With the regular season complete and the No. 2 seed secured, Creighton men’s basketball is heading to New York with a simple expectation for the Big East Tournament: to win it.
“There’s always the expectation, to win it,” freshman Jackson McAndrew said. “That’s been our goal as a team, and my goal personally as well, just to go out there, work hard, play how we know how to play, and go win the whole thing.”
Creighton has never won a Big East Tournament title, and its last (and only) regular season title came in 2020, the season prior to Ryan Kalkbrenner’s arrival. This week will be the four-time Defensive Player of the Year’s last chance to earn a Big East title, and climbing to that mountaintop is something the fifth-year center would “really, really love to do.”
“At the end of the day, when you’re going into that tournament, you’re playing a bunch of really good teams in three days, and it’s hard,” Kalkbrenner said. “It’s not like we haven’t been good enough in the past years to win, it just hasn’t happened. I think staying true to what our strengths are as a team this year — our biggest strength, I think, is our togetherness and unity and staying true to that. It’s going to give us the best chance. As long as we do that for the three days when we’re in New York, we’ll be fine.”
Creighton will face the winner of No. 7 Georgetown and No. 10 DePaul in the quarterfinal round on Thursday. Win, and one of No. 3 UConn and No. 6 Villanova will likely be waiting. If seeds were to hold, Creighton would see top-seeded St. John’s on its own court at Madison Square Garden. All those fan bases typically travel well (or don’t have to travel far) to support their team.
“It takes a little good fortune,” Coach Greg McDermott said of making a tournament run. “You have to stay healthy three games in three days. If somebody gets sick or you’re banged up, that makes it difficult. And you’ve got to make shots. That’s the reality of it is if you make shots for three days, especially us, I think with our ability to protect the rim, I think we can do some things defensively. But you’re going to have to make shots. And obviously we essentially have to win a couple road games … It’s a great opportunity to kind of prepare ourselves for NCAA tournament play.”
Fortunately for Creighton, the Jays broke out of their slump in a big way last week, shooting 52.4% and 43.2% from deep in their last two games while connecting on a total of 27 triples against Seton Hall and Butler. The one driving that success was McAndrew, who broke out of his own cold spell to shoot 9-for-14 against the Pirates and Bulldogs and earn Big East Freshman of the Week.
“It’s big-time to have that momentum going into the tournament and the postseason,” McAndrew said. “A lot of people called it a slump. Personally, I was confident through it all, I’m still going to take the same shots and I know who I am, I know the work I put in to become the shooter I am. So with that, and along with working with Mitch [Ballock] and getting a lot of shots up, and it’s a great feeling when you make shots.”
The freshman will be playing in his first Big East Tournament, although he has a good feel for what he’s walking into this week because of Creighton’s game against St. John’s in the Garden and feedback from his more experienced teammates.
“Obviously, we got a little glimpse of it with St. John’s and they packed that place out, so that was a lot of fun,” McAndrew said. “But it’s going to be even more crazy for the tournament I’ve heard, and just the environment as a whole. It’s going to be a whole other level, which I’m very excited for.”
One advantage for this year’s Creighton team over past squads is depth. The Jays are fourth in the league in bench minutes (28.2%), narrowly behind UConn (30.3%). The top two are the bottom two teams in the League in Seton Hall and DePaul. The last time Creighton made it to the Big East final (2022), the bench accounted for just 23.7% of the team’s minutes.
“You have to make shots, you have to defend, you have to have enough left in your tank,” McDermott said. “I think our depth is a little better this year than it was last year, which lends itself to being a little fresher playing three games in three days.”
Creighton has secured its place in the NCAA Tournament with its 22-9 record and 10 Quadrant 1 wins, but there’s still plenty for the Jays to play for as they look to get off the eight- or nine-seed line. If they can get past the quarterfinal round, they would have opportunities to pick up additional Quad 1 wins if they were to play any of UConn, Xavier, Marquette and St. John’s.
“Anytime you can do something that’s never been done, that’s pretty cool, and it’s something that these guys can add to the list of things that they’ve accomplished during their careers and during this season,” McDermott said. “We just completed one of our best conference seasons in the history of our program with 15 wins. That in itself is a heck of an accomplishment, but to be able to go to New York and win a tournament would be awesome for these guys.”
DePaul and Georgetown will play in the second game of the first round on Wednesday with tipoff set for 5:30 p.m. CT. Creighton will away the winner on Thursday with tipoff set for 6 p.m. on FS1.
