‘Now, It’s for Real’: Fred Hoiberg Recaps Nebraska’s Exhibition Slate, Previews Opener Against Le Moyne

Just like that, the season begins.

Monday night, Nebraska will host the Le Moyne Dolphins at Pinnacle Bank Arena for its first game of the 2026-27 season after going 1-2 in exhibition play. Head coach Fred Hoiberg met with the media Thursday to discuss his takeaways from the preseason slate and the biggest keys to success for the Huskers this year.

Here’s a recap of Hoiberg’s remarks.

“The Mayor” and his team are still figuring things out, but Hoiberg knows mistakes will matter more once the regular season begins. Nebraska isn’t without its flaws, yet NU’s head coach knows he’ll have to coach them out early in the year. For now, execution and effort are top of mind.

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“Now, it’s for real,” said Hoiberg. “This isn’t, ‘Oh, we get to learn from this.’ You just can’t have any regrets; you can’t have any situations where we come back in where we didn’t execute the game plan and get stung that way.”

“We’ll have our guys prepared, and now it’s all about going out and executing,” he continued. “But, yeah, there’s going to be a lot of learning lessons, especially in these earlier games.”

Forward Sam Orme before transferring to Nebraska from Belmont. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

That learning curve could be especially steep for Belmont transfer Sam Orme, but Hoiberg isn’t willing to rush the 6-foot-10 senior back into playing shape. Orme averaged 12.7 points per game while shooting 56% from the field last season, but he has been dealing with a hamstring/quad injury for several months. Though Hoiberg doesn’t know if Orme will be ready to play Monday, the head coach stated he’s back to going full speed in the non-contact portions of practice this week.

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“We’re taking a very precautionary approach,” Hoiberg said. “Those hamstrings, quads, those types of things, can be tricky and linger on if you try to rush back. So, we’ll see how he’s doing Saturday, and if he’s ready to go on Monday, we’ll throw him out there. If he’s not, we’ll have another six days to…

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Publish date : 2026-10-29 20:41:00

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