No. 23 Creighton men’s basketball finished its exhibition season 2-0 after a 76-64 win over Colorado State Saturday night.
It was the first opportunity to get two starters, Jackson McAndrew and Owen Freeman, some live game action against someone other than their teammates.
“It was great to get Owen and Jackson out there some after being on the shelf, Owen for a long time and Jackson for a short period of time,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “Obviously, they have some rust to work out of their games, but tonight’s game is stepping in the direction to having that happen.”
Trimming the Rotation
The Jays will eventually need to cut down the player rotations when the games that count start Wednesday, Nov. 5 versus South Dakota.
“Hopefully our depth can be a strength of ours,” McDermott said. “Obviously we can’t play as many guys we played tonight and played against Iowa State. That’s going to be one of the most challenging things to do here over the next 10 days, is to try to figure that out.”
In McDermott’s past experience the rotation has played itself out over time.
“We said that on September 24th when practice started, and here we are on October 25th and it’s maybe more muddled than it was before,” the head coach continued. “That’s a good thing, that means guys are doing the right thing, but it’s going to be challenging. There are gonna be some guys that have certainly earned the right to play that aren’t going to play very much.”
Saturday, all 13 players that saw action played more than seven minutes.
What seems to have sorted itself out is that Charlotte transfer Nik Graves will be the lead point guard, with Ty Davis contributing significant minutes off the bench. Graves led the team in minutes played (22:24) and points (15) on Saturday.
McDermott clearly sees the depth as a positive and will likely have a more expanded rotation than what the Jays and their fans have been accustomed to in recent years.
Delicate playing time conversations will take place in the coming days ahead of the season opener with the Coyotes.
“It’s going to be a challenge. We are going to find out how unselfish we are,” McDermott said. “But as I told the team, this week is really important for us because it’s really the last week where we can just zero in on ourselves, because once the South Dakota game hits, the rest of the season, part of your week is spent on your opponent … This is our really last opportunity to make a big jump of growth.”
Improving
With all of the new faces on the roster, McDermott would like to see a few areas of improvement.
Communication on the floor is one piece that seems to be lacking; by nature, the roster is not full of loud communicators.
“We don’t really have, with the exception of Ty maybe, guys that are natural leaders,” McDermott said. “Jasen [Green] has really worked hard to develop that, and Ty being a coach’s kid, he’s had it his entire life. Nik has made a great jump in that regard the last week to 10 days, and he’s going to have to take another step. We are getting better there; we certainly have a long ways to go.”
Pace of play is another area of improvement. Creighton is used to playing in a fast-paced offense. It’s something the staff has worked on with all of the new faces and it seems to be getting better as time has gone on.
“I think we’re getting better at running in the full court,” McDermott said. “Our pace in the quarter-court sometimes isn’t what it needs to be. And the good news is Colorado State played with great pace. So our guys saw the difference between guarding ourselves in practice versus guarding their pace. They don’t necessarily run in transition. They save their energy and their pace is in the quarter-court with their offense. That’ll be a good lesson for us, so that’s something we have to improve upon.”
The depth of the 2025-26 team is certainly a positive, and using that depth to their advantage by playing faster is going to be the formula for success.
“I’m hopeful that guys are understanding that it’s probably gonna be shorter stints of playing time compared to maybe what they had where they were, or even our guys from last year that played significant minutes,” McDermott said. “We’ve got enough depth that you don’t have to pace yourself. Go out and run as hard as you can, and we’ll put fresh bodies out there to run as hard as we can again.”
Žugić Reunion
Fedor Žugić had a visitor from Montenegro at the game as his mother Dora made her first trip to see her son play in a Creighton uniform. Not only was it her first time seeing him play, it was her first ever trip to the United States.
“It was great to have her at practice yesterday,” McDermott said. “Awesome for Fedor to have her in town for an extended period of time. He’s been away from his family a lot for the last four or five years.”
