This past week has been a difficult one for the Creighton men’s basketball program following Kelly Dix’s passing, but Saturday’s comeback win over Seton Hall provided a much-needed moment of levity and celebration for the Bluejays in the midst of a difficult season.
“It was awesome,” Jasen Green said. “Obviously, it was a pretty tough week with all the things that happened throughout the team, especially with Josh fighting through what he was fighting through. We’re just trying to stick together, stay close to him and make sure that he knows that we’ve got his back, basically. Being able to come out with the win on Saturday was just amazing, and we had a mention of an angel helping us out with that last shot, and so that was awesome, being in the locker room and seeing the look on his face.”
The way the team rallied around Josh Dix made a profound impression on Coach Greg McDermott, but it wasn’t an outlier. Fedor Žugić said that regardless of the on-court results, the team has been close-knit since they first came together. Saturday’s comeback from down nine with 90 seconds to go shows they’re also sticking together on the court, despite the team’s struggles.
“On the court, I think we’re working stuff out every game,” Žugić said. “We’re fighters, and we fight every game until the end, and we’ve just got to stick within ourselves, listen to the coach and just try to, whatever games we’ve got left, get the best of it and then see what happens at the end.”
Žugić played a key part in the comeback, burying two 3-pointers in the final minute and a half, one game after he hit three 3s in the final 91 seconds against Georgetown as the Bluejays attempted a late rally at Capital One Arena last Wednesday.
“I love those moments, I live for those moments, and of course, winning games like that,” Žugić said. “I was fortunate enough for it to go in, and then Nik [Graves] followed up with the most important one.”
Žugić has struggled with his shot for much of the season, but the late flurries in the last two games have lifted him to 41.2% from deep in Big East play.
“Fedor has played a lot of basketball at a high level, so I don’t think the moment scares him,” McDermott said. “He’s not afraid of that. As I’ve said, he hasn’t shot the 3 with the percentage, I’m sure, that we would like, but over the course of his career, he’s been a 40%-plus shooter, so you would think those numbers are going to even themselves out as the season goes.”
Žugić’s late heroics against Seton Hall were especially needed with Austin Swartz in street clothes with an ankle injury. However, McDermott said the sophomore guard had practiced on Monday and Tuesday and should be good to go on Wednesday as the Bluejays visit DePaul for their first meeting with the Blue Demons (12-12, 4-9) this season.
Creighton (13-11, 7-6) has won 23 straight games and 28 of the last 29 against DePaul, but their most recent meeting was an 85-81 double-overtime win in the Big East Tournament in which the Bluejays barely escaped. Series history hasn’t played a part in Creighton’s preparation this week.
“Coming in here, one thing that I learned is in the Big East, there are no easy games,” Žugić said. I feel like every league that I’ve played in so far, you’ve always got at least three or four teams that you know you’re going to beat; it’s just a matter of how you beat them. In the Big East, I feel like that’s not the case. I think even last year, they were dangerous enough to punish you if you don’t come prepared. I don’t really think about good team, bad team. We’ve got DePaul, I’m getting ready for DePaul and we’re going to go there and get a win.”
DePaul ended Tony Stubblefield’s final season at the helm 304th in KenPom. In the first year under Chris Holtmann, the Blue Demons finished 122nd, and heading into Tuesday’s game, they are 112th — last in the Big East following a four-game losing streak. However, McDermott sees a different team on film and praised the job Holtmann has done instilling the culture he wants in the program.
“They’re much better,” McDermott said. “This is the best DePaul team we’ve played in quite some time. They’ve only lost at home in conference play to UConn and St. John’s, kind of like everybody else has. They’re physical. They’ve got some guys that are back from last year, and C.J. Gunn can score in a lot of ways.”
DePaul’s top three scorers are all returners, including Gunn, a 6-foot-7, 200-pound senior averaging a team-best 14.0 points while shooting 34.4% on a team-high 5.2 3-point attempts per game.
“Just like any other scorer in the Big East, it’s a lot of chasing,” Žugić said of defending Gunn. “You’ve got to chase him off the screens, you’ve got to take those shots away. He’s going to take a lot of shots, and he’s going to get his, but our job is to make it as difficult as possible, and as long as he takes bad shots, we’re OK with that.”
Senior NJ Benson is the team’s top interior threat. The 6-foot-8, 235-pound forward is averaging 10.0 points and 7.0 rebounds while shooting 60.1% from the field.
“A big thing with him is just being physical and winning the early battle,” Green said. “He is really good at sealing and getting position on you early, and that really just sets him up for those flip-ups and just duck-ins and stuff like that.”
The Blue Demons’ other double-digit scorer is junior point guard Layden Blocker, averaging 11.8 points and 3.5 assists. The team’s top newcomer is Radford transfer Brandon Maclin, a 6-foot-3, 215-pound senior guard averaging 9.3 points. He poured in a team-high 17 points off the bench in DePaul’s loss at Providence on Saturday.
DePaul is average or below in most offensive categories, though the Blue Demons do share the ball better than in years past with the 22nd-highest assist rate in the country. However, the defensive side of the ball is where they have improved most. The Blue Demons rank 59th in adjusted defensive efficiency, good for fifth in the Big East. They’re holding opponents to 47% shooting inside the arc while featuring the 20th-lowest 3-point rate allowed. The tradeoff has been plenty of free throws as DePaul’s opponents sport a 37.9% foul rate this season (256th).
“They’re so physical at the point of the screen,” McDermott said. “We have to get out in transition and try to hit them before the defense gets set. But they’re very sound on the defensive end of the floor. They’re very physical. We have to play through that physicality.”
Creighton is looking for its first back-to-back wins of 2026 as the Bluejays haven’t strung consecutive victories together since a four-game streak in December. Žugić said it would mean a lot to the team to rack up some wins down the stretch of what has been a very challenging season in a variety of ways.
“It would mean a lot, especially because a lot of people wrote us off,” Žugić said. “I think it’s a chip on our shoulder, and I think we have nothing to lose. I think we have everything to gain. I think we’ve just got to get out there and play our best basketball and prove everybody wrong.”
Tipoff on Wednesday is set for 8 p.m. CT on Peacock with John Fanta and Matt McCall on the call.
