LINCOLN — If Nebraska’s new assistant basketball coach had any first-day jitters, he concealed them well Monday afternoon.
Tracy Webster was teaching, clapping and sweating on the Devaney Center court as the Huskers opened a rare two-week stretch of August workouts.
Never mind that NU had just announced his hiring earlier that day. Or that he had been to Lincoln just twice before. Or that he was still shaking hands with and introducing himself to players one hour into Monday’s practice.
Webster looked right at home.
“Right now, to be quite honest, I’m really taking it one step and one day at a time,” he said. “I know the atmosphere’s really good.”
Webster coached for two seasons at Kentucky with Sadler’s friend, Billy Gillispie, before joining the staff at DePaul last year. He’s also had stops at Illinois and Purdue. He served as interim head coach at DePaul after Jerry Wainwright was fired midway through last season.
Webster will be getting a crash course on all things Nebraska basketball for the next month. The Huskers will complete 10 practices in Lincoln during the next two weeks, sessions granted only to teams preparing for offseason trips outside the country. Nebraska then heads to Nassau, Bahamas, for four games against various professional squads starting Aug. 13.
NCAA rules typically prohibit on-the-court contact between coaches and players until mid-October. So Webster, trying to adjust to his new team, came at the perfect time.
Coach Doc Sadler already has a plan. Sadler, who hired assistant Wes Flanigan in May, hopes to use the next month to experiment a bit. He’ll insert new offensive plays and tinker with various zone defenses.
He figures Webster and Flanigan, a former Auburn player and UAB assistant, will have different perspectives to share.
“The thing you always try to do is bring new guys in that have a different option on some things, and different ideas,” Sadler said. “I think you’ll see some of those pretty quick.”
Sadler’s relationship with Webster goes back 20 years, when he saw Webster playing for Thornton High School just outside of Chicago. They made sure to keep in touch.
“We’ve known each other for a while,” Webster said. “(Sadler’s) always being a straight, honest guy. And the staff that he has here is really, really good.”
Webster was an All-Big Ten guard at Wisconsin, finishing his career with 1,264 points and a school-record 501 assists. He and the Badgers actually faced Nebraska in the Devaney Center during his first season. That was 19 years ago.
Now he’s back in Lincoln. And he plans to help the Huskers improve.
“I think what our staff can bring to the table is we’ve been around players that know what it takes to get the job done,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll get better as coaches and (our players) will listen and try do what we’re doing.”
Contact the writer:
402-473-9585, jon.nyatawa@owh.com
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