How To Watch, Game Preview and Game Thread: UCLA Bruins vs. #9 Nebraska Cornhuskers
The Bruins will honor the team's seniors tonight in pre-game ceremonies.
One of the things I do miss about the Pac-12 was the regularity of the men’s basketball schedule. You could always count on a mid-week game on Wednesday or Thursday, followed by a weekend game on Saturday or Sunday. For some reason in the Big Ten, it feels like the week begins with a weekend game, followed by an early week game a few days later. Personally, I’m not crazy about that, but it is what it is which means that UCLA’s Senior Night will be held on a Tuesday this year.
Tonight, UCLA will host the #9 Nebraska Cornhuskers for the Bruins’ final home game of the season. Tip-off is set for 8 pm PT and the game will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1.
Before the game begins, UCLA will honor Tyler Bilodeau, Jamar Brown, Skyy Clark, Donovan Dent, Steven Jamerson II, Evan Manjikian, Anthony Peoples Jr. and Jack Seidler who are all playing in their final home game.
Fred Hoiberg is now in his seventh season coaching the Cornhuskers. While his overall record at Nebraska is still under .500 at 109-112, it’s simply due to the fact that the Huskers endured losing seasons during Hoiberg’s first three years in Lincoln. Over the last three years including this season, Nebraska has gone 69-29.
But even that doesn’t tell the whole story.
In 2023-24, Nebraska finished third in the Big Ten, but were a one-and-done in the NCAA Tournament. Last season, the Huskers went 14-1 in non-conference play before sputtering to a 7-13 mark in the Big Ten. That kept them out of the NCAA Tournament, though they did win the College Basketball Crown championship. It’s hard to say if the CBC champ or the NIT champ would be considered the 69th best but the CBC included teams from Fox’s three conferences and the CBC teams were prohibited from playing in the NIT if they declined an invite to the CBC.
This season, however, Hoiberg has his team playing at the top of their game. Nebraska has only lost four games all year. Their losses came against Michigan, Illinois, Purdue and Iowa. Of course, UCLA beat Illinois and Purdue at home and lost to Michigan and Iowa on the road.
Nebraska Cornhuskers’ Starting Five
Hoiberg will probably start a lineup with two guards and three forwards. With only a rhree exceptions, Hoiberg has started the same lineup in every game this season. So, it’s a pretty safe assumption who he will start tonight, especially since none of the starters have shown up on the Big Ten Men’s Basketball Availability Report for tonight.
Junior forward Pryce Sandfort spent the first two seasons of his career playing at Iowa. This season, he leads the Huskers with an average of 18.3 ppg. One of the ways he’s scored that many points is his three-point shot. He’s taken 260 shots beyond the arc, which is almost twice as many as Braden Frager, who’s tried 132, and is twice as many as Rienk Mast and Jamarques Lawrence, who have each attempted 130. He’s also more accurate that anyone else on the team—by a lot. He’s shooting 40.8% from three-point range.
Speaking of Mast, he’s actually in his seventh season of college ball, having spent four years at Bradley including a regular redshirt season and an injury redshirt year. Since coming to Lincoln, he missed last season due to an injury for another medical redshirt season. This year, he’s averaging 13.7 ppg and 6.1 rpg.
The final starting forward will be former Bruin Berke Büyüktuncel. Büyüktuncel is averaging just 6.7 ppg, but he leads the team in blocks with 30. That’s more than twice as many as Jared Garcia who is second on the team. Büyüktuncel is also second on the team in rebounds with 5.7 rpg.
The final Husker averaging in double-figures is guard Jamarques Lawrence. He’s averaging 10.2 ppg. He’s second on the team in assists with 115 and his 36.9% three-point percentage is second-highest among the starters who have more than 72 three-point attempts.
Lastly, the other starting guard will be Sam Hoiberg. While he is only averaging 9.5 ppg, he leads the team in assists with 131 and in steals with 61. His 5.4 rpg is good for third on the team, and his 38.9% three-point percentage is technically second-best among the starters, but he takes a lot fewer threes than any of the other starters.
Analysis
The start time of tonight’s game may give UCLA a bit of an advantage. An 8 pm PT tip-off is a 10 pm tip-off for Nebraska, though the Huskers have been in Los Angeles since last week after playing Southern Cal on Saturday. So, Nebraska may have adjusted to the time difference a little since they’ve been here for a little while.
It doesn’t change the fact that Pauley Pavilion has been the place that Big Ten teams in the Top Ten go to lose this season. Purdue came into Pauley in January ranked fourth in the nation and Illinois lost there as well just ten days ago when they were ranked tenth.
Interestingly, in both of those cases, UCLA’s previous game had been a road loss. That will be the case again after Saturday’s loss at Minnesota.
Speaking of Saturday’s loss, UCLA now needs to win both of their remaining games and play reasonably well in the Big Ten Tournament in order to make it into the NCAA Tournament because, while Minnesota is clearly a team which is improving, they won’t be dancing when the bracket is announced in a few weeks.
Ultimately, that makes this the all-important question: Can UCLA find a way to beat a third Top Ten team tonight? If this were a road game, I wouldn’t expect it, but since tonight’s game is at Pauley, something tells me that they will find a way to make it happen.
Watch and Listen to the Game With TMB
Tonight’s game will be broadcast on Fox Sports 1 and streamed on FoxSports.com with Carlo Jiménez and Don MacLean on the call. Of course, you can opt to listen to Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray on the radio or streamed on uclabruins.com instead. To watch or listen online, just right-click on the links so that you can open up another tab and have it going while you chat in the comments below.
This is your UCLA men’s basketball vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream tonight’s game:
UCLA Men’s Basketball (19-10, 11-7)
Opponent: #9 Nebraska Cornhuskers (25-4, 14-4)
Series Record: UCLA leads, 6-3
When: 8:00 pm PT, Tuesday, March 3, 2026
Where: Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles, CA
TV: FS1 with Carlo Jiménez and Don MacLean
Live Stream: FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports app
Radio/Audio
Local Radio: KABC AM 790 with Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray
Satellite Radio: SiriusXM Ch. 84 (UCLA Call)
Online: uclabruins.com
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast
Game Notes:
UCLA
Go Bruins!!!
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The most frustrating team in college basketball looks locked in to start, as we all expected.
Dent is heated about the whistle (or lack thereof) in the game and had to be restrained from the officials.