Nebraska
Undefeated Nebraska Keeps Winning, and ESPN’s Bracketology is Paying Attention
Nebraska’s undefeated men’s basketball team keeps piling up victories and keeps improving its NCAA Tournament profile.
According to Joe Lunardi, the author of ESPN’s Bracketology, the Huskers are an 8-seed, their best showing this season.
Last week, Nebraska was among the “last four byes,” and was a 10-seed. The week before, Nebraska was among the “last four in,” and was an 11-seed.
No such designations this week for the 8-0 Huskers. This is the third time Nebraska has started a season 8-0. Nebraska started the 1977-78 season 10-0.
Bracketology has Nebraska playing 9-seed SMU at San Diego in the first round. The Nebraska-SMU winner would play the winner of No. 1 Arizona and 16-seed Tennessee State.
Lunardi’s other top seeds are Purdue, Michigan and Duke. Michigan is Lunardi’s overall No. 1 seed.
B1G presence in NCAA Tournament
Eleven Big Ten teams are projected to make the tournament (seeds in parentheses):
* Purdue (1)
* Michigan (1)
* Michigan State (3)
* Illinois (5)
* Indiana (6)
* USC (6)
* Iowa (7)
* Nebraska (8)
* Wisconsin (9)
* Ohio State (10)
* UCLA (10)
The Southeastern Conference also is projected to have 11 teams in the NCAA Tournament, according to Lunardi.
The Big 12 has nine teams; the ACC has seven teams; the Big East has three teams; and the West Coast Conference has two teams.
The Huskers also made their first appearance in ESPN’s Power Rankings of the top 25 teams that were released Thursday. The Huskers are ranked 23rd by ESPN’s Jeff Borzello.
Borzello wrote about Nebraska: “Another new addition to the rankings, the Cornhuskers actually own the nation’s longest win streak dating back to last season, winning four games to take the inaugural College Basketball Crown and then ripping off eight straight to open this 2025-26 campaign.
“The victory over Oklahoma looks better, too, after the Sooners won at Wake Forest. Rienk Mast has been awesome after missing all of last season with a knee injury; he’s averaging 17.9 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists.”
Big Ten teams hold down the top two spots in the ESPN Power Rankings: Michigan (1) and Purdue (2).
Next up for Nebraska: Creighton
The Huskers’ next game is a challenging one. Nebraska plays host to Creighton at 4 p.m. CT on Sunday, Dec. 7, on FS1. The Bluejays (5-3) are among the “first four out” in Lunardi’s latest Bracketology, along with Santa Clara, Miami and VCU.
Two of Creighton’s losses were to ranked teams — 90-63 at No. 19 Gonzaga, and 78-60 at a neutral site to No. 15 Iowa State. Creighton’s other loss was at a neutral site to Baylor, 81-64.
Nebraska defeated Creighton last season, 74-63, in Omaha. The Huskers have won two of their last three games against the Bluejays.
There is an obvious caution about Bracketology, especially in early December. Once teams get involved in conference play, Bracketology will change dramatically. Nebraska opens Big Ten play at home against Wisconsin on Wednesday, Dec. 10. The Huskers will face a serious test on Saturday, Dec. 13 at No. 14 Illinois.
These next three games will give everyone a good read on what kind of team Nebraska is.
Nebraska’s last game was a 72-63 triumph over visiting South Carolina Upstate on Nov. 29. The Huskers used a 17-0 run to overcome a slow start.
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The future of data centers in Nebraska took center stage at a North Omaha town hall Thursday evening.
The event was hosted by State Sens. Terrell McKinney and Ashlei Spivey, who alongside Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh sponsored a bill in the Nebraska Legislature that looked to help regulate data centers.
Parts of their bill were adopted and passed in LB1010, which requires reports on annual power usage, water usage and ownership.
“Having this passed in a package showed a lot of bipartisan work,” Spivey told a crowd of attendees at Nelson Mandela Elementary School.
The proposed regulations were shaped in part by Bold Nebraska, an advocacy group focused on eminent domain and clean energy. Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and founder of Bold Nebraska, said before the bill passed there were “zero laws on the books” to address a boom in data centers.
“If one is coming into the community, we wanted to make sure that there were some basic transparency things in place,” Kleeb said.
Political discussions around data centers heated up in recent months following reporting by the Flatwater Free Press that showed Google is considering a data center in Nebraska that could require more than three times the amount of power the entire city of Lincoln uses at peak demand in the summer.
The Nebraska Legislature recently passed another bill, LB1261, that allows private developers to build and own power plants to serve a large industrial customer, including data centers. That bill was proposed by the governor’s office and celebrated by Gov. Jim Pillen.
“Our state is once again taking a bold and strategic step – one that will create an environment that attracts business and multibillion dollar investment, while legally preserving Nebraska’s unique and consumer-friendly public power model,” Pillen said at the time.
At Thursday’s town hall, McKinney called LB1261 “the bogeyman bill.”
“It’s a bill that the governor pushed through the legislature to allow for data centers to create their own power,” McKinney said. “It’s a bill that I stood on the floor and said this is going to harm our communities.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Hundreds of people are without power in southeast Nebraska after a severe storm passed through Thursday morning.
The Lincoln Electric System outage map showed 115 customers without power across the city at 11:36 a.m.
Norris Public Power District’s outage map also shows 45 customers affected by the storm. As of 11:36 a.m., there were nine active outages.
According to the Nebraska Public Power District outage map, 657 customers were affected by the storm. Most of the affected customers were near Plattsmouth in southeast Nebraska. As of 11:37 a.m., 27 customers remain without power.
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Mandatory evacuations have been ordered near Crawford, including Fort Robinson State Park, as the South Fork Fire continues to spread in western Nebraska.
According to the City of Crawford, evacuations are currently underway for an area north of Crawford that includes the area south of Dodd Road, west of Dodd Road, and FF Street.
Fort Robinson has also been evacuated.
The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission said Fort Robinson State Park and Peterson Wildlife Management Area have been temporarily closed due to the fire.
The fire has burned approximately 9,000 acres and is currently 0% contained, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
Nebraska Game and Parks said the park and the WMA will remain closed until further notice to support firefighting operations and protect public safety.
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