Official preseason practice for Division I college basketball began this week across the country, which means Alan Huss’ debut as head coach of Creighton men’s basketball is fast approaching.
Huss and his staff have had months of workouts to introduce new concepts, establish expectations and facilitate team camaraderie. With time allowed in the gym ramping up this week, the focus shifts to tying it all together in the lead-up to the Creighton season opener on Nov. 2 (with two exhibitions in October).
“They’re competing,” Huss said ahead of Thursday’s practice. “I think anytime you set out with a new group, that’s lesson one for especially the new guys is just establishing a standard that we’re going to compete, how hard we’re going to compete on every single possession, whether it be a new concept or something they’ve done 1000 times. I think this group’s really, I think, impressed the entire staff with just their willingness and ability to compete on every possession.”
That ramped up competitiveness comes from the personalities of the newcomers mixing with the returners who learned some tough lessons during last season’s sub-.500 campaign.
“I think our team, kind of how we’re put together and how Coach Huss recruited, we have very competitive guys, which is awesome because that can be a superpower for us,” Traudt said. “And then us returners don’t want last year to happen again, so that’s part of that competitive fire too.”
Perhaps the one driving the competition more than any other is South Florida transfer Wes Enis. Despite being a newcomer, he’s the loudest and most consistent voice in the gym outside of the coaches. He’s always ramped up to 100, and Huss has said it’s been a challenge at times for him to find the proper balance between wanting to win and accomplishing the desired goals in any given drill or situation.
“He’s a nut, and I mean that the best possible way,” Huss said. “We had to turn the scoreboards off this summer a little bit when we were trying to be more conceptual in what we’re doing and learn some kind of new concept, whatever it is. He gets so wrapped up in winning and losing that sometimes we lose track of the concept, so we’ve had to turn scoreboards off more than we ever have in my coaching career, but that’s been a good problem. It’s nice to be able to dial guys back; it’s certainly a lot easier than it is to ramp guys up.”
Traudt called Enis a “super emotional guy” who brings it every day, and fans will see his leadership in action this season. His personality has already rubbed off on everyone else in the gym throughout the summer and fall workouts and leading into practice.
“I think guys really come to work every single day, which has been great,” Traudt said. “It definitely feels more intense than preseasons that I’ve been a part of in the past, but everyone’s showing up with a really good attitude to work every day, and coach is really demanding, but he’s just trying to get the best out of us, so really excited to keep going at it.”
“This group loves to work,” added Kayden “Bugg” Edwards, a transfer guard from TCU. “They love to come in early and leave really late, so I like that everybody’s locked in and on the same page, and everybody just loves to win. Nobody really likes to lose, but I can tell that this group really hates it.”
Vocal players like Enis and others who have followed his lead have made this preseason a completely different experience from what Huss observed a year ago in his return to Omaha as coach-in-waiting for Greg McDermott’s final season.
“I think we had an unusually quiet group — in my time, my seven years at Creighton as an assistant, probably the quietest group I can remember,” Huss said. “I think you contrast that with a couple of new guys that are especially vocal and I think a group of leaders that have returned that saw maybe some ways where we didn’t live up to our potential a season ago and are destined to make sure that we don’t do that again.”
Creighton head coach Alan Huss yells during a practice. Photo by Brandon Tiedemann.
While this year’s group is louder than a season ago, the Bluejays still haven’t hit the standard Huss wants. Talking on the court was an emphasis throughout workouts and remains so as the Bluejays shift to full practices.
“The communication piece, to me, is the most difficult thing in coaching in 2026,” Huss said. “All these kids grew up with a smartphone, different than most of us. They just they haven’t had to have hard, uncomfortable conversations. They do it via text, they do it via DM. Getting them to communicate through good, bad, ugly, in real time at a volume loud enough to help their teammates and be willing to be vulnerable enough with their communication to be wrong and be OK with that, I think that’s a new thing for so many of these kids.
“It’s not necessarily bad. It’s the way that most of these kids were raised now, so it’s our challenge as coaches to bring that out of them, and it’s something that if you stick around and watch practice today, it’ll be it’ll be at the forefront of my mind, the entire staff’s mind — how do we get this team to be a player-led, not a coach-led team? Right now, we’re the latter.”
Huss’ quote proved prescient. At one point during the practice, Huss stopped the action to get on his guys about their lack of talking during live play. Later, he stopped practice again to praise the team for improved communication but also pointed out how said communication needs to happen earlier if it’s to be effective.
Traudt, one of the longest tenured Bluejays who has seen the team reach the Sweet 16 as a No. 3 seed and also miss the NCAA Tournament while finishing 16-18, said the biggest shift he’s noticed under Huss compared to McDermott is the defensive philosophy.
“We’re trying to speed people up a little bit more, be more disruptive, which is a big change, especially for guys like Jasen [Green] and me that aren’t used to that style,” Traudt said. “So that that’s been the biggest adjustment, but it’s been awesome.”
Creighton had a lot of success playing a fundamentally-sound, position-based defensive system featuring a four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year in Ryan Kalkbrenner patrolling the paint. Creighton finished top four in lowest opponent free-throw rate the past four season as McDermott stressed the importance of defending without fouling.
While adding rim protection was a focus for Huss in building this year’s roster, Kalkbrenner was a generational force in that area, one the program is unlikely to produce again any time soon. With that in mind, Huss is shifting to a more aggressive “no middle” scheme featuring aggressive trapping in certain areas of the floor, more playing for steals and more on-ball pressure.
“Generally speaking, it’s more how we’re doing things rather than what we’re doing, just trying to put a little bit more emphasis on pressuring the basketball at different areas of the floor,” Huss said. “Not all the time, because we’re not blessed with that type of length, strength, and athleticism; we’re still a very skilled team. But in certain areas of the floor, we’re going to do our best to bother the offense, try to make them a little bit uncomfortable. In order to accomplish that, there’s kind of consistency that’s required, or it’s very ineffective.”
That style will naturally result in more fouls and free throws for the opponent, but Huss is willing to take that tradeoff. Edwards said the team has focused on being more physical.
“We’re not the biggest team in the Big East, but we’re going to take pride in being the toughest team,” Edwards said. “So I would say just really just getting more physical and just saying, ‘Hey, you’re not going to score on us, you’re not going to do whatever you want to do.’”
Huss and his staff have five weeks to continue hammering on their points of emphasis before the Bluejays tip off the 2026-27 season against Kansas City.
