Nebraska Basketball Lost to Iowa — And This Season Still Changed Everything
Mar 26, 2026; Houston, TX, USA; Nebraska Cornhuskers forward Rienk Mast (51) attempts to get a rebound in the second half during a Sweet Sixteen game of the South Regional of the men's 2026 NCAA Tournament at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-Imagn Images | Troy Taormina-Imagn Images The scoreboard said Iowa 77, Nebraska 71. The Nebraska Cornhuskers’ 2024 NCAA Tournament run is over, stopped in the Sweet 16 by an Iowa Hawkeyes team that simply didn’t go cold when Nebraska did.
And if you’ve spent the hours since that final buzzer stewing about Iowa, about the officiating, about the 14-to-3 run that swung the game — you’re doing this wrong. This season deserves better than that. The Most Historic Season in Nebraska Basketball History Let’s be direct about what just happened over the course of this season.
Nebraska men’s basketball — a program that had never won an NCAA Tournament game heading into 2026 — won one. Then they won another. They reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history.
A team that was picked by many analysts to finish 14th in the Big Ten didn’t finish anywhere near 14th. For fans who have followed this program for decades, the weight of that is hard to overstate. There are Nebraska fans who lived and died without ever seeing the Huskers win a single March Madness game.
That’s no longer the case. That milestone belongs to this team, this coaching staff, and this group of players — permanently. The Iowa Game: What Actually Happened Nebraska’s loss to Iowa wasn’t a fluke and it wasn’t a robbery.