CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Early in Tim Miles’ disappointing tenure as Nebraska’s basketball coach, I was waiting for a connecting flight at Chicago’s Midway Airport when a bunch of tall guys sporting my alma mater’s logo deplaned at a nearby gate.

I spotted Miles about 10 feet to my left, and in what must have been one of those super irritating moments that come with seven-figure coaching jobs, I called out. “Coach!” I introduced myself as an alumnus and Nebraska native and wished him luck.

He was very gracious, but I felt that I had to seize the moment to express decades of frustration. “Why can’t we have a good basketball team?” I asked. Not in an accusatory or hostile way. In a baffled, resigned tone brought on by season after season of basketball irrelevance.

“Well, we’re working on that,” he said, sincerely and politely.

And a dozen years and another new coach later, we are having a moment. My Huskers have blown far past all the modest benchmarks fans would have considered success at any point in my life. Most wins ever. Four seed in the NCAA tournament and two tourney wins.

It feels like a program-transforming season, with a clearly competent coach who’s been on big stages, and a showcase for just how rabid and supportive Husker fans can be. Throw in an NIL pool fed by hunger and pride, and it feels like we may sustain being competitive.

Good thing, because we no longer have football to puff us up and show that Nebraska is good enough and smart enough and, doggone it, people like us. Except probably Iowans.

Nebraska and Iowa, states in which I have lived 44 of my 68 years, sit this week at the intersection of sports and culture. The Huskers and Hawkeyes meet Thursday in the Sweet 16, and I cannot imagine a madder March moment.

“The hype. The hate. The clash of pride in overlooked rural Midwestern states,” I texted my son, who grew up as a Nebraska fan in Iowa, where I worked for The Des Moines Register for 18 years.

To be clear, I do not like the Iowa Hawkeyes. When I moved to Iowa in 1988, I joked to friends that I thought it might be fun to live somewhere with good college basketball. Back then, Iowa and Nebraska were in different conferences and the Huskers were in the midst of three decades of football dominance.

What did I think of the Hawkeyes? I didn’t, really. But, boy, did Hawkeye fans have thoughts about the Huskers and Nebraskans in general. Their recent decade of owning us in football is simply humiliating.

I nonetheless cheered for the Hawks against Florida on Sunday (only because I think the Huskers can beat them and advance to the Elite Eight), and I’m thrilled by the perfection of the matchup.

Iowa and Nebraska have no major professional sports teams, and the state universities get both that sort of energy and a fierce loyalty that you hear in our stadiums and arenas. We feel it in our hearts and wear our hearts on our ballcaps.

So Iowa versus Nebraska in the Sweet 16 on Thursday strikes me as a perfect encapsulation of how great the NCAA basketball tournament is, how sports build bonds and simply give us a lift. This year, my first March Madness with a dog in the fight.

I feel like I’m part of a big neighborhood. Sixty-four households, all with family stories of adversity, perseverance and strands of kismet. The neighborhood has some mansions with blueblood history and the best talent NIL money can buy (not to bring Michigan into the discussion).

Nebraska and Iowa are cousins living next door to each other in sturdy, modest homes. We’ll mow each other’s yards if one family is out of town and be pretty sure we did it better.

The Hoibergs — Nebraska coach Fred and his gritty, undersized son Sam — and Husker sharpshooter Pryce Sandfort illustrate the closeness.

Fred Hoiberg’s grandfather coached the Huskers for 10 years in the 1950s and ’60s (and never had a winning record). Fred was born in Lincoln, but grew up in Ames, starring as a player and later coaching Iowa State.

Sandfort’s father was a Nebraska high school and small college basketball star who moved to Iowa. Sandfort grew up like my son, cheering the Huskers in Iowa, but then he played for the Hawkeyes until this season.

So it’s a week of hoping, of needling like only relatives can. We Huskers are showing off our new winning bling, with house money spilling out of our pockets. I’m sure Iowans, who have been here before, are rolling their eyes.

Thursday night, folks on one side of the Missouri River will taste the frosting of the Sweet 16 while the other side chokes down a bitter pill. It’s all delicious.

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Randy Essex is a retired editor living in Detroit.