Creighton men’s basketball is still seeking to string together consecutive wins for the first time in 2026 after falling at DePaul, 72-71 in Chicago on Wednesday.
After Nik Graves sank Seton Hall with a last-second 3 on Saturday, the Blue Demons flipped the script with a go-ahead bucket from Brandon Maclin in the final 10 seconds, and Graves couldn’t recreate Saturday’s magic as his off-balance 3 at the buzzer rimmed out.
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
Bluejays Bludgeoned
Creighton (13-12, 7-7 Big East) had multiple chances to put the game away before the final 30 seconds but didn’t capitalize on the opportunities, leaving the Jays clinging to a 71-70 lead as DePaul coach Christ Holtmann called a timeout with just over 27 seconds to play.
Creighton manned up with Josh Dix on DePaul’s leading scorer CJ Gunn, and Dix did his job. He locked up Gunn then switched onto Brandon Maclin, nearly forcing him to step on the baseline under the basket. However, Holtmann called another timeout just before the turnover, giving himself a chance to draw something else up with 8 on the shot clock and 12.1 on the game clock.
Dix shut down two actions, but he wasn’t able to complete the strikeout. Here’s a look at DePaul’s final offensive possession (and Creighton’s attempt at an answer).
“We went to kind of a zone-type defense where we match up when the ball comes in, and actually, it couldn’t have gone any better, because Gunn didn’t end up with the ball and [Layden] Blocker didn’t end up with the ball,” Coach Greg McDermott said on 1620 the Zone. “We have Maclin, and Josh ends up the guy matched up to him, our best defender, and it looked on film like Josh just slipped a little as he closed out, and he got a half a step on him and was able to get to the rim.”
There looked to be a little bit of confusion and scrambling within the matchup zone, but Swartz picked up and denied Gunn with a little help from Hudson Greer on the in-bounder. Maclin lifted on the back side as an outlet and it looked like Dix got stuck helping on big man NJ Benson (who had 23 points and 10 rebounds in the game) just a bit too long, creating a difficult closeout.
Maclin got Dix on his hip enough to get downhill, then slid past Jasen Green — tangling with Benson — for the step-through finish.
“We have our best defender on him; we trust him guarding anybody,” Swartz said. “He was able to get two feet in the paint, and that’d kind of been our Achilles heel all night, not being able to guard the paint. That’s how they won the game, we couldn’t keep them out of the paint.”
Unfortunately for the Jays, a DePaul layup was a fitting way for the game to end. The Blue Demons scored 46 points in the paint and went 16-for-22 on layups and dunks on a night when they didn’t have much luck scoring from the perimeter (5-of-18 from 3).
Little Things Bite the Jays Again
The key word within the Creighton practice gym leading up to the game was “physicality.” To get a win, the Jays had to handle the physicality of a DePaul team that is much improved on defense.
That didn’t happen. The live stats credited Creighton with just one made layup on only six attempts. They were 0-for-2 on layups in the first half. The Bluejays went six minutes between field goals in the second half as the had a tough time generating good looks of any kind against DePaul’s in-your-face defense.
The Bluejays almost got away with their complete inability to create anything at the rim thanks to one of their best 3-point shooting games of the season, which they achieved without Isaac Traudt (who hit six triples last time out against Seton Hall) even attempting a shot.
Creighton went 14-for-27, or 51.9%. That’s the third-most 3s of the season and the second-highest percentage. The Jays traded 3s for 2s for much of the night, and that math is typically going to work in their favor.
Swartz was back in the lineup after missing the Seton Hall game and went 3-for-3 off the bench, finishing with a team-high 15 points overall. Jasen Green put the team on his back early, scoring its first eight points, and he finished with 13 while shooting 4-for-4 from deep. Dix matched him with 13 points including 3-for-7 from deep while freshman Hudson Greer went 3-for-4 from 3 for nine points in 20 minutes.
Despite the flurry of 3-pointers, Creighton still fell.
“Just really unfortunate, because we shot the ball well,” McDermott said. “We did some good things well, but free-throw block-out, second-chance points, at the rim, it’s kind of a broken record. It’s been our weakness all season long.”
Creighton gave up 10 offensive rebounds for 20 second-chance points while grabbing five o-boards for nine points on the other end. DePaul did most of that damage in the first half, but it showed up in the clutch as well as Gunn beat the Jays to the ball off a missed free throw and drew another foul with 1:05 to play, splitting his free throws to make it a one-point game and put the Blue Demons in position to win instead of tie with Maclin’s layup.
“They got downhill a bunch, and then in the first half, I think they had six offensive rebounds but 15 points off those,” McDermott said in his presser. “We got caught in some scramble situations with some of our double teams on the ball screen and then had some mismatch block-outs that really hurt us. And frankly, we didn’t have enough fight in some of those situations.”
DePaul was also plus-four in points off turnovers despite recording two fewer takeaways. That 11-point edge in extra-possession points in conjunction with the parade to the rim proved to be enough to overcome Creighton’s edge from the 3-point line.
The Bluejays simply can’t afford to have so many mental lapses on the glass or on offense. The margin for error for this team is too slim, even on nights when the 3-ball is falling.
Streak Snapped
Wednesday was the 50th meeting between Creighton and DePaul, and Creighton leads the series by a significant margin thanks to a 23-game winning streak. That ended on Wednesday night.
The last time Creighton fell to the Blue Demons was Jan. 7, 2015, which adds yet another parallel between this season’s Jays and the 2014-15 squad that went 14-19 and finished 79th in KenPom. After the loss, Pomeroy’s formula projects Creighton to finish 15-16 this year.
While DePaul was tied for last place in the Big East heading into the game, all four of its wins had come at home, with the only losses to UConn and St. John’s. Wintrust Arena is becoming a more difficult place to play under Holtmann, and the perennial conference doormat is much more competitive than it was the end of the Tony Stubblefield era.
“Chris has been good wherever he’s been at,” McDermott said. “I had tremendous respect for him when I coached against him at Butler and obviously, he went to Ohio State and did a good job. He’s building this program the right way. He was able to keep enough pieces with Blocker and Gunn and Benson and then add to it. They’ve played some good basketball. They’ve lost some close games, and unfortunately tonight, we were the recipient of them winning a close game.”
Despite the strides DePaul has made, the Blue Demons are still the lowest-ranked team in the Big East, making Wednesday a bad loss for a Creighton team that was looking to carry Saturday’s momentum forward.
