No fewer than ten reasons immediately popped into the head of Mark Hankins as to why Fred Hoiberg would fit perfectly at Nebraska.
Among them is a plaque on the ground in front of Hankins’ office at the NU Coliseum. It’s of Jerry Bush, Hoiberg’s grandfather, who coached the Nebraska basketball team in that very building in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
The other reasons stem from a friendship between Hankins and Hoiberg that dates more than 25 years.
A native of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Hankins attended Iowa State University and met Hoiberg, who grew up in Ames, Iowa, while playing basketball at the school’s rec center.