What is going to happen in the post-Kalkbrenner/post-Coach-In-Waiting era for the Bluejays?
Team: Creighton Bluejays
2024-25 Record: 25-11, 15-5 Big East
2024-25 Big East Finish: Second, three games behind St. John’s and one game in front of UConn.
Final Computer Rankings
NET: #37
KenPom.com: #35
BartTorvik.com: #31
Postseason? After needing double overtime to get past DePaul in the Big East tournament quarterfinals, Creighton beat UConn in the semis before getting processed into a fine paste by St. John’s in the title game. Their profile was still good enough to earn a #9 seed in the NCAA tournament, and they beat Louisville by 14 before losing to eventual Final Four team Auburn in the Round of 32.
Key Departures: Our long national nightmare is over. Ryan Kalkbrenner is no longer on the Creighton roster. The big man from Missouri went to be Just Tall with Charlotte as the #34 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, so he’s definitely not finding his way back to Omaha for a sixth season of eligibility. He leaves after posting career highs in points (19.2/game) and rebounds, and his 8.7 per game there led the Big East. He was also the top shot blocker in the conference for the third straight season, averaging 2.7 swats per game, and that helped him capture his fourth straight Big East Defensive Player of the Year trophy. That ties Patrick Ewing for the record in that department, which does make me wonder if Kalkbrenner is capable of winning 41% of his games as a Division 1 head coach, because then he would be better than Ewing.
In other departures, Creighton is losing all of their other double digit scorers. Steven Ashworth (16.4/game) and Jamiya Neal (12.0/game) were both on their final seasons of eligibility in Division 1, so it’s no surprise that they’re no longer with the team. You could probably argue that Creighton doesn’t beat Louisville in the NCAA tournament without Neal, who put up a 29/12/6 in that game. Ashworth ended up leading the Big East in assists per game at 6.8 per night on top of his scoring, and 4.1 rebounds per game is no joke for a 6’1” point guard.
Creighton does have two notable transfer departures, although we can argue about precisely how notable they are. Pop Isaacs played in CU’s first eight games last season and then missed the rest of the year due to a second hip surgery to further correct an issue that he went under the knife for in spring 2024. He was great for the Jays for eight games, averaging 16.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game while shooting 38% from long range on over seven attempts per game. He’s had quite the transfer adventure this offseason, originally committing to Houston before dipping out to Texas A&M right as Milos Uzan withdrew from the NBA Draft to return to the Cougars.
The other notable transfer is Mason Miller, who leaves for Murray State for his final year of eligibility. The former top 100 prospect seemed to be on the upswing after his sophomore season, but his junior year saw his minutes get slashed nearly in half on average. Part of the reason for the drop is the fact that Miller played double digit minutes in just four of Creighton’s games after the start of February, but it’s possible that he didn’t leave the Jays over that. You see, his uncle, Ryan Miller, was an assistant coach on the Creighton staff, and Mason elected to follow his family to Murray State where Ryan is now the head coach.
Key Returners: All of the departures leave Jackson McAndrew as Creighton’s leading returning scorer and rebounder. He averaged 7.8 points and 4.4 rebounds while starting in 31 of CU’s games and playing in all 36. He moved into the starting lineup after the Jays lost to Nebraska, replacing Isaac Traudt, and then stayed there the rest of the year. His Big East regular season numbers are about what they were for the entire season, so he didn’t finish the year on a hot streak or anything like that. Not entirely unexpected given how much the Bluejays relied on the guys who left, but worth noting.
The aforementioned Isaac Traudt also returns, as does Jasen Green, both of whom played in all 36 games last year and both averaged over 15 minutes per game, too. Traudt ended up having just the four early season starts before coming off the bench for the rest of the season. His per-40 minute numbers were about the same as what they were for his first year of action, so put that grain of salt on his 4.6 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. Green started on opening night against UTRGV, then came off the bench til mid-December, then started the rest of the year after the Bluejays finally settled into a decision as to how they were going to replace Pop Isaacs in the lineup. Once he got that spot, Green ended up averaging 6.1 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. He only shot 25% from behind the three-point line in that stretch and just under 27% for the year on just 45 attempts, which is not a great sign for a guy playing over 23 minutes a game.
Creighton put out a fun press release on July 3rd regarding the final notable returning guy. I want to use their exact words:
The Creighton University Athletic Department received official written confirmation from the NCAA today that men’s basketball guard Fedor Žugic has had his eligibility reinstated.
The Podgorica, Montenegro native will have two additional years of eligibility, beginning with the 2025-26 academic year that starts next month.
Žugic made his collegiate debut on December 21, 2024, after initially gaining clearance from the NCAA.
The use of the word “reinstated” is certainly fascinating seeing as Fedor Zugic had to miss CU’s first 12 games of last season while the NCAA figured out whether or not his time playing basketball in Europe, including becoming the youngest ever EuroLeague player back in 2019 at the age of 15. Just to be clear: The NCAA cleared Zugic, then apparently uncleared Zugic after the 2024-25 season was over, and now has cleared him and declared that he has just two years of eligibility remaining even though last season was his first in Division 1.
This is a lot of hoops to jump through for a guy who averaged 4.5 points and 1.6 rebounds in 11.8 minutes per game last season and had two DNP-CD’s after the NCAA gave him the go-ahead.
Key Additions: There’s a couple of ways we can sort the transfers out. I think the most useful way is to point out the two guys who will only be with Creighton for this coming season. The first is Josh Dix (6’6”, 210 lb. guard) who spent the last three seasons at Iowa. He had a pretty nice junior year, breaking out to 14.4 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game. Dix shot over 40% in all three seasons with the Hawkeyes, including over 43% in Big Ten action last year. The other one year only guy is Nik Graves (6’3”, 195 lb. guard), who was at Charlotte for his first three years of college hoops. Like Dix, he had his best year of college action this past year, averaging 17.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 2.7 assists, plus just under a steal per game. In general, Graves has struggled with consistency in his three-point shot to the point where he wasn’t really much of a shooter before 2024-25, but he connected on over 37% of his 116 attempts in AAC play last season.
Next, we swing back to Iowa to note the transfer of Owen Freeman (6’10”, 245 lb. forward). He comes to Omaha with 53 games played for the Hawkeyes and two seasons of eligibility remaining. Freeman was off to a pretty great start to his sophomore campaign, putting up 16.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks per game and occasionally knocking down a three-pointer. However, he suffered a finger injury that required surgery and missed from February onwards. In terms of season ending injuries for big men, that’s not one that’s going to worry anyone going forward.
Finally, there’s two guys coming to Creighton after just one year of college basketball. Blake Harper (6’8”, 210 lb. guard) started his collegiate career off at Howard, while Austin Swartz (6’4”, 200 lb. guard) was at Miami this past year. Harper was the more obviously productive player, leading the MEAC at 19.5 points per game and adding 6.2 rebounds, 3.4 assists, plus a steal. He also shot 40% on triples, so you can see why he might be intriguing to the Bluejays’ staff. Swartz had a rougher go of things, particularly for a top 75 prospect at a high major program. He averaged 18.6 minutes while starting seven times in 29 appearances, and added 5.9 points a game. GOOD NEWS: He was able to average 3.9 three-point attempts per game even in relatively limited playing time. BAD NEWS: He only hit 30% of those shots while the team went 7-24 and head coach Jim Larranaga quit his job in late December.
Oh, and there’s two …. well, I don’t want to say freshmen. Hudson Greer (6’6”, 190 lb. guard) is a top 50 prospect out of Austin, Texas, who comes to Creighton from Montverde Academy in Florida. It’ll be interesting to see how he fits in immediately, as he was hanging around the back end of the 247 Sports Composite top 25 last summer before sliding down as the recruiting experts kept adjusting their rankings. The other First Year Of College Basketball Guy is Aleksa Dimitrijevic (7’1”, 225 lb. center), who comes to Nebraska from Serbia. Creighton announced his signing in early April, and he is why I hesitated to say “freshmen” for these two guys. It has been three months and Creighton has not actually marked him in any class at all on their roster page. This all feels strangely similar to what happened with Fedor Zugic last year, so I guess we’ll wait to find out exactly how many years of college basketball Dimitrijevic has available to him…… and that might be a mystery to Creighton right now, too.
Official Head Coach: Greg McDermott, entering his 16th season in charge of Creighton and 25th season as a Division 1 head coach. He has a record of 350-171 with Creighton and 630-366 overall when you mix in his years in Division 2 as well.
Wait, did you just say “Official Head Coach” instead of just “Head Coach?” Yep, and here’s why.
Head Coach In Waiting: Alan Huss, who has two seasons as a Division 1 head coach under his belt. Huss went 56-15 in two seasons with High Point, capping his time with the Panthers with an NCAA tournament bid in 2025. Huss was previously a Creighton assistant from 2017 through 2023 when he took the High Point job. He was announced as the HC In Waiting and Associate Head coach on April 10th, after Ryan Miller took the Murray State job.
Outlook: There’s a lot going on here.
First, there’s the issue that Creighton loses their top three scorers from the roster that we saw for the majority of last season, and replacing over 47 points per game is no joke. Then, there’s the issue that one of those scorers was the best defensive player in the Big East by vote of the coaches for the past four years as well as literally leading the conference in rebounds and blocks last year. Add a nice cherry of the top assist man in the league being one of the three, and there is just so much production disappearing in one offseason.
While that’s not great in terms of continuity, Creighton does return a core of four guys who played rotation roles at worst last season to at least understand the core concepts of what the coaching staff is trying to do. It’s hard to look at bringing in four transfers who all averaged at least 14 points per game at their previous locations as a problem even if it is hard to believe that all four will do the same for the Bluejays this coming winter. Plus, you’ve got a former top 75 prospect looking for a fresh start, a top 50 prospect coming in as a freshman, and a bit of a wild card in the seven-footer from Serbia who won’t even be asked to start immediately anyway because of the pedigree that Owen Freeman brings to the table.
Shake all that up in a bottle, and if you want to take the optimistic view of things and say “you know what, that’s probably an NCAA touranment team,” I’m not going to spend a lot of time arguing with you about it. There might be some hiccups along the way as McDermott and his staff iron out roles for everyone given the shake up of top end contributors — I’m looking at you, Players Era Festival games against Baylor and Iowa State — but Creighton went 1-2 in last year’s PEF and got blown out by Georgetown on the road before ending up as a #9 seed in the tourney.
I do have some questions. Looking at the raw numbers attached to the guys that Creighton has coming in and the general track record of Greg McDermott, you can be optimistic about what the Jays will be in 2025-26.
Buuuuuut……..
Iowa was 13-8 overall and 4-6 in the Big Ten with both Dix and Freeman in the lineup last season, falling from a KenPom preseason ranking of #31 to #65 going into the first game that Freeman didn’t play. Through the end of January — Freeman didn’t play in February and onwards — BartTorvik.com has the Hawkeyes as the #147 defense in the country.
Charlotte was 11-22 overall last year and 3-15 in American Athletic Conference games with Graves as their leading scorer for the season.
Howard went 12-20 with a 7-7 record in the MEAC, the third worst conference in the country according to KenPom.com, and lost their last five games of the season even though Blake Harper was pretty great for them.
Miami was cartoonishly bad, quite literally one of the worst defenses in the country. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that Austin Swartz wasn’t being asked to carry a lot of the load for them? You decide!
Is it a great thing to bring in a bunch of guys who had questionable at best impacts on winning basketball games last season? Is it a great thing to depend on those guys who win basketball games for you when they aren’t used to playing with each other? It at least introduces a level of doubt in things, right?
And that’s when we mix in the Coach In Waiting portion of things. How much of How Things Are Run this season for Creighton will be Alan Huss and how much will be Greg McDermott? I can’t help but notice that the two transfers with three years of eligibility remaining were both announced after CU made Huss’ status official. Is that him steering the roster in the direction he wants it to go when he’s in charge? After all, the buzz in the wake of the news was the McDermott would only remain as head coach for the next year or two. What happens if things don’t go quite so hot for Creighton this year? Does that send McDermott to the exits faster or slower than originally expected? Is that related to how much McDermott is delegating to Huss? What if the season starts off poorly with Huss having more control of the direction of things and McDermott has to steer things back on track? How is that going to impact the overall direction of Creighton’s program?
And finally, steering it back to the departures from last season: What happens when Creighton can’t defend like they used to with Ryan Kalkbrenner patrolling the paint? For the past four years, he’s started every game he played, and in his freshman year, he was playing double digit minutes almost every single game. Along the way, Creighton has been somewhere between #14 and #44 in KenPom.com’s adjusted defensive efficiency. Before 2020-21? McDermott coached teams were in the top 50 of the AdjD rankings three times in the KenPom archives, which date back to 2002…. and one of those three was in 2006 when he was in his last year at Northern Iowa. Historically speaking, Greg McDermott usually hasn’t been able to coach an outstanding defense without Ryan Kalkbrenner in the lineup. Is Owen Freeman capable of jumping straight in and giving the Bluejays, I dunno, 75% of what Kalkbrenner did? What happens when he can’t? Can Creighton get stops without a guy who earned a reputation as one of the best defenders in Big East history? If they can’t, then what do they do?
At least McDermott is already asking that question of his staff and his team:
“We might need to score a lot of points next year until we can build a defensive identity,” he said. “Our identity has been built around Kalkbrenner for four years. And that’s going to have to change because Owen (Freeman’s) skill set defensively is not the same as Ryan’s was. We might have to win some games 92-90 games once again until we figure it out.”
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