Hoiberg Rounds Out Husker Basketball Support Staff

University of Nebraska Men’s Basketball Coach Fred Hoiberg announced several new additions to the Husker basketball support staff for the 2023-24 season. 

It is a mixture of old and new faces with promotions of Padyn Borders as Recruiting Coordinator and Michael Bania to Video Coordinator and the additions of Andrew McCabe (Men’s Basketball Head Athletic Trainer), Justin Moore (Graduate Manager), Nihilo Ibarra (Graduate Manager) and Joey St. Pierre (Graduate Manager). 

“Padyn and Michael are great additions to our fulltime staff,” Hoiberg said. “They have worked their way up in our program as both student managers and graduate managers and have earned the respect of everyone in our program with their work ethic and dedication to making our program better.”

Borders has been promoted to Recruiting Coordinator after spending last season as a graduate manager in the program. In his new role, Borders will help the coaching staff with managing the recruiting landscape for the Huskers with a focus on the NCAA transfer portal, including implementing and managing NU’s recruiting database and assisting with recruiting research. Borders played collegiately at both Central Community College and Peru State before transferring to Nebraska for his final two years of college. He served as a manager during the 2021-22 season and graduated from Nebraska with a degree in business administration in May of 2022.

Bania has been promoted to Video Coordinator after spending last year as a graduate assistant in the Husker program. Bania has been at Nebraska for the last five years, as he was a student manager throughout his undergraduate career. Bania, who was NU’s head student manager for two years, has been involved with the video staff in game and practice video breakdowns, opponent scouting and coordinating NU’s student managers. He graduated with a degree in mathematics from Nebraska in May of 2022.

McCabe joins the staff as the Men’s Basketball Head Athletic Trainer. McCabe comes to Nebraska after spending the last five years at Santa Clara University. He worked with the Broncos’ basketball program and assisted the school’s sports medicine department with both internal and external operations. McCabe, who also worked with San Jose State, brings a wealth of sports medicine experience across a diverse range of clinical settings. His work has included serving in roles as an exercise specialist with Olympic Physical Therapy in Bellevue, Wash. and as an athletic trainer/teacher at the high school level in the state of Texas. He has worked directly as the clinical coordinator with the team physician for the Texas Tech Red Raiders and Stanford Children’s Orthopedic and Sports Medicine.

“Andrew comes highly regarded from his time at Santa Clara and has done an outstanding job since joining our staff at the start of summer workouts,” Hoiberg said. “He has worked with R.J. Pietig, who is transitioning to a newly created role in the NAPL, in getting our guys back to full speed.”

Moore joined the Husker basketball staff as a graduate manager for the 2023-24 season. A native of Englewood, Colo., Moore was a student manager for the Huskers over the last two seasons and received his degree in business administration from Nebraska in May of 2023. He will assist in day-to-day operations within the program, including practices, film breakdown and other duties.

“Justin has been in our gym all summer and has a passion to get into coaching and this is a good opportunity to him to take the next step,” Hoiberg said. “After promoting Padyn and Michael, we were fortunate to add Nihilo and Joey. Nihilo has been a student manager at San Diego State under Brian Dutcher for the last three years, while Joey played collegiately for five seasons. Our graduate managers are great assets to our players and staff, and it allows them to gain valuable experience while working on a master’s degree.” 

Ibarra comes to Nebraska after spending the past three years as a student manager at San Diego State, including the 2022-23 season as the head student manager. He oversaw the Aztecs’ student managers and assisted in the programs day-to-day operations including pre-and post-practice workouts, helping with film operations and in practice drills. He helped the Aztecs to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including a berth in the national title game this past season. Ibarra also worked camps at Stanford, UCLA, TCU, Cal, Florida State and Colorado during his undergraduate years. He graduated with a bachelor’s in kinesiology in May of 2023. 

St. Pierre comes to Nebraska after playing collegiately for five seasons at Portland, Milwaukee and Parkside. Last season, he appeared in 20 contests for the Pilots, including nine starts, and averaged 3.2 points and 2.0 rebounds per game. The Spring Grove, Ill., native spent two seasons at Milwaukee, where he started 30 games in 2021-22 and averaged 6.3 points on 59 percent shooting, 5.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocked shots per game, ranking second in the Horizon League in that category. He began his collegiate career at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, where he started for two seasons. St. Pierre graduated from Milwaukee with a bachelor’s in business marketing in 2022.