They bought the building: Husker fans own OKC
OKLAHOMA CITY – What the Nebraska fan base has done in Oklahoma City for the opening weekend of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has got the attention of everyone.
It was supposed to be a “neutral” site featuring eight different schools, but Husker fans do what they do best. The Big Red fan base is regarded by many as its greatest overall asset, and it showed out perhaps more than any other recent memory at the NCAA Tournament’s opening weekend.
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Both TruTV and Turner analysts Chris Webber and Andy Katz said it was the biggest fan takeover they had ever seen at what is supposed to be a neutral site. The University of Nebraska was allotted only 200 tickets for the regional, most of which went to player families and staff. That means the nearly 15,000 in attendance at the Paycom Center all bought their tickets on the secondary market, which makes it that much more impressive. It’s really no different than what Husker fans did at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, where over 70,000 NU fans made it a Husker home game.
“Yeah, I think it’s neutral by name only,” Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington said on Friday. “This is going to be a road game. I heard reports. They said it was even better than the home games in Nebraska, the noise, the environment.
“Nebraska, it’s impressive that they’re following their team like that.”
The Hoibergs are not surprised by the Husker fan takeover
With how well Nebraska’s team played in 2025-26, we started to see more fan travel than ever for Husker basketball games.
Wins at Northwestern, Minnesota, and USC were all filled with Husker red. What Husker fans did on Thursday at 11:40 a.m. CT really caught the attention of head coach Fred Hoiberg.
“This is one of the great arenas in the league just how loud it gets,” Hoiberg said. “Oklahoma City Thunder fans are as good as any, maybe the best, in the entire NBA, just with how vocal they are. It’s more of a college atmosphere with how they are here.
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“So I’ve seen it in the building. I never thought that it would be like that in a neutral-site NCAA Tournament game with how loud it was. Will it be the same tomorrow? I think there’s going to be more Huskers here. Whether they’ll all be in the building, I don’t know, but I think they’re going to take over.”
Senior guard Sam Hoiberg said it’s important that the team moves on from Thursday and focuses on playing a very good Vanderbilt team.
And how impactful the crowd is really depends on how well the Huskers come out and play.
“I think it’s going to be maybe even louder, because people are going to be off work and come down for the weekend,” Sam Hoiberg said. “Yeah, we fully expect to have another amazing crowd, but you can’t rely on that to win a game. You have to still execute and focus on the game plan.
“It’s such a quick turnaround, and they do so many good things that we’re going to have to be keyed on. We’re really locked in on putting in the game plan and executing that, and then we have to put a product on the floor to where they’re going to be able to bring that atmosphere.”
