INDIANAPOLIS — Sam Hoiberg didn’t expect to see much in the way of commemoration of his father Fred’s Pacers career at his draft prospect workout Thursday given that Fred averaged just 3.9 points per game in four seasons in Indiana. But as the six-man workout was about to get started, Sam caught a glimpse of his father’s name.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Sam Hoiberg, who played for coach Fred for five years at Nebraska. “You see his name on the wall, the Pacers alumni wall. I didn’t know it was on there, but I was warming up and saw that, so that was pretty cool. Having played for him in college and having the success that we had and growing as a player, it’s really cool. I never expected to be doing NBA workouts, but I worked for it. It’s pretty cool to do it with my dad’s former team.”
OK, correction. It’s actually not true that Sam never expected to be doing NBA workouts. Before adolescence hit, he was hoping his father’s genetics would put him in position to follow in Fred’s footsteps. In his playing days, Fred was listed at 6-4, 203 pounds and he was sturdy enough to play 10 NBA seasons. He started just 61 of 541 career games, but he was a 39.6% career 3-point shooter and an adequate rebounder for a shooting guard.
Sam figured he’d have the same type of body, and growing up the son of an NBA player and head coach at the NBA and major college level would help him do even more with it.
“Fifteen years ago I still thought was gonna be 6-foot-6 and an NBA All-Star,” Sam said.
That, to put it mildly, didn’t happen. Sam is listed at 6-foot, 180 pounds on Nebraska’s website, but that seems pretty generous. Before his meeting with the media after Thursday’s workout, Hoiberg joked with reporters that the microphones on the stand in front of him might have to be lowered so they didn’t block his face from camera shots, and reporters laughed but then had to take the suggestion seriously. Hoiberg wasn’t invited to the NBA Draft Combine, which spared him from having his height without shoes publicized.
That, of course, was why he initially joined Nebraska’s basketball team as a walk-on in 2021, even though he was a first-team All-City pick of the Lincoln Journal Star as a senior at St. Pius X High School. That’s why most expected him to take the typical trajectory of coaches’ sons and turn practice and garbage time opportunities into a chance to be a coach himself down the line. Instead, Sam Hoiberg turned himself into one of the best defenders in the Big Ten and helped Nebraska to its best season in franchise history as a senior.
And he did it in part by looking for inspiration from a current member of the Pacers who is similarly vertically challenged.
Fred laid the challenge out to Sam from the beginning. He wasn’t going to get any free opportunities by virtue of being the coach’s son, not when he was trying to get what had historically been a football powerhouse to embrace its basketball team and after he went 14-45 in his first two seasons as Nebraska’s head coach.
“I wasn’t expected to ever play there,” Sam said. “(Fred) told me I had to work at it to earn my spot. I did that and kept working to the point of getting here.”
The younger Hoiberg took a redshirt year in 2021-22 when the Cornhuskers improved to 10-22, then he averaged 12.7 minutes per game off the bench as a redshirt freshman on a team that went 16-16. As a redshirt sophomore he averaged nearly 20 minutes per game off the bench on the first Nebraska team to make the NCAA Tournament in a decade, and then as a redshirt junior he started 15 games on a 21-win team that won the College Basketball Crown postseason event.
Still, Sam felt like he had plateaued to some extent. He’d grown as a defender and averaged 1.4 steals per game as a redshirt junior but never averaged more than 4.1 points per game in a season. He’d never even attempted more than 3.0 field goals per game for a season. As it stood, he was on pace to have a feel-good story of a college career but not have a playing career beyond that.
But watching what T.J. McConnell did for the Pacers in their 2025 NBA Finals run gave him the sense that there was more he could do. McConnell — himself perhaps generously listed at 6-1 and 33 years old at the time of the Finals — led all bench players in total points in the playoffs and also ranked second in scoring, making an impact whenever he was on the floor.
“I was having good years but I still didn’t think the NBA was really an option,” Hoiberg said. “Then last year, watching T.J. McConnell in the playoffs, I was like, ‘I think I can do some of those things.’ Just the way he fired up the crowd, I saw parallels. That gave me some hope. I really started working hard. Watched film on him and other guys that are kind of my stature and had a great year. After a lot of the success we had, I started to believe it as the season went on. … He’s just tough and I feel like toughness is one of the keys in my game. Just the hustle plays that he makes, it’s a skill. People underrate that and at times undervalue it. Playing harder than everyone else is a skill.”
Hoiberg had rarely looked to score in his first three seasons, especially around the basket, because everybody there was much tougher than him. But he saw McConnell’s fearlessness on offense and tried to figure out how he did it.
“Just seeing the way he would get to the rim, being a smaller player, I had to learn from that,” Hoiberg said. “Learn how he got past guys with his driving angles.”
Hoiberg used those lessons to average a career-high 9.3 points per game. He shot 54.1% from the floor with his 229 field goal attempts more than doubling his previous season-high of 106. He made a career-high 32 of 84 3-point attempts (38.1%) but the biggest difference in his game was inside the arc. Prior to 2025-26, Hoiberg had never attempted more than 50 2-point field goals in a season and never made more than 26 in a season. This year he was 92 of 145 from 2-point range, a remarkable 63.4% clip.
Hoiberg was already a strong on-ball defender, but he got even better by watching McConnell’s example of relentless full-court defense. He finished second in the Big Ten in steals per game with 2.0 and his 70 total steals led the conference. He was named to the Big Ten’s All-Defensive team along with three players from national champion Michigan and one from Final Four participant Illinois.
“You have to be in amazing shape,” Hoiberg said. “That was one of the things I did last summer was try to get in the best shape of my life going into my last season. Last year was by far the best shape I was in. It allowed me to play defense and offense hard all the time to where I made an All-Defensive team and was getting the most steals I ever averaged in my career. It’s just the constant, playing hard and having instincts. I feel like I got some of those but it’s a combination of being a smart player and having that amazing conditioning that (McConnell) has got.”
The approach didn’t just help Hoiberg, it helped Nebraska put together its best season in history. It went 28-7 overall including 15-5 in Big Ten play, setting school records in overall and conference wins, then reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in program history before losing to Iowa.
Virtually no one is expecting Hoiberg to get drafted after that performance, but McConnell wasn’t drafted out of Arizona and he’s now played 11 seasons in the NBA. Hoiberg is trying to break through the same way. Beyond the Pacers workout, he said he’s also worked out for Minnesota and Memphis, and he has workouts scheduled with Phoenix and Golden State with hopes to add more.
He knows getting a foothold in the league won’t be easy, but emulating McConnell has gotten him closer than he ever expected since he realized he wouldn’t be tall.
“He definitely gave me some belief in myself,” Hoiberg said. “Obviously, he’s an unbelievable player and it’s going to take a lot of work to get to that level, but he certainly gave me some hope.”
Dustin Dopirak covers the Pacers all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Pacers Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Sam Hoiberg drew inspiration from T.J. McConnell: ‘I can do some of those things’
Reporting by Dustin Dopirak, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
