Clara, his shot hit the backboard. Unlike Oweh’s, it would have won the game instead of forcing overtime. And like Oweh’s, it went in … then bounced out.

“That last shot, man, it just took my breath away,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. “That kid is an unbelievable player. When that thing was up in the air. I was, like, ‘Oh, man, that’s going in.’ Then it hit every part of the rim. And thankfully bounced out.”

So Nebraska advances to face Sunday’s Florida-Iowa winner in Houston on Thursday, by the smallest of possible margins. Tyler Nickel added 16 for Vanderbilt, while Sandfort and Frager each had 15 to lead four Nebraska players in double figures.

Nebraska led by seven early in the second half before Tanner and Vandy rallied; the Commodores took a five-point lead on a Nickel 3-pointer with 5:34 to play. But the Huskers went on a 6-0 run to retake the lead, then held on through the furious finish.

“The hardest thing when you’re in a tournament like this is there’s a side of it with hurt and dejection, and you put everything into it,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “We were a play away, an inch away, from being in the Sweet Sixteen. 

“You know, it’s going to take a while for us to get over, but I think it’s going to be a point that we’re going to look back and think of the unbelievable journey this season has been, how great these guys were to coach, how great these guys were for Vanderbilt, the memories they made along the way. But this one hurts. We felt like we were good enough to make a run.”

Nebraska-Vanderbilt may sound like a Music City Bowl matchup, but this was pure college basketball, played in front of a raucous pro-Huskers crowd that made the 7-hour trek from Lincoln to Oklahoma City. While there are some programs that take a spot in the Sweet Sixteen for granted, these programs have almost no recent NCAA Tournament success and played like they could taste it. 

Vanderbilt hadn’t won an NCAA game since 2017 or gone to the Sweet Sixteen since 2007; Nebraska’s victory over Troy on Thursday was the first tournament win in school history. The Huskers aren’t done yet.

“The crowd, once again, was an unbelievable factor,” Fred Hoiberg said. “I think they’re all driving down to Houston in the morning. We expect another big turnout again next weekend.”