2/21/2025
Dave brought me in to be the beat reporter for Creighton back in October, but due to a disagreement between myself, several law enforcement officials in Box Butte County, Nebraska and a surly, mealy-mouthed local judge who seemed to think that indecent exposure is actually still a crime, I haven’t had access to a computer. Luckily, my father taught me to make Pruno at a young age, a skill that has made me highly popular with some of the locals. Thanks to the intervention of my friends Spyder, Despair, and other members in the Cellblock 6 Brotherhood, I have been able to watch every single Creighton game this season.
Here’s an overview of the season to date…..
November
Things began with such promise. Ryan Kalkenbrenner helped the Blue Jays to a season opening victory against a spunky UT Rio Grande squad by managing to go 20-22 from the field and finish with a game high 49 points and 11 rebounds. At that point, I pretty much just assumed Kalk had locked up the Naismith Player of the Year award. The performance was so spectacular that certain facts that might have been obvious to me were obscured from vision. For example, why did Creighton just give up 86 points to a team that looked like they were sponsored by Chico’s Bail Bonds? Or, just who exactly is the point guard? Or, why are all these tall guys standing around the perimeter chucking threes up when UT Rio Grande seems to be conceding layups?
But, the Jays were undefeated and everything was lovely. Game number two solidified my conviction that this Creighton squad was never again going to lose a basketball game by pummeling the college formerly known as Fairly Ridiculous (Fairleigh Dickinson is the name the school has been using since its stunning first round upset over Purdue a few years back).
It wasn't until November 22 that my doubts started to settle in. In some twisted homage to Lee Harvey Oswald, the Jays celebrated the 61st anniversary of the JFK assassination by being nowhere near the building they were supposed to be in. In-state basketball powerhouse Nebraska overwhelmed Creighton with a flurry of two handed set shots and variations on the three man weave. In victory, Nebraska again won the rights using the term “Nebrasketball” for the duration of the season. Creighton managed to force an endless series of shots from the lowest percentage nooks and crannies of the gym in mustering a meager 63 points. And, the aforementioned Kalkenbrenner managed a line that even the Warren Commission wouldn’t believe. 38 minutes….0-1 from the field. Why give the ball to the guy who put up 49 in the opener when the baseline three point shot is so much more efficient?
It only spiraled from there. San Diego State avenged their Elite 8 victory over the Jays by holding them to 53 points in route to a 71-53 drubbing. They followed that with a Heironmous Boschian nightmare of a performance against Texas A&M and a close win against an astonishingly mediocre Notre Dame squad in the 7th place game of the Players Era Classic in Las Vegas. It was clear that, in the words of former Nobel Prize Winner and Nobel Laureate Michael Ray Richardson, “ship be sinkin’”.
December
The road to hell is often paved with good intentions and December Creighton basketball games. The month that seems to be the most particularly unkind to the Jays each year. And, to make matters worse, they started off the month with a matchup against the number one Kansas Jayhawks. But, just when Creighton’s 2024-25 season seemed to be completing its final revolution around the drain, the Bluejays played inspired basketball and ran Kansas out of the gym with a 76-63 victory. What followed was a completely confusing series of games in which Creighton caromed from losing a shrieking horror show of a 22-point loss to a Georgetown team that hadn’t won a conference game since the Eisenhower Administration to the loss of star transfer Pop Isaacs for the season due to injury to a remarkable 1 point nailbiter over an extremely talented St. John’s squad. It was hard to know what to make of any of it.
By the end December, several things had become apparent about the team. On the positive side of the ledger, Ryan Kalkenbrenner was every bit as good as we thought he was on both ends of the floor. Jamiya Neal is the best transition player the Jays have had in a very long time and can be downright explosive in the open court. Steven Ashworth should be forced to shoot free throws blindfolded to make things fair for the opponent. The kid is the closest thing to the platonic form of a “pure shooter” that has come down the pike in a long time.
On the negative end, there are an astounding number of gangly limbed forwards on the roster who seem like they could do real damage driving to the basket but feel an almost Manson Family sort of zeal for three point shooting. To make matters worse, other teams had finally caught on to Coach Greg McDermott’s heavy reliance on the high pick and roll and decided to take that away, making the offense appear more like the scramble to the lifeboats on the Titanic than the fluid, point-accumulating machine it usually is. The team is filled with several players who seemed to have heard of the concept of a point guard, but think of that as more of a theory rather than a necessary reality. There were moments of promise and moments of terror, but it was starting to feel like one of those NIT kinda years.
January
If there has ever been a stretch of basketball that typified my argument that Greg McDermott is the most innovative offensive coach in all of college basketball, it was this. McDermott has shown a commitment and level of artistry with the high pick and roll in the last few years that is every bit as breathtaking as Picasso’s Blue Period. But, what sort of offense would McDermott be left with if defenses genuinely committed to taking it away each game? Imagine Picasso’s Blue Period without him being able to use the color blue.
McDermott recognized this and went back to the drawing board. He reimagined the offense into something stunningly beautiful. Steven Ashworth emerged as the key piece. Ashworth, who had spent much of his 25 years in college career around the perimeter throwing in three pointers, became the centerpiece of the offense. Ashworth spent the month morphing into the point guard that Creighton desperately needed. While still lethal from three point range, Ashworth refined his passing skills and went all-in on making everyone around him more effective going to the basket. You still see the standard Kalk sets a pick, Ashworth runs his guy off of him and throws up a lob to Kalk for a dunk. But, these days, Ashworth spends much more time drawing defenders out of position, probing the weaknesses of the defense and exploiting vulnerabilities. No one is ever going to confuse Creighton with UNLV’s 90’s Runnin’ Rebels teams, but Ashworth seems to regularly fire baseball passes the length of the court to players streaking towards the basket for layups. As Ashworth has come into focus as the offensive leader, players around him have stepped up and found new ways to score. The result of this seismic shift that saw the Jays ending the month with six consecutive wins taking them from Bubble Purgatory back into the Top 25.
Early February
The Jays started the month white hot, winning a nail biter on the road against Villanova. Ashworth finished his 13 point, 7 rebound, 7 assist showcase with a remarkable 3-point corner shot to clinch the victory with 8 seconds left. And the wins kept coming. The Jays ran their streak to nine in a row before Liam McNeely’s 38 point shooting spree gave them their first loss in over a month to two-time defending champion UConn. The streak included an impressive win over the number 11 team in the country, Marquette. In spite of a tough loss on Sunday to Big East leader St. John’s, the Blue Jays have grabbed a firm grip on the number three spot in the conference going into their Sunday rematch with Georgetown.