For the second time in 10 months, the No. 1 team in the country ventured into CHI Health Center Omaha and exited with a loss. Creighton men’s basketball took down No. 1 Kansas 76-63 on Wednesday night to hand the Jayhawks their first loss of the season.
Creighton (6-3) is the first team since 1990 to defeat two different top-ranked teams in the same calendar year, and 17,908 fans — many of whom rushed the court in celebration after the buzzer — were there to witness them do it in the Big 12 – Big East Battle.
The Bluejays had had to deal with injury and illness impacting the team’s best players over the past two weeks but found a way to pull out a win. Creighton shot 41.4% (12-of-29) from 3 and held Kansas’ starting frontcourt of Hunter Dickinson and K.J. Adams Jr. (26.1 points per game combined heading in) to 10 points as the Jayhawks shot 35.7% from the field as a team.
“It’s an incredible win because of who we beat,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “It’s not just a great team, it’s a great program, it’s a historic program. I’ve known Coach [Bill] Self forever and have tremendous respect for the way he does it year in and year out. You hear me say it sometimes when we lose, it’s a make-shot, miss-shot game, and we won tonight because we made shots, and they didn’t make as many. Our guys executed the plan to try to muddy up the paint and keep it out of K.J. and Hunter’s hands the best we could, and we were going to live with a few of their guys shooting 3-point shots, and fortunately, when they missed, for the most part, we did a pretty good job of cleaning up the glass.
“So really proud; Pop [Isaacs] has been sick, Ryan [Kalkbrenner] hasn’t practiced for a week, Steven [Ashworth] was throwing up at halftime and he hasn’t practiced. For us to gut this out and execute the plan with not a lot of practice time is really a credit to our guys.”
Here are three takeaways from the victory.
Dream Start
Creighton has had a tendency to start slowly at home this season, something the Jays couldn’t afford against the No. 1 team in the country. A great start was a focus heading in, and the Jays accomplished just that, scoring on six of their first nine possessions to set the tone.
The Jays’ hot shooting from the last game and a half in Las Vegas carried over as Creighton hit five of its first eight 3s and built a 23-11 lead midway through the first half.
Creighton eventually cooled off a bit, but when the Jayhawks made their runs to cut into the deficit, the Bluejays answered. Creighton pushed the lead to 13 late in the first half before taking a 10-point advantage into the locker room.
It wasn’t just the offense, though, Creighton executed its defensive game plan at a high level. Dickinson playing just 13 minutes because of foul trouble helped, but Creighton held Kansas to 2-of-6 on layups, goading the Jayhawks into a lot of mid-range pull-ups and floaters in the first half.
The early 3s and some impressive hustle plays got the striped-out and sold-out CHI Health Center crowd into the action early as Self burned two first-half timeouts to interrupt Creighton runs and quiet the fans.
“Our fans were incredible,” McDermott said. “I talked to some of the Kansas people, and they said the atmosphere was electric. That’s coming from a place that plays in an electric atmosphere every game. So our fans showed up, they were ready and we really needed them in the second half when we got in a little bit of trouble and they were able to uplift us.”
The Jayhawks made their runs in the second half — including a 9-0 spurt to open the half and trim the lead to one — but Creighton had an answer each time and never let the lead slip away.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity early on in this season, man, so I think we were prepared,” Isaacs said. “We knew they were going to make a run. We just had to punch back when they punched us. They’re a really good team, and to beat really good teams, you have to have an answer for some things, and I feel like we had an answer in key moments tonight. We kept sticking to our game plan to pack in the paint.”
Jackson McAndrew said on Monday that the key to a better start was bringing energy, and Kansas guard David Coit said the Jayhawks didn’t match Creighton’s energy and intensity.
No Fear for Isaacs
Isaacs is no stranger to facing the Jayhawks, having done so three times during his two seasons at Texas Tech. He went 0-2 as a freshman, but the Red Raiders smacked the Jayhawks by 29 last year.
After Wednesday night, his record against Kansas is 2-2, and he was the catalyst in the latest victory.
Isaacs went off for a season-high 27 points on 10-of-15 from the field including 6-of-9 from 3 while adding seven rebounds and four assists. Whenever Creighton needed a bucket, he delivered. He was a big part of the hot start, hitting his first three attempts from deep during the initial flurry, and he never slowed down.
“I saw the ball go through the basket; that was really it,” Isaacs said. “The first shot went in, it felt good coming off my hands, and I feel like I got some really good looks tonight. Like Coach says, I’m a really good shooter when I take the right shots. I feel like I took the right shots tonight for the most part.”
Isaacs played with a lot of emotion on Wednesday night. At one point, he got knocked down without a foul call, and the next time down the court he took it right to the rim and finished through contact for an and-one, flexing for the baseline TV camera after the whistle. Then in the second half, after putting the Jays up 16 with just over three minutes to play to trigger Kansas’ last timeout, he ran to the student section and pumped up the crowd before heading back to the bench.
“I haven’t quite had a moment like that in college yet, so it was dope,” Isaacs said. “I haven’t played against the No. 1 team in the country yet; I played against two and three, I believe. So I was just hype. It was a great atmosphere tonight in arena, great vibe. The students showed out, our fans showed out, and it was just electric in there.”
His backcourt partner in Ashworth added 17 points including three timely and dramatic 3s, eight rebounds and six assists. The two combined for 11 turnovers, leaving some room for improvement, but made up for it with everything else they did on both ends of the floor.
“What they what they lack in size, they certainly make up for with speed,” McDermott said of his backcourt. “Their cutting was elite. They put a lot of pressure on the rim with some of those cuts. Kalk’s good at understanding when to step out and set a flare, when to set a pin, when to post, so he got those guys loose a lot. Those cuts to the basket collapse the defense and now some of our shooters were able to get loose. Those two have 10 assists between them.
“We’ve got to cut the turnovers down, they know that. We’re giving teams eight to 10 extra possessions a game, and a lot of those turnovers are controllable. It’s us trying to just hit a home run instead of just making the simple play. So we’re going to clean that up moving forward. But those two, they’re always a threat and they never stop moving, which is very difficult.”
Kansas’ starting backcourt of Dajuan Harris Jr. and Zeke Mayo combined for 27 points on 11-of-34 shooting.
Answering the Bell
Isaacs stepped up with his best performance of the season in 38 minutes after battling through a bout of the flu in Vegas, but he wasn’t the only one.
Ashworth played 38 minutes after barely practicing on Monday and Tuesday.
Kalkbrenner hadn’t played or practiced at all since suffering a lower body injury late against Texas A&M, yet after testing it out in warmups and determining that he could go, he put up 17 points and 10 rebounds while helping to hold Kansas to 9-of-20 on layups and dunks. Kalkbrenner had to watch from the sideline the last time Creighton played Kansas — in the 2022 NCAA Tournament — but made up for the lost time with his performance on Wednesday.
“I didn’t play last time, so it felt good to be on the court, number one,” Kalkbrenner said. “Kansas, obviously, is an incredible program, great history, good year in and year out, so to be able to beat them is really good and really kind of shows the level that we can play at when we’re doing everything we’re supposed to.”
It wasn’t just the stars who showed up, however. Creighton received some key contributions from its bench players as well, namely Mason Miller and Jasen Green. Jamiya Neal dealt with foul trouble much of the night, so Miller filled in at the three and played 19 minutes — his most since the season-opener — and knocked down two 3s, including a dagger with just under two minutes to play that put Creighton up by 17.
Green didn’t play at all in the first half, but seeking more of a defensive and rebounding presence to help close the game out, McDermott rolled with the sophomore for the final 7:34. He checked in with the Jays up by 11 and walked off the court after the final buzzer with Creighton up by 13. Green didn’t take a shot but corralled three defensive rebounds and stole the Jays an extra possession by tapping an offensive rebound out so a teammate could secure it.
“Today, when guys’ numbers were called, they rang the bell,” McDermott said. “Mason Miller hits two big shots. Jasen Green doesn’t play the whole game; I decide to go within the last seven minutes of the game for defense and he went out there and played his tail off. If a guy’s over there hanging his head because he hasn’t played, he’s not going to be ready for that seven minutes, and clearly, that wasn’t the case with Jasen.”
The bench struggled during Creighton’s three-game losing streak, but it’s no coincidence that the reserves have made vital contributions in the last two and the Jays have come out victorious.
They’ll return to CHI Health Center Omaha on Saturday afternoon to take on UNLV. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. CT on FS1.
