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Husker/Bluejay Basketball - The Turning Point


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Must be history class day at the OWH because Dirk Chatelain looks at when the trajectory of the two programs changed.

 

On that day, who could've foreseen the next 15 years? Who could've envisioned the changing landscape?

 

Surely not Danny Nee, who'd come to Anthony's in Omaha for a booster luncheon. Coach Nee was beaming that Tuesday morning, Feb. 16, 1999.

 

The Husker player revolt in '96, the Rutgers fiasco in '97, the fifth-straight NCAA tournament loss in '98, it was all behind him.

 

Nee had the Big 12's best player, Venson Hamilton, a 9-3 league record, nine wins in the past 10 games, including a sweep of Kansas. Yes, Kansas!

 

“There's an enormous mental toughness you have to have,” Nee told the boosters. “The endurance of the season ... it gets to be so monotonous. ... But it's a special part of it if you can look back 10 years from now and say you were part of a Big 12 championship team.”

 

A few miles north, on that very day, Creighton basketball was melting like sun-soaked snow. Dana Altman had tried and tried for five years to build a relevant program. To carve out a fan base. Yet 4,618 people had shown up at his most recent home game.

 

And after a hot start, his Bluejays had lost four of six, dropping to 8-7 in the Missouri Valley. “I'd be less than honest if I said I didn't question our toughness,” Altman said.

 

You want a watershed moment for Creighton and Nebraska hoops in this town? You want to know when the trajectories of two programs crossed? How 'bout that day in February '99?

 

The next three weeks represent the birth of modern Bluejay basketball — and the end of Nee-brasketball's glory years. The following night, NU lost at home to Oklahoma State and CU beat its nemesis, Southwest Missouri State.

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