Podcasts about Nebraska, United States

One March run is what a listener hears over and over here. Nebraska's men's basketball team beat Troy to end its streak of never having won an NCAA tournament game, then drew Iowa in the Sweet 16 in Houston, and most of the Husker shows here have a clip from that stretch. KLIN Husker Hour's OKC episode with Amie Just and Michael Bruntz decides that nothing after Troy could feel the same, because that thing had never happened before. Locked On Nebraska's Mitch Sherman and Connor Happer frame Nebraska-Iowa as the season's defining rivalry test, one of them admitting to a new nervousness and eyeing the Elite Eight. The Adam Carriker Show tallies 34 of 84 Nebraska points from the paint and argues that scoring inside turns it into Iowa's kind of game, and on The Pick Six Podcast Sam calls Nebraska's most likely outcome "a Sweet 16 or better team".

Half-Court Press, the Omaha World-Herald's basketball show, keeps Creighton in the same frame: one clip has both area teams done, Creighton out of gas against Tennessee after an 18-0 run and Baylor Shireman visibly red in the face carrying the offense. Nick Bahe Podcast, a fast, informal, opinionated run through a note sheet with Nebraska and Creighton at the center, ranks the win at Illinois and Jamarcus Lawrence's buzzer-beater as the biggest of the regular season. Corn Nation's Monday Night Therapy puts a number on the gap: about $6 million spent on Nebraska's players against Indiana's more than $32 million.

What Nebraska is

Nebraska is a Great Plains state in the central United States, mostly rural: corn and cattle country in the east, the grass-covered Sandhills in the west, the Platte River across the middle. Lincoln is the capital and home of the University of Nebraska; Omaha, on the Missouri River, is the largest city. The university's Cornhuskers are the state's common ground, and the listening reflects that.

Football: the stadium, the portal, the trenches

The football talk is as much about construction as games. A proposed $600 million rebuild of Memorial Stadium runs through several shows: KLIN Husker Hour lays out Troy Dannen's plan as targeting the south end zone and west lower deck, The Adam Carriker Show puts the possible payoff at $95 million a year in revenue, Old School w/ Foreman and Oerman gives it a title of its own, and Locked On Nebraska's titles land on it too.

The Pick Six Podcast, from the World-Herald's writers, sounds like beat-writer conversation built on sustained argument, and its portal clip is the calm reading of the state's worry: players seem to like being at Nebraska, the culture and the money are good, and the ones who leave are mostly looking for playing time. Carriker Chronicles is the heated reading: Nebraska keeps losing to Iowa and Minnesota despite stronger recruiting rankings, so "We got to develop better", stop the run and win in the trenches, and the show lets a guest's answer breathe, as when Kent Pavelka describes the loudest environment he has ever broadcast. Recruiting and the portal fill the title runs at HuskerOnline Podcast and Husker247.

The coaches' own microphones

Huskers Radio Network Podcasts, from Nebraska Athletics, is where the coaches talk, and it runs like local sports radio, with a text-line question, numbered segments and a commercial break audible in the clip and warm, layered questions that summarize before handing off. Will Bolt's baseball shows carry most of it. Jay Sean goes from unprepared freshman to "absolute savage competitor" after a summer alone in Corvallis; Dylan Carey, whose dog was named Husker, breaks a 24-year doubles record and hits a grand slam in front of his family at Hawks Field; a third home run in one inning flips the Oregon game and leaves Nebraska sensing "blood in the water". Softball and volleyball too: a Cornhusker Conversation with Hannah Camenzind recounts the Big Ten trophy being presented at the Lincoln airport by equipment manager Yeddy and bus driver Vijay, KLIN adds that the pitching allowed 2 runs in 29 innings, and on The Dig, Lauren Cook-West leaves the libero job a toss-up between Olivia Malk and Laney Choboy.

The record book

Suiting Up Varsity: Nebraska High School Sports History is the one sports show here built around high schools rather than the university. Its clip from the 1982 girls basketball state final has 4,000-plus fans, 10 seconds left, 20-0 Kearney against 18-1 Lincoln Northeast, Brenda Ward at the free-throw line and a pause to confirm the team name: "Yes, they are called the Bear Kittens." The episode is named for Karen Moore's 73-foot heave. Kurt Tomasevich goes from Shelby football to bobsled gold in Vancouver in 2010, and the titles work county by county. Nebraska News Service - Audio Report reaches the same gyms in "What It Means to Be a History-Making Athlete", where Milford High School wins girls' volleyball and basketball titles in the same year.

Arts, courts and kitchens

Friday LIVE, Nebraska Public Media's arts program, sounds like a public-radio arts desk in conversation, naming the event or the person and then asking curious questions. Ed Palachuk hears Brahms's Third Symphony as the composer's soul carried through F major and F minor; Thomas Nagley, who painted Camp Indianola on discarded plywood while serving as a German-speaking Army interpreter, explains that with trouble seeing he writes instead: "I write words, which is a lot easier and less messy." In the courts, Your Nebraska Judicial Branch has Danelle Reed crediting work with the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation for "a complete overhaul" of juvenile probation in Lancaster County, and Juvenile Justice in Nebraska, from NJJA board members, has Josh Arias on art as a way through anxiety. Restaurant Hoppen is Dan Hoppen on the Nebraska food scene, Omaha by its titles, with clips that go past restaurant news, as when Kevin Shinn explains how calling a formerly incarcerated worker "chef" helped build trust and a new identity.

Where to start

• For the beat-writer view of the Huskers: The Pick Six Podcast for football, Half-Court Press for Nebraska and Creighton basketball.
• For the coaches in their own words: Huskers Radio Network Podcasts, especially the Will Bolt baseball shows.
• For fast, opinionated argument: Nick Bahe Podcast; for baseball, softball, volleyball and the basketball portal in one show: KLIN Husker Hour.
• For Nebraska beyond the university: Suiting Up Varsity for the high school past, Friday LIVE for the arts, Your Nebraska Judicial Branch for the courts, Restaurant Hoppen for Omaha's kitchens.

The Nebraska feed on this page plays clips from these shows.