Friday Five: Spring stages, bubble tension and postseason season
It was another busy week in Nebraska Athletics land. Let's dive in.
While the Bob Devaney Sports Center and Pinnacle Bank Arena are overtaken with state basketball games, Nebraska Athletics hasn’t slowed down. In fact, this week was a difficult one to narrow all that happened into five points to share.
Volleyball is preparing to take its show on the road, women’s basketball is now playing the waiting game for Selection Sunday and multiple Husker programs are moving toward championship events over the next two weeks. In the middle of it all, football continues marching through spring practices.
Here are five things that stood out this week.
Nebraska volleyball is heading to Sioux Falls
The Huskers’ spring schedule is coming into shape. Nebraska will play Iowa State on April 11 at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, marking the program’s first appearance at the venue. First serve is scheduled for 1 p.m., with Big Ten Network televising the match.
Spring volleyball has become an opportunity for programs to experiment with environments outside the usual routine and Nebraska’s trip north fits that mold. The Pentagon has become a popular destination for college basketball events in recent years, and now volleyball will get its turn on Heritage Court.
The matchup itself brings a familiar opponent. Nebraska holds an 83-2 all-time record against Iowa State, though the two programs haven’t met since a Husker sweep in Lincoln in 2018. The Cyclones, led by former Nebraska standout Christy Johnson-Lynch, finished 23-8 last season and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
For Nebraska, the spring trip represents something the program hasn’t done in quite a while. The last time the Huskers played a spring match outside Nebraska was April 2014 at Hilton Coliseum in Ames.
“We are very excited to play at the Sanford Pentagon,” coach Dani Busboom Kelly said. “I know our basketball programs have enjoyed their trips to Sioux Falls in recent seasons and have had great things to say about their experiences. We’re looking forward to taking our volleyball program there for the first time and playing against a great team in Iowa State.”
Nebraska will also face Creighton in Omaha on April 17 as part of its spring slate, with additional matches expected to be finalized soon.
Women’s basketball enters the longest wait of the season
Nebraska’s Big Ten Tournament run lasted just one game but the way it ended will linger.
The Huskers led Indiana for nearly the entire afternoon Wednesday in Indianapolis before watching the game slip away in the final minutes of a 72-69 loss. Nebraska held an 18-point lead in the second half and appeared positioned to strengthen its NCAA Tournament résumé before the Hoosiers mounted a late surge.
Indiana used two separate 10-0 runs in the second half and finally grabbed its first lead with just over a minute remaining. By the time the final horn sounded, Nebraska was left with the kind of loss that leaves teams replaying possessions long after the game ends.
“This is an incredibly disappointing loss,” Williams said. “We led for 39 minutes and just found a way to let this game slip away.”
Now comes the waiting.
Nebraska sits at 18-12 and remains firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble heading toward Selection Sunday on March 15. Several projections still list the Huskers among the final teams in the field, but the résumé remains fragile. Nebraska finished just 1-10 in Quad 1 games, leaving little margin for error in the committee room.
For now, the Huskers can only wait and see.
Track and field sends ten to the NCAA indoor championships
Nebraska track and field will be well represented at the NCAA Indoor Championships next week. Ten Huskers qualified for the national meet, which takes place March 13-14 at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The qualification standard places the top 16 athletes nationally in each event into the championship field.
Nebraska enters the meet with several athletes positioned to contend near the top of their events. Axelina Johansson leads the country in the shot put after recording a mark of 64 feet, 8½ inches earlier this season, an NCAA indoor record. Pole vaulter Dyson Wicker arrives ranked No. 2 nationally with a school-record clearance of 19 feet, while Rhianna Phipps sits third in the triple jump following a personal-best leap of 44 feet, 8¼ inches. All three athletes captured Big Ten indoor titles last weekend.
Nebraska’s remaining qualifiers include Mine De Klerk and Amelia Flynt in the shot put, Cade Moran in the men’s shot put, Ela Velepec and Karsyn Leeling in the high jump, Kellyn Kortemeyer in the weight throw and Berlyn Schutz in the mile.
Schutz and Leeling also represent Nebraska on a local level in the national meet. Schutz, a Lincoln East graduate, will compete in the mile while Sidney native Leeling qualified in the high jump.
Wrestling begins postseason run in Big Ten’s toughest room
Nebraska wrestling’s postseason begins this weekend in one of the sport’s most unforgiving environments.
The Huskers head to State College, Pennsylvania, for the Big Ten Championships, which begin Saturday at the Bryce Jordan Center. The conference tournament is widely considered the toughest qualifying event in college wrestling, with multiple national contenders often stacked within the same weight classes.
Nebraska enters the weekend with momentum and experience.
The Huskers finished the regular season with a 13-6 dual record and closed with a 32-6 win over Utah Valley. Nebraska captured eight of the 10 bouts in that match, including four bonus-point victories.
Several Huskers will enter the Big Ten Championships with strong seeds. Antrell Taylor (157) and Christopher Minto (174) both hold No. 1 seeds in their respective weight classes. Brock Hardy (141), Camden McDanel (197) and AJ Ferrari (285) are seeded second. Silas Allred is seeded third at 184 pounds, while Jacob Van Dee is sixth at 133.
Nebraska has been consistent at this event since joining the Big Ten, never finishing lower than eighth in 14 years of Big Ten competition. The Huskers have placed in the top five 11 times and finished among the top three in each of the past three seasons.
Last year’s tournament produced Nebraska’s highest point total ever at the event with 137 points, highlighted by Big Ten titles from Ridge Lovett and Brock Hardy.
The results this weekend will also determine automatic bids to the NCAA Championships, scheduled for March 19-21 in Cleveland.
TJ Lateef embraces quarterback competition
Quarterback competitions tend to create tension, but TJ Lateef doesn’t seem interested in avoiding it.
Nebraska’s sophomore quarterback started four games late last season and gained valuable experience after stepping in for Dylan Raiola. This spring, though, he’s working to expand his game rather than simply hold his place.
“Just be less mechanical,” the 6-foot-1, 200-pounder told the media on Wednesday. “I feel like one of the things I’m good at is making plays off schedule. If I can make a play off schedule, make it instead of being mechanical and just sitting in the pocket.”
Lateef now shares the quarterback room with two transfers—Anthony Colandrea and Daniel Kaelin—who arrived in Lincoln this offseason. Colandrea, the 2025 Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year, is widely viewed as the early favorite to start.
Lateef doesn’t appear bothered by the competition.
“It’s been fun,” Lateef said. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. We’ve got good quarterbacks. We’ve got ‘Ant,’ who brings a lot of juice to the room, and we’ve got Danny, who brings juice to the room, too.
“The thing I like is iron sharpens iron. So, every time we go out on that field, we’re making each other better. I’m doing stuff I haven’t done since I’ve been here just because of the other quarterbacks that are in the the room.”
Lateef completed 74-of-123 passes for 904 yards last season while rushing for four touchdowns. More importantly, he protected the football, committing just one turnover during his seven-game stretch.
His biggest takeaway from the experience was simple.
“It’s football,” he said. “There are going to be some good plays and there are going to be some bad plays, but don’t let the bad play affect the next one.”
Lateef also made it clear he never considered leaving Lincoln despite the growing number of quarterbacks in the room.
“No decision,” he said. “I’m here. It was nothing to think about. I wanted to compete for the starting job, so that’s what I’m doing.”