A new season for Creighton men’s basketball begins on Wednesday night.
The 2024-25 Bluejay roster features three returning starters, a group of reserves looking to earn bigger roles, a pair of transfers and a talented freshman class. Creighton lost its top two scorers from last year’s Sweet 16 team, but for Coach Greg McDermott, program expectations do not change.
“We want to compete for a Big East title, and if you can come close to accomplishing that, everything else kind of takes care of itself,” McDermott said. “We’ve been fortunate the last five years that the games we have played down the stretch the last couple of weeks in February and in March have been very meaningful games in terms of standings, seeds and NCAA Tournament seeds. So if you’re in that position, I think you’re in a good spot, and then you roll with it in March and see what happens. We want to stay in the upper echelon of the Big East and compete for a championship.”
The closed scrimmage against Iowa State and charity exhibition against Purdue — both top-15 teams — have given the newcomers a chance to mesh with the returners, which McDermott said has been really important. The contests allowed the team to see the work they’ve put in translate to games without the pressure of the result mattering, and it’s given McDermott a chance to identify areas most in need of improvement before the games start to count.
“It’s been important all camp, and I think it manifested itself some in the Iowa State scrimmage, and certainly against Purdue,” McDermott said. “I think we’ve got an unselfish group. We’ve got to be able to help each other defensively a little bit more, and that’s kind of been our focus since the Purdue scrimmage.”
Ryan Kalkbrenner, Steven Ashworth and Pop Isaacs form the core of the 15th-ranked Creighton team, and the Jays will be relying on Jamiya Neal to play an important role on the wing as well. Beyond that, McDermott still seems to be sorting out the back end of his rotation with plenty of options competing for minutes.
In the exhibition, McDermott pulled his veterans with just over five minutes remaining and Creighton leading by 12. Purdue’s Matt Painter left his in, and the Boilermakers made a run, trimming the lead to five with just under two to play. However, the young Jays managed to hold on from there for a six-point win.
“Obviously Mac and Painter had different strategies for that,” Kalkbrenner said. “That’s fine, it’s an exhibition game. But I think Mac just wanted to see how some of those dudes who are fighting for minutes handled that sort of situation, that sort of pressure. I think they did a really good job. I think this year, especially more so than in years past, we’ve got a bunch of minutes that are being fought for right now, so we kind of had to see how some of those guys would do in that situation.”
Freshman point guard Ty Davis was part of that group who closed out the game, scoring his first bucket at CHI Health Center Omaha on a cut to the basket. He’s competing with redshirt freshmen Sterling Knox and Shane Thomas for back-up guard minutes.
“It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to play college basketball, and it started on the biggest stage possible, playing against Purdue with a pretty big-time crowd here,” Davis said. “I had a really good time, and it was really fun experience.”
Kalkbrenner said he wasn’t prepared at all to play meaningful minutes as a freshman, but he’s been impressed by the readiness of Davis, Jackson McAndrew and Larry Johnson. McDermott said Johnson will likely redshirt, but he’s still working through that question for the others. Wednesday’s opener will provide a first look at how that situation has worked itself out.
“I think it’s obviously super important for the new guys, because it’ll be the first live action,” Kalkbrenner said. “Obviously, Purdue and Iowa State simulated that pretty well, but really important that those guys are getting into it. Keep learning how we do things, and it’ll just get better as year goes along, and they’re starting in a really good spot in the beginning. It’s really exciting to see where those guys will go.”
Davis said he’s picking up the offense pretty well thus far. Defense has been the most difficult adjustment for him, and as a point guard, he’s also focusing on mastering McDermott’s extensive playbook and making sure he knows where every player is supposed to be on every play.
“For me, it’s nice leaning on Steven and Kalk and some of those guys who kind of already have trust in me, and I can tell that they can see that I’m doing my best,” Davis said. “And then being roommates with Jackson is huge, too. We can kind of talked through a lot of things and it just kind of keeps us all calm at the same time.”
Creighton men’s basketball will open the season against Texas-Rio Grande Valley at CHI Health Center Omaha on Wednesday night. The Vaqueros, led by first-year coach Kahil Fennell, opened the season with an 87-76 loss at Nebraska on Monday.
“A new coach, a lot of new players, so kind of a scary first game in that regard, in that you really don’t have much to go off of because it’s basically a clean slate from a year ago,” McDermott said.
One thing Rio Grande Valley certainly wants to do is fire away from deep. The Vaqueros made 25 3-pointers in their exhibition game and followed that up with 41 attempts (compared to 21 shots inside the arc) against the Huskers. They hit 13 of those 3s and outscored Nebraska by 21 from the 3-point line, keeping that game close until the final five minutes.
Four Vaqueros scored in double figures against Nebraska led by former DePaul Blue Demon K.T. Raimey who finished with 14 points off the bench. Rio Grande Valley doesn’t have a player on the roster taller than 6-foot-9, which means a big day for Kalkbrenner could be in store. The Huskers had a lot of success scoring the ball inside with 40 paint points.
Tipoff on Wednesday is set for 8 p.m. CT on FS1 with Wayne Randazzo and Nick Bahe on the call.
