They've never won an NCAA Tournament game. Is the ninth time the charm?

Nebraska, 0-8 all time in the tournament, is the only power conference team never to win a single March Madness game. Is this the year?

Kent Pavelka has seen a lot since he started calling Nebraska men’s basketball games on the radio in 1974.

But after 51 years, he’s still waiting to witness the Cornhuskers do something every other team from an NCAA power conference has already accomplished: win a game in the NCAA Tournament.

Nebraska’s men are 0-8 all-time in the annual postseason tournament that crowns a national champion. They have lost as a higher seed — third in 1991, sixth in 1994 and eighth in 2024 — and as an underdog. They’ve lost by as few as five points (1991) and been blown out by as many as 21 (1992).

After a while, as more programs won their first all-time tournament games, leaving Nebraska in an ever-more exclusive and ignominious club, fans grew resigned to disappointment, Pavelka said.

“I’m pretty long in the tooth here,” Pavelka told NBC News. “I’ve been thinking, how many more rodeos do I have?”