There aren’t many years that have been worse for the big three men’s sports at Nebraska.
Football missed the postseason for a fourth consecutive year and was three games out from fifth in the division. Basketball took some preseason NCAA Tournament hype and turned that into last place in the Big Ten. And baseball, coming off a league title in 2021, struggled to beat themselves most nights and missed out on the league tournament in Omaha.
But believe it or not, this wasn’t the worst year ever for the trio. For the next worst you’d have to go back more than 60 years.
Before diving into the historical numbers, there were some good performances within NU men’s athletics this year.
- Gymnastics finished second at the Big Ten Championships and fourth at Nationals. They also notched two All-Americans: Donte McKinney and Dillan King. Dylan LeClair was named the Nebraska Male Student-Athlete of the Year at A Night at the Lied.
- Wrestling earned fifth at Nationals with five All-Americans: Mikey Labriola, Christian Lance, Ridge Lovett, Peyton Robb, and Eric Schultz. Lovett won Nebraska’s Best Male Athlete Award at A Night at the Lied.
- Track and Field* took third at the Indoor Big Ten Championships and had five All-America honors at Indoor Nationals: Mayson Conner, Burger Lambrechts Jr., Darius Luff, and Alex Talley (two events). Talley was named the Big Ten Field Athlete of the Championships for both indoor and outdoor while Lambrechts was named the league’s Field Athlete of the Year for the indoor season.
*The Outdoor Preliminary Round is later this week. Nationals are in June, which should add to the All-American total.
Now for the stats that aren’t fun portion of the story.
The big three men’s sports for NU finished with records of 3-9 (football), 10-22 (basketball), and 23-30 (baseball). That adds up to a combined winning percentage of .371. That is one of the worst win percentages in the history of the athletic program.
Among years in which all three sports were played in their entirety, the 2021-22 year is the fourth worst. The three worse are 1941-42, 1938-39, and 1959-60.
The 2019-20 year finished with a winning percentage of .322, but baseball’s season was cut off after 15 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 1941-42 year, the football team started the season with wins at Iowa State (14-0) and against Kansas (32-0) to jump to No. 15 in the AP Poll before dropping the next five games. Basketball also began in the wins column, but then posted multiple losing streaks with losses to the likes of Detroit Mercy and Great Lakes Christian College. The Adolph Lewandowski led baseball team didn’t win a non-conference game in the last year of baseball for NU until after World War II.
Looking at each sport for this past year individually, football’s .250 winning percentage tied for sixth worst in program history. That goes back to 1890.
The basketball team had the 13th worst season since the program started in 1896.
Baseball, which has taken off several years due to wars, stretches back to 1889. Not so bad for this one, with the 32nd worst win percentage out of 115 seasons played.
This past year also marked the first time that all three sports posted losing seasons in the same year since 1960-61 when football (4-6), basketball (10-14), and baseball (9-14) all fell below .500.
The big difference between the 2021-22 year and all of these historical seasons being mentioned: money. At no time have coaching salaries been so high and budgets so dependent on athletic success.
Scott Frost earned $5 million this past season before restructuring his contract. Before his own contract was restructured, Fred Hoiberg made $3.5 million a year. And Will Bolt had his contract increased after winning the league a year ago to $400,000.
Looking to next year, football and basketball have overhauled their rosters and coaching staffs. Baseball has added plenty of Junior College talent. The Kool-Aid is already flowing as we hit the summer.
The year 2022-23 should be better. After all, it can’t get much worse.