Keisei Tominaga might lift Nebraska to NCAA tournament berth

Nebraska (20-9, 10-8 Big Ten) opened this season with its best start in more than 30 years. Its emergence has come as the 22-year-old Tominaga, nicknamed “the Japanese Steph Curry,” has made his mark while pursuing a long-shot NBA dream.

“Some of the shots that he takes amaze. It’s stuff that you don’t see usually on a basketball court — I mean, unless you’re in the NBA,” Virgilio said. “When he does it and you see it in person and he’s doing it to your team, as an opponent, you’re kind of shocked. I always look at our opponents’ bench after he makes the first couple of shots, and you can see the look in their eyes: ‘Oh, man. We’re screwed tonight.’ ”

Tominaga’s nickname predates his time in Lincoln. Virgilio first learned of him during his time as a graduate assistant at St. John’s. He had a knack for identifying promising international prospects, and one of his contacts reached out about a player in Nagoya, Japan, who wanted to play college basketball in the United States.

To Virgilio, Tominaga’s profile as a smallish player from a country not known for producing NCAA talent wasn’t striking. Tominaga’s range, on the other hand, intrigued Virgilio as much as his pedigree and personal story — a member of Japan’s under-18 team and the son of two professional basketball players in Japan. Tominaga’s 6-11 father played center for Japan’s national team.

Virgilio said he began recruiting Tominaga to St. John’s, but his grades needed improvement, so Tominaga went the junior college route, spending his first two seasons at Ranger College in Texas. Meanwhile, Virgilio moved to Nebraska, following Tominaga’s development as he starred stateside at Ranger and overseas representing Japan in 3×3 basketball at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Tominaga went to Nebraska on the heels of the Olympics, where his 6.9 points per game were third best in the competition. “That was a super great experience for me,” he said. “I think those opportunities gave me more confidence and helped make me a better player.”

In Lincoln, Nebraska was opening its third season under Fred Hoiberg, the former Chicago Bulls coach whose Cornhuskers went 7-20 the season before. In the 1990s, Nebraska made five NCAA tournament appearances, including four straight starting in 1991. It has made the tournament just once since the turn of the century, in 2014.

That tournament-less stretch continued through Tominaga’s first season, when the Cornhuskers continued to struggle and he adjusted to his new…