Fred Hoiberg of Nebraska was named The Associated Press men’s basketball coach of the year on Friday following a 28-win season that included the Cornhuskers’ first NCAA Tournament win and a run to the Sweet 16.
Hoiberg received 17 votes from a 61-person media panel, edging Duke’s Jon Scheyer (13) to become the Big Ten’s first national coach of the year since Michigan’s Juwan Howard in 2021. Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd received 11 votes.
“It took us some time to get here, but it was all about getting the right players in here, especially the ones that the fans could get behind,” Hoiberg said.
Hoiberg did just that, building a roster that played an exciting style of basketball, locked down defensively and ignited the Big Red fanbase’s excitement for the basketball program and upended the notion that Nebraska is just a football school.
Nebraska went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 10 years in 2024 and took a bigger step this season, matching the school record of 26 wins before even getting to March Madness. The Cornhuskers also had a school-record 15 wins in the rugged Big Ten.
Voting for coach of the year was done before the tournament, where Nebraska posted its first March Madness win in nine all-time tries with its 76-47 win over Troy. The run ended with a loss to Iowa in the Sweet 16.
“When the sting does wear off, which it will at some point — maybe — these guys deserve a lot of credit for what they have done for Nebraska basketball,” Hoiberg said.
So will the coach with deep roots in Lincoln.
Hoiberg’s grandfather, Jerry Bush, was Nebraska’s head coach from 1953-63 and his grandfather from his father’s side taught at the school for 30 years. Hoiberg was born in Lincoln and both of his parents are Nebraska graduates.
Hoiberg played at Iowa State and, after a 10-year NBA career, returned to lead his alma mater to four straight NCAA Tournaments. When he took over at Nebraska in 2019, the Cornhuskers had been to the tournament once in 21 seasons.
The Cornhuskers went a combined 7-45 in Hoiberg’s first two seasons, but he laid the foundation for success. Nebraska went 23-11 to reach March Madness in 2024 and, after just missing the bracket last season, went on a run that riveted Husker Nation.
Led by sharpshooting Iowa transfer Pryce Sandfort, versatile Dutch big man Rienk Mast and senior point guard Sam Hoiberg — Fred’s son — the Cornhuskers got off to the best start in school history, winning their first 20 games, leading to the program’s highest ranking in the AP Top 25 at No. 5 with the hometown coach calling the shots.
“This place means a lot to me,” he said.
Scheyer was runner-up after guiding the Blue Devils to a No. 1 ranking the final four weeks of the season and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The Blue Devils’ run came as the fourth-year coach adjusted his approach following last year’s Final Four run with a perimeter-driven lineup, turning inside to pummel opponents in the paint behind star freshman Cameron Boozer, who became Duke’s second straight AP men’s national player of the year Friday.
Arizona spent nine weeks at No. 1 with Lloyd pulling the strings and earned its first Final Four berth since 2001. He was AP coach of the year in 2022, his first season at Arizona.
Voting for AP coach of the year:
Fred Hoiberg, Nebraska, 17
Jon Scheyer, Duke, 13
Tommy Lloyd, Arizona, 11
Dusty May, Michigan, 9
Travis Steele, Miami (Ohio), 9
Grant McCaslin, Texas Tech 1
Shaheen Holloway, Seton Hall, 1
AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard contributed to this story.
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg watches during the first half against Iowa in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA college basketball tournament Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state's voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground.
The lawmakers' failure to offer a solution after months of debate raises uncertainty about how Georgians will vote in November and leaves confusion that could end in the courts or a special legislative session.
“They’ve abdicated their responsibility,” Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said of inaction by Republicans who control the legislature.
Currently, voters make their choices on Dominion Voting machines, which then print ballots with a QR code that scanners read to tally votes. Those machines have been repeatedly targeted by President Donald Trump following his 2020 election loss, and Trump’s Georgia supporters responded by enacting a law in 2024 that bans using barcodes to count votes.
But state law still requires counties to use the machines. No money has been allocated to reprogram them, and lawmakers failed to agree on a replacement.
“We’ll have an unresolvable statutory conflict come July 1,” said House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who backed a proposal to keep using the machines in 2026 that Senate Republicans declined to consider.
Republican House Speaker Jon Burns said he would meet with Gov. Brian Kemp and “take his temperature” on the possibility of a special session.
Kemp spokesperson Carter Chapman said he Republican governor will examine the situation.
“We’ll analyze all bills, as well as the consequence of those that did not pass,” Chapman said Friday.
House Republicans and Democrats backed Anderson's plan, which would have required that Georgia choose a voting process that didn't use QR codes by 2028. Election officials preferred that solution.
“The Senate has shown that they’re not responsible actors,” Draper said. She added that Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for governor, seemed more interested in keeping Trump's backing than “doing right by Georgia voters.”
A spokesperson for Jones didn't immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.
Joseph Kirk, Bartow County election supervisor and president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, said he’ll look to the secretary of state for guidance and assumes a judge will rule to instruct election officials how to proceed.
“This is uncharted territory,” he said.
Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is also running for governor, said officials are “ready to follow the law and follow the Constitution.”
Burns told reporters that his chamber was seeking to minimize changes this year.
“You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream,” Burns said.
Anderson said without action, the state could be required to use hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots in November.
Election officials say switching to a new system within just a few months, as advocated by some Republicans, would be nearly impossible.
“They made no way for this to happen except putting a deadline on it," Cherokee County elections director Anne Dover said of the switch away from barcodes. Dover said one problem under some plans is that a very large number of ballots would have to be printed.
Lawmakers seemed more concerned about scoring political points than making practical plans, Paulding County Election Supervisor Deidre Holden said.
“If anyone is resilient and can get the job done, it’s all of us election officials, but the legislators need to work with us, and they need to understand what we do before they go making laws that are basically unachievable for us,” Holden said.
Supporters of hand-marked paper ballots say voters are more likely to trust in an accurate count if they can see what gets read by the scanner.
Right-wing election activists lobbied lawmakers for an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots, but the House turned away from a Senate proposal to do so.
Anderson said he wasn’t sure if a special session could escape those political crosswinds, but said Georgia lawmakers must fix the problem.
“This is a legislative problem,” Anderson said. “It’s a legislative solution that has to happen.”
FILE - Voting machines are seen at the Bartow County Election office, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)
