Friday Five: Milestones and momentum
We have reached the mid-month mark for January, and the Friday Five could have easily been the Friday Fifteen with the amount of news that took place.
We have reached the mid-month mark for January, and the Friday Five could have easily been the Friday Fifteen with the amount of news that took place. There was national recognition and Hall of Fame moments and plenty more to shine a light on.
Here’s what stood out.
Micaylon Moore’s impact goes far beyond the runway
When Micaylon Moore walked across the stage Wednesday night at the NCAA Convention in National Harbor, Maryland, the moment represented more than another award for Nebraska Track and Field.
Moore received the NCAA Impact Award, one of the association’s most prestigious honors and one that recognizes excellence well beyond competitive results. Formerly known as the Today’s Top 10 Award, the Impact Award is presented annually to one male and one female student-athlete from each NCAA division, honoring athletic success, academic achievement and service to community.
In other words, it’s not about what you won. It’s about who you were while doing it.
“Micaylon has been an exemplary student-athlete and an absolute joy to have as a leader, not just in our program but at our university and in our community,” head coach Justin St. Clair said in a statement. “This award reflects the hard work and integrity Micaylon displays in everything he does, and all of us in the Nebraska Track and Field program are so proud of him.”
On the track, Moore built a résumé that stands on its own. A native of Fort Collins, Colorado, he earned three USTFCCCA All-America honors in the triple jump, including two first-team selections. He finished second at the 2025 NCAA Indoor Championships, won the 2024 Big Ten Indoor title and helped lead Nebraska to Big Ten Outdoor team championships in 2023 and 2024. He was also named Nebraska’s Most Outstanding Male Student-Athlete in 2025 and earned the Big Ten Medal of Honor.
Academically and personally, the list might be even longer. Moore earned the Wayne Duke Postgraduate Award, became a semifinalist for the Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar of the Year award and collected multiple College Sports Communicators Academic All-America honors, including first-team recognition in 2025. He co-founded Husker Healers for student-athletes interested in healthcare careers, helped launch the Black Student-Athlete Association, served six years on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and volunteered at more than 200 community events.
“The NCAA Impact Award honors the best of the best among collegiate student-athletes,” athletic director Troy Dannen said. “Micaylon Moore embodies everything this award represents and has been an exceptional student-athlete during his time as a Husker. We are proud that Nebraska continues to lead the nation in the number of recipients of this prestigious award, and Micaylon is an outstanding addition to our elite group of honorees.”
With Moore’s selection, Nebraska now has a nation-leading 19 recipients of the NCAA Impact (Today’s Top 10) Award. He’s also the first track and field athlete in program history to receive the honor.
Ndamukong Suh’s place in history is now official
There are certain Nebraska careers that don’t really need further validation and Ndamukong Suh’s is certainly one of them.
Still, Wednesday brought another permanent marker. Suh was named one of 22 members of the 2026 College Football Hall of Fame class, joining 18 players and four coaches selected by the National Football Foundation from a national ballot that included hundreds of candidates across all divisions.
The class features 10 unanimous first-team All-Americans, eight major award winners and 11 conference players of the year. Suh fits comfortably among them.
His induction makes him the 21st Nebraska player to enter the College Football Hall of Fame and the fourth Husker defensive lineman to receive the honor, joining Wayne Meylan, Rich Glover and Grant Wistrom. Overall, Nebraska now has 28 Hall of Fame members, including seven coaches.
Suh is the first Husker player inducted since Zach Wiegert in 2022 and the ninth Nebraska player inducted over the past 20 classes. The most recent Husker inductee was head coach Frank Solich in 2024.
Nebraska volleyball’s finances tell a bigger story
The numbers surrounding Nebraska volleyball’s 2025 fiscal year are straightforward. The context around them is not.
According to recently released financials, Husker volleyball posted a $1.38 million deficit in the 2025 fiscal year, which covers the 2024 season. It’s the third season in which the program did not turn a profit since moving into the Bob Devaney Sports Center (2014 and 2021 were the other two, with 2014 a result of the move to Devaney in 2013 and 2021 a result of the Covid season moving to the spring with no fans in attendance).
What makes the latest deficit notable isn’t a lack of demand. It’s the scale of investment.
Nebraska’s ticket revenue climbed to $3.2 million in 2024, up from $2.57 million the previous season. At the same time, expenses rose by $7 million, an 18% increase from the year prior. Nebraska is now the first FBS school in the country to spend more on volleyball than women’s basketball ($6.3 million).
To put that into perspective, Nebraska’s FY2025 volleyball ticket revenue exceeded that of 39 public FBS football programs and 71 men’s basketball teams. Only seven non-football or men’s basketball programs nationally cleared $3.2 million in ticket sales during FY2024.
The year prior tells a different financial story. In the 2024 fiscal year, Nebraska volleyball turned a program-record profit of $1.34 million. That was thanks largely to Volleyball Day in Nebraska, which generated $1.4 million and drew a world-record crowd of 92,003 to Memorial Stadium.
It might seem a bit confusing why Nebraska didn’t turn a profit on volleyball in the previous fiscal year, but it’s because the Huskers are choosing to invest heavily in a program they view as nationally elite. The financial return in doing so may not be immediate, but it’s a gamble Nebraska feels more than confident taking.
Nebraska men’s basketball keeps stacking proof
If there was any lingering question about whether Nebraska’s men’s basketball team could pair consistency with dominance, Tuesday night against Oregon offered an emphatic response.
The No. 8 Huskers rolled to a 90–55 win, matching their season high with 17 three-pointers and posting their largest conference victory margin since January 9, 1994. Pryce Sandfort and Braden Frager combined for 51 points, knocking down seven threes apiece as Nebraska shot 53 percent from the field and turned 16 Duck turnovers into 23 points.
The win pushed Nebraska to 17-0 overall and 7-0 in Big Ten play, the best start in program history. The Huskers also matched their highest AP ranking ever, tying the No. 8 spot last held during the 1965-66 season. A win Saturday at Northwestern would mark Nebraska’s best conference start since World War II.
Defense has been the engine behind the surge, and senior guard Sam Hoiberg has been at the center of it. Against Oregon, he finished with 11 points, a career-high six steals and five assists. On the season, he ranks second in the Big Ten in steals (2.1 per game) and 12th in assists (4.0 per game), while sitting third nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio at 5.7-to-1.
Hoiberg’s influence goes beyond box scores. Nebraska is forcing more turnovers per game than at any point during Fred Hoiberg’s tenure, a byproduct of emphasis and execution.
Hoiberg credited that to having “a great plan” and “a team full of smart defenders,” noting that contesting passing lanes matters just as much as contesting shots.
That pressure fuels Nebraska’s transition offense, where it has averaged 1.38 points per possession when pushing the pace.
Saturday presents a different challenge. Nebraska heads to Evanston to face Northwestern, a team that has held second-half leads in every game this season, including against Michigan State and Illinois.
“We can’t fall into that,” Hoiberg said. “We’ve got to be ready from the jump.”
Rienk Mast’s season keeps earning national attention
Rienk Mast was named a third-team midseason All-American by The Sporting News on Wednesday, another recognition in what has been a defining season for the super senior forward.
Mast is averaging 15.5 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game while playing a central role in Nebraska’s unbeaten start. He has reached double figures 14 times, recorded four 20-point games and leads the Huskers with three double-doubles.
His biggest moments have often come when Nebraska needed them most: 31 points and seven three-pointers against Winthrop, 26 points in a comeback win over Oklahoma and 19 points and seven rebounds in a win over then-No. 9 Michigan State. Earlier this season, he recorded the third triple-double in school history with 18 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists against FIU.
Against Indiana, Mast grabbed six rebounds to reach 1,007 for his career, making him one of only three active players nationally with at least 1,000 career boards.
He’s also helped anchor a defense that now ranks 13th nationally in opponent field-goal percentage (.386) following Tuesday’s win over Oregon.
The numbers are impressive but his consistency might be even more so.
Another week has come and gone. This was one filled with honoring leaders whose impact spans far beyond competition, celebrating legends whose legacies still define the standard, investing heavily in programs that carry national weight and watching a men’s basketball team continue to move into uncharted territory.
There’s plenty still unfolding in the world of Nebraska Athletics, but the Huskers are sitting in a pretty good spot heading into the weekend.
And that is a pretty good place to be.