1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - An Early Look at Who Could Break into Nebraska Basketball's Lineup Next Season: May 11th, 11:45am

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

An Early Look at Who Could Break into Nebraska Basketball's Lineup Next SeasonAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Back to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. One-on-one on 93-7. The ticket myself, Jake Backelman, and Austin, Orban, in with you today. Talked a little bit of baseball, a little bit of basketball, a little bit of softball in this first hour. As we keep moving along, again, we'll get to softball here in a second. But coming off the news again that happened here within the last hour, former. Nebraska, big man, Uy or Savicious going to Arizona.

We talked about in the last segment, kind of a surprise. But sorts came in here and had a good question, which is, how do you think Nebraska is shaping up? Of course, it's been a while since they've had in addition themselves, but I still think there's going to be a pretty tough, a pretty tough spot as far as getting playing time. I think that's something that Coach Weberger has done really well over the last several seasons is you usually got somebody that doesn't quite make the rotation that's played in some pretty

meaningful college basketball. Now that's not always ideal for them, but it's ideal for the team, right? Where you have that night, I got to believe that that's coming up here. My one, my one concern here still is maybe maybe a little bit of ball handling. I know Cal Jacobson maybe could kind of be your, your maybe primary or secondary ball handler. I'm not sure if Tage deGorville would be able to fill that role or maybe Jacobson. Blaineer, but, you know, they're pretty solid everywhere else, I would say. And I don't know if that would necessarily be a major concern. If it was, obviously, they

would have addressed it. Yeah, I think Nebraska will have dudes that can dribble the ball up. That's never really been a concern for me. They can find guys to do that. My biggest concerns for this roster buck are the same. When the structure of the offense and the scheme don't work, who's getting a paint touch? Who's breaking the defense down. I'm still not sure how sudden Nebraska is on the perimeter. And we haven't seen Nebraska even lean back into the same greasel game necessarily. At times last year, they had

Sam Hoyberg who could get a paint touch. I think Marcus Lawrence could for the most part. But when Nebraska's motion and cutting aren't working and you're down to the last 12 seconds of the shot clock, I still think they need a creator, a guy that can either get into the paint with two feet and get a shot for himself. They might need someone to dump it down to on the block to go get a bucket or create for others as well. You know, I don't think Nebraska is going to be successful this year if the ball just go station to station around the perimeter.

This needs to be a team that finds a way to put vertical pressure on the rim as well, as opposed to just horizontal pressure on the defense. I think Leinhardt's going to take good care of the ball. I think Jacobson got a role. I'm fascinated by DeGoreville in a backup kind of ball handler role as well. well. And so if DeGoreville off the bench can put some pressure on the rim and create for others, the average a couple, few assists per game at San Diego State, I think that goes a long wait for this team. If Sam Orham can, you know, create off the bounce a little bit if teams are going to run him off.

Price and for it, you know, not going to be asked to go one on one a whole lot. But if he can maintain the advantages that Nebraska creates, it's going to go a long way for this Nebraska team this next year. Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, like you said, there's, it's not a complete team. There's, there's going to be some, some teams that might match up pretty well with the Huskers, but I do think it's just going to be a pretty tough team to keep up with, when, when things are going right, like you're kind of saying. Oh, yeah. You kind of look at it.

And again, these are at least my two deep. Again, you get down to probably about an eight-man rotation. All said and done, it would be ideal, maybe nine if you've got kind of a spot play here and there. But you got Trevan Linnhart, the point guard, who's coming in. like you said, probably backing him up at this point, might be Kail Jacobson, which would be I think it's DeGorville. You think DeGorville?

I do. He wasn't a true point at San Diego State. It's a little bit more egalitarian offense. There will be times where it's Jacobson. There will be times where it's DeGoreville. There will be times you'll see two of those three guys on the court together, which is where I think Lennhart is a good enough shooter, a smart enough player that he can move off ball, but he's so good with the ball in his hand seemingly.

You probably want him on the ball. DeGorville is a mid to low 30s, three-point shooter. Jacobson on low volume was 36% I think for the year. The continued development for those two guys for shooting from long range is going to go a long way, especially with, you know, Lennhart and DeGorville getting their first taste of high major basketball. Utah Valley was good in the whack. C& Diego State is who they are. Have they been?

They've been a solid program for, you know, a better part of 15, 20 years now in the Mountain West, dating back to. to Steve Fisher and then obviously to Brian Dutcher right now as well. And so I think that I would probably say DeGorville would be my preference, just based on the rest of the roster and the other guys that you probably want to see on the court at the same time. I would feel bad if my heart would break for Kail Jacobson if he's the ninth man in an eight-man rotation,

10th man in a nine-man rotation like he was his first couple years on campus. But I also think that's maybe a necessary growing pain. where Kale won't kill you when he's out there. You can make some timely plays. We saw that, you know, for Nebraska. But can you upgrade? Can you get better? Can you get more consistent?

Part of the growing pains is, you know, adding part of the growing pains is, is cutting. And Kail Jacobson's not going anywhere. He means a lot to this team. But if you can get everything Jacobson gives you plus more from the Gourville, the one and the two,

I think that just opens up so many possibilities for Nebraska. And it's that or force the hand, right? Make sure that you're in the line of your Jacob's, Jacobson, that's kind of what Sam Hoyberg had to do, right? I mean, at first it was like, okay, good story. Then it was kind of, but I mean, every off season, you're kind of looking into it's like, well, they could probably recruit above him or get some playing time of government.

But he just kept pushing the envelope of how good he would become. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the ideal kind of outcome for Kale Jacobson is the same Hoyberg story. Yeah. I'm not sure that, you know, kale becomes a consistent starter like Sam was. I don't think the kale has one standout skill the way we think about Sam Hoyberg, no hustle slash ball pressure slash defense.

But Sam was a low volume, no volume guy on offense, started taking more by the end, you know, and was really leaned on to create for Nebraska in some cases. Maybe Kales gets there, but even if he's 80% of Sam Hoyberg's total value and it looks a little bit different, huge win for Nebraska, just opening up that in-state developmental pipeline. Hey, we can take some of the overlooked talent in the state that has, you know, D2, low major, offers and we can make something out of you. You can come here, you know, bide your time, work hard and body, you know, all the values like we talked about with Sam and KL all the time as well. That's a developmental pipeline that, you know, it'll save you,

you know, five figures. You don't have to go get, you know, another guy from somewhere else. You can get a guy from right down the street, make something of it. Maybe not make everything of him. Borderline, all conference is a huge outcome for Sam Hoyberg, you know, where people feel like he was cheating, you know, from a real all conference mention, just making the all defense team, that's more than anyone would have expected. There's no reason Nebraska can't continue to pump out the next Sam Hoyberg, Cale Jacobson, down the line. So that's what I think you get looking at there as far as ball handlers.

The shooting guards against Sanford and Assetian probably as your backup there. You go to the three. I think you've got Frager. Maybe maybe Jacobson. I'm tabling the freshman for now. And then you go to the front for it. I think you've got some sort of like ORM at the power forward, probably Capkey at center and then

Damon Wilkinson and Leo Curtis if he's developed enough to kind of play in that rotation too but then again then you've got so that's 10 then you got the freshman Colin Rice and Jacob Leenier going to come in and push for playing time two top 100 guys

and you never know with freshmen it's got it tough to tell how they'll kind of adjust in season one but that's again that's a full roster where the guys fighting for probably eight spots oh without a doubt and I think another way to look at it is is guards wings bigs because I think, you know, Wilkinson and Curtis and Capkey, two of those three should be able to share the floor at any given time as long as one of them

is shooting credibly. But I think all three of those guys could also be the loan big on the court sometimes for Nebraska, depending on skill set. I think that Sanford in the starting lineup that we presume is the two, but there are some lineups. He's the three. There are some lineups. You could credibly see him at the four. I think if Orm is off the court or if you go full, you know, 2017, 18 to basketball line up a death and try to survive, you know, some minutes with Orm at the five against some smaller teams and really blitz them offensively. So, you know, this is a team that I think is going to have some pretty defined strengths and weaknesses. I don't think, you know, lineup versatility is going to be one of them. They should be able to put out a bunch of interesting

combinations to be able to pick it whatever an opposing defense's holes are. All right. How cool is it to talk Husker basketball year round and people be interested. I think that's going to continue to be the case as we look forward to this upcoming year. But it hasn't always been the case. You might have to really go to the basketball heads for that at certain times in previous years. But now it is welcome. It is welcome at any time.

So let's go ahead and take quick break. We'll be back with the second hour of one-on-one coming up next year, 93-7, the ticket.