Report: Fred Hoiberg Agrees to Contract with Nebraska to Replace Tim Miles as HC

David Banks/Associated Press

Fred Hoiberg is back as a head coach after agreeing in principle to a deal with the Nebraska Cornhuskers on Saturday, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. 

Evan Daniels of 247Sports reported Hoiberg’s deal is expected to be for seven years at more than $3 million per season. 

Hoiberg will replace Tim Miles, who was fired after seven seasons at the helm. 

Hoiberg was previously head coach of the Chicago Bulls before getting fired 24 games into the 2018-19 season. The 46-year-old had a difficult three-plus-year stretch with the franchise after taking over for Tom Thibodeau. 

The Bulls had just one winning season with one playoff appearance under Hoiberg. The front office broke up the nucleus of the team after the 2016-17 season by trading Jimmy Butler to the Minnesota Timberwolves that offseason and Nikola Mirotic to the New Orleans Pelicans in February 2018. 

There were also reports Hoiberg lost all control in Chicago’s locker room before he was fired. 

Per The Athletic’s Darnell Mayberry, Bulls players “no longer believed in his system and became increasingly emboldened in undermining Hoiberg’s authority.”

John Paxson, the Bulls president of basketball operations, told reporters at the time of Hoiberg’s firing they had to make a change to help the franchise be successful in the future. 

“For us to sit here and think that just because we’re getting guys back [we’ll improve]; I think that would’ve masked the problems that we’ve seen,” Paxson said. “Then we wouldn’t have made good decisions going forward. We gave Fred opportunities. And he did a lot of good things for us.”

Prior to his tenure in Chicago, Hoiberg established himself as an excellent coach at the college level. He went 115-56 with four NCAA tournament appearances and two Big 12 tournament titles in five seasons at Iowa State from 2010 to 2015. 

Hoiberg will be tasked with turning around Nebraska like he did Iowa State. Prior to his stint with the Cyclones, the program hadn’t made the NCAA tournament since 2004-05 and had just one winning season in the next five years. 

Nebraska found success under Tim Miles with three winning seasons and one NCAA tournament appearance in 2013-14. 

One issue for the Cornhuskers under Miles has been in-season consistency. For example, they were ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press Top 25 after an 11-2 start this season. They proceeded to lose 14 of their final 21 games. 

Hoiberg gets an opportunity to re-establish his value in the college ranks after a difficult stretch in the NBA. Nebraska is a low-pressure environment for him to get his career back on track and give the program some sort of foothold in the Big Ten.