Posted on: Sunday, March 21, 2004
Not much hoopla for 'Huskers
| • | JC guard commits to UH |
| • | It's official: Hawai'i-Nebraska NIT game a sellout |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
They are big, they wear red, they partake from one of the richest troughs in college athletics and they have "Nebraska" emblazoned across the front of their uniforms, but there is no reason to bar the windows and hide the children this time.
It is mid-March and it is the Cornhuskers' men's basketball team that's due to arrive in town.
If it had been the fall and the Cornhuskers' football team (before or after Frank Solich) was unloading its bovine cargo on the tarmac, that would have been something different.
But Nebraska's "other" team arrives here for tomorrow night's National Invitation Tournament game with the University of Hawai'i.
And not even the No. 1 indoor sport of Big Red, either. That designation would belong to men's gymnastics (eight national championships), women's indoor track (three national titles) or women's volleyball (two national crowns).
Men's basketball? Well, somewhere in the vast trophy case in Lincoln, Neb., there is reported to be an NIT Championship from 1996, too.
Since 1956 the Cornhuskers have had their way in football with UH as they have have with everybody else, going 4-0. But basketball has been a different game entirely. The Rainbows lead that one, 4-2.
Cornhusker basketball is certainly no slouch with a winning percentage of 52 percent over the life of the program and 19 postseason appearances.
But it isn't football and Nebraska is, as one writer there puts it, the "Sweep Left State" where football not only takes on a religious tone, it pays the bills and sets the unreachable standard.
When it comes to production and perceptions, there is Nebraska football and then, well, there is everything else. Nothing illustrates the disparity more than the huge gulf between football and men's basketball, where hoops is deeper in the shadow than most.
Perhaps only at Nebraska could the basketball team play in an arena (the Bob Devaney Sports Center) named for a former football coach.
At Nebraska they fired a football coach who went 5-3 in finishing second in his conference division. If the basketball team did that (they finished 10th in the Big 12 this season), there might be a parade to rival the Star City Holiday Parade.
Football has won five national titles since 1971. Basketball has never won an NCAA Tournament game. Football has 46 conference championships. Basketball has one in the last 57 years.
Football has had 52 consensus All-Americans, a couple Heisman Trophy winners and eight Outland Trophy winners. Basketball, according to the "Official NCAA Men's Basketball Records" book hasn't had a consensus All-American in 107 seasons.
So the Rainbows would seem to have Nebraska right where they might want it tomorrow night — with its football team in Lincoln and its basketball team here.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
