In many ways, the 1920-1921 basketball season was the most remarkable ever played by a Nebraska team. Nebraska finished second in the Missouri Valley Conference race but was cheated of a real chance at the title by the difficulty of arranging a full Valley schedule when the Cornhusker floor was so small. An outstanding feature of the season was the fighting spirit which the team displayed all season in the face of a host of handicaps.
When Nebraska opened the season by showing their superiority over the Illinois five, one of the leaders of the Big Ten Conference, she startled sport followers in the middle west with speed and team work. After the Christmas holiday training at Illinois, the Nebraska team returned to Lincoln to find that a maximum sized basketball court had been constructed at the State Fair Coliseum for the Cornhuskers' use.
The first misfortune struck the Cornhuskers when Jesse Patty, mainstay of the squad of forwards from the 1920 team, was declared ineligible and had to be dropped from the team. "Bob" Russell, another star forward who returned to the University about this time, started working with the team but at the end of January was also dropped from the team on account of ineligibility. Sommers, one of the new forwards, was also barred on account of being ineligible.
Nebraska started the season at home with a pair of victories over Oklahoma and another over South Dakota. Grinnell also fell before the onslaught of the fighting Cornhuskers in the opening games at home. Early in February, the team journeyed to Iowa for four games. Injuries and sickness barred several of the regulars from the lineup in the first game with Ames, which the Cornhuskers lost by a score of 38 to 30. This defeat cheated the Nebraska five of the chance to put in a claim for the Missouri Valley title. After losing the first game, the Nebraska team pulled together and won the other three on the trip from Ames to Grinnell. After returning home, the Nebraska met and defeated her rival, Notre Dame, in a pair of contests on the Coliseum floor. The following week the Cornhuskers got an even break with Colgate in a pair of contests on the Nebraska court. Colgate was one of the leading quintets of the east and claimed some rights to the eastern cage title.
Nebraska finished the season by defeating Ames in two games by decisive scores and placing second in the Missouri Valley Conference race.
In winning fifteen out of eighteen games against the leading schools of the middle west and east, the 1921 team establishes its right to the name of one of the greatest cage quintets that ever wore the Scarlet and Cream. Too much credit cannot be given to the men and the coach of this year's team.
Nebraskans will remember for years the wonderful work of Bekins and Newman, who with Bailey, are lost by graduation this year. The spirit of cooperation, fellowship, fight and loyalty among the members of the team and the school, has made the 1921 basketball team a success in every way.