Nebraska's Sweet 16 rise seeded by Hoiberg twins' basement battles, 5-year-old fistfight
Sam and Charlie Hoiberg once squared up over a youth basketball game. That competitive fire has helped Nebraska to a Sweet 16 run under dad, Fred.
HOUSTON — It’s been almost 20 years, but Nebraska basketball coach Fred Hoiberg can still remember receiving a frantic phone call from his wife, Carol. Between tears, Carol relayed that the couple’s two youngest sons, twins Charlie and Sam , were involved in a fight during a basketball game. Against each other.
“They were on the same team. Sam took a shot Charlie didn't like, and he went over and punched him and they squared up,” Fred Hoiberg said. “They were five years old.
” Sam and Charlie Hoiberg still possess that same fire – but instead of aiming their flamethrowers at each other, they’re channeling their competitiveness toward a common goal and making history together with their father. In his seventh season as Nebraska’s head coach, Fred Hoiberg has the Cornhuskers in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 for the first time ever, where they’ll play Big Ten Conference rival Iowa March 25 in Houston. Sweet 16: Nebraska vs Iowa prediction, analysis, expert picks Wearing No.
1 in the starting lineup will be Sam Hoiberg, who walked on at Nebraska to play for his dad and is now a fifth-year senior who has played every game of the last three seasons. On the sideline will be Charlie Hoiberg, who joined the Huskers’ staff as a graduate assistant this season after serving the last two years as a men’s basketball student manager at TCU. The backdrop for their fateful family reunion is Nebraska’s winningest season in program history.
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