No. 14 Creighton men’s basketball improved to 3-0 with a 78-43 win over Houston Christian night. The victory at at CHI Health Center Omaha Wednesday made Creighton history for Coach Greg McDermott.
Ryan Kalkbrenner led Creighton in scoring for the third straight game with 16 points, five rebounds, three blocks and one steal. Fredrick King added 11 points and two blocks in 15 minutes as Creighton outscored Houston Christian 44-18 in the paint.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Another McDermott Milestone
The win was the 328th of McDermott’s Creighton career, pushing him past Dana Altman into first place on the program’s wins list. He holds a .672 winning percentage in his 14-plus seasons in Omaha, Creighton’s best since Arthur A. Schabinger’s .714 win rate more than 85 years ago.
Schabinger, who coached from 1922 to 1935, is a distant third on the list with 165 wins.
“It’s just awesome,” said Kalkbrenner, who has been at Creighton for a third of McDermott’s tenure. “That I’ve been able to be a part of it and have Mac as my coach for so long, it’s been such a blessing in my life. I can’t tell you how much he’s changed my life. Just to see that accomplishment for him, it’s so awesome to be a part of that. It’s amazing.”
Altman’s 327 wins came in 16 seasons as he manned the helm from 1994 to 2010, building the Jays into a Missouri Valley Conference powerhouse.
McDermott took over and guided Creighton into the Big East, a move largely driven by the success of his program headlined by his son, Doug. Since then, he’s led the Jays to a Big East title, an Elite Eight and two Sweet 16s.
The Creighton men’s basketball program has enjoyed nearly unparalleled stability over the past three decades, and it’s thanks primarily to those two coaches and the man that hired them, former athletic director Bruce Rasmussen. Rasmussen was in the building for the milestone victory — and in the room during McDermott’s post-game presser.
“It’s really about people, and people I’ve been surrounded by,” McDermott said. “My family’s been incredibly supportive. I was running from the posse at Iowa State when the gentlemen in the back of the room here saved me. They hadn’t caught me yet, but they were getting close. He offered me an unbelievable opportunity to come to this great place, in this great town.
“The support from the administration, from Fr. [John P.] Schlegel to Fr. [Timothy] Lannon to Fr. [Daniel S.] Hendrickson, and then Bruce and Marcus [Blossom], the way they’ve supported our program and given us an opportunity to have the things that we need to be successful. It’s amazing that there’s been two coaches here in 31 years, and Bruce hired both of us. So he saw something in a couple small-town kids that nobody else saw. It was a great fit when Dana was here, and it’s been a great fit from my perspective.”
McDermott went on to shout out many of the former coaches and players that played a role in his 328 wins as well as his current assistants, staffers and players.
“That’s what this journey is all about, is just the people that you’re surrounded with, and the people that are part of it,” McDermott said. “It’s as much about them as it is about me, I’ve just happened to be the guy that has been able to survive. Like I’ve said, in this business, if you don’t win, you’re going to move on, and it’s not going to be your choice. If you’re fortunate enough to be successful at a place that you love and you enjoy and you really appreciate the community, like we do, something like this can happen. So tonight, I’ll never forget, and especially because I have great respect for the person that I passed.”
After the game, Creighton played a video with congratulatory messages for McDermott from Altman, former assistants and players, nearly everyone who works in the basketball office and, finally, his son.
Greg McDermott, the winningest Head Coach in @BluejayMBB HISTORY 🐐#GoJays x @cucoachmac pic.twitter.com/t6z4UdYQ2a
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 14, 2024
“You have a story with each one, certain things that you remember when it pops up there, whether they were guys that were walk-ons that hardly played or guys that were instrumental in our success. But as you look up there, it’s pretty easy to see why we won a lot when you watch [Gregory [Echenique] and [Marcus] Zegarowski and Mitch [Ballock] and Jahenns [Manigat] and Doug and Kalk … A lot of special relationships and I enjoy that those relationships have continued.”
“The Doug deal was a little tough … Obviously that that was a special time in my coaching career, and for our family, it was incredible,” McDermott continued. “But it’s become more special and more enjoyable as we look back on it as time goes on. Doug’s not one to do things like that and that he was able to pull it off was pretty cool.”
Forcing Futility
Creighton got off a tough start, missing seven of its first eight shots (seven of which were 3-pointers) and turning the ball over three times. Houston Christian led 7-3 six and a half minutes into the game.
It took more than eight minutes for the Huskies to score again as Creighton kicked it into gear with a 16-0 run. Houston Christian ended the drought with a put-back, then went six more minutes before hitting a 3 with 24 seconds to go in the half.
In total, Creighton closed the half on a 36-5 run, shooting 13-of-17 from the field (4-of-5 from 3) and only turning it over two more times. Creighton led 39-12 at the break. The Huskies had as many turnovers as field goals in the first half (five of each), shooting 15.2% from the field.
“We’re trying to grow defensively,” McDermott said. “That’s been a big focus of ours since our first game, and I think we took a step in the right direction tonight. I like the fact that we didn’t make shots early and we didn’t let that impact our ability to defend. Sometimes you can get deflated because shots aren’t going in and you don’t do the other things, and then you can dig yourself a pretty good hole.
“So we played defense and we rebounded, and really stuck to what we needed to do until some shots started falling. We were able to loosen it up in transition and get it to Kalk and establish that inside game.”
The 12 points were the fewest Creighton has given up in a half against a Division I team in the McDermott era, tying the 12 points Division II Bemidji State scored in the first half of a 94-46 Creighton win on Feb. 13, 2018.
Creighton opened the second half with an 11-2 run and cruised to the finish. The lead peaked at 43 before Houston Christian scored on its final five possessions to make the final numbers look slightly better.
The Huskies shot 25.4% from the field and scored .642 points per possession. They went 5-for-35 from 3 after Creighton’s first two opponents shot a combined 23-of-59 (39%).
“I think one of the things we saw from UTRGV is sometimes we’re kind of there, but we kind of weren’t showing them our hands,” Kalkbrenner said. “So that was a big point of emphasis the last few days of practice is just taking shooters away. And part of it, honestly, just whenever you have a new team, sometimes you just have to get used to playing with each other. Sometimes you have defensive breakdown that leads to a good shots for them, and the more you play with each other, the less those defensive breakdowns are going to happen. I think we’ve done a really good job this last week of limiting those.”
Steady Steven
Kalkbrenner has been the story of Creighton’s start (he made all six of his shots on Wednesday and is now 35-of-38 on the season), but he’s somewhat overshadowed what Steven Ashworth has done to start year two with the Bluejays.
The fifth-year senior put up 13 points, seven rebounds and six assists on Wednesday, shooting 4-of-6 from the field including 3-of-5 from 3 and 2-of-2 from the line. Through three games, he’s averaged 17.7 points, 7.3 assists and 6.3 rebounds with a 3.1 assist-to-turnover ratio while shooting 50% from 3 and 100% from the foul line.
“Steven just does everything,” McDermott said. “He’s such a winner. As I’ve said before, besides what he does that shows up in the stat sheet, he’s got his fingerprints all over everything that we do. His leadership and Kalk’s leadership have been off the charts, and they’re trying to help these young, new guys navigate. Pop [Isaacs] and Jamiya [Neal] played college basketball, but this is a new system and a new style, and they’re trying to figure it out as time goes on, and those two guys have been instrumental on a daily basis, trying to help them.”
Neither Isaacs nor Neal reached double figures on Wednesday after the duo did so in the previous game, but they combined for 17 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists as all three of Creighton’s starting guards stuffed the stat sheet. Neal made his first 3-pointer as a Bluejay, while Isaacs went 2-or-4 from deep.
Creighton will return to the court on Saturday to host Kansas City.
