In mid-January of 1985, the Willis Reed Era of Creighton hoops was at its pinnacle. After earning an NIT berth the year before, a veteran team led by Benoit Benjamin and Vernon Moore was building on that momentum and propelling the team back into the NCAA tourney conversation.
Their midseason winning streak coincided with the emergence of Benjamin as an unstoppable force. Born in Monroe, Louisiana, he came to Creighton as a 7’0″, 275 pound center who had played high school basketball with Brad Daugherty and Johnny Dawkins, who committed to North Carolina and Duke, respectively. Recruited by just about everyone in Division 1 — reports at the time of his 1982 commitment state that nearly 300 schools had been in contact with him — Benjamin chose Creighton because of a connection he felt with Reed, a fellow big man from Louisiana.
Expectations were sky-high from the moment he set foot on the Hilltop. He averaged 14.8 points and 9.6 rebounds his freshman season for a team that won just eight games. They improved to 17-14 the next season, with Benjamin averaging 16.2 points and 9.8 boards per game. Despite an 8-8 mark in league play, they advanced to the championship game of the MVC Tournament where they lost in overtime to 12th ranked Tulsa. Earning an NIT berth, they played host to the Nebraska Cornhuskers at the Civic Auditorium. In front of a packed house, the team slugged out a physical battle that saw Nebraska’s All-Big Eight center Dave Hoppen go toe to toe with Benjamin. Both players finished with double-doubles, Hoppen with 25 points and 10 rebounds, Benjamin with 23 points and 14 rebounds. But it was Benjamin’s absurd technical foul with 10 seconds to play in a tie game, resulting in the game winning free throws, that most people remember from the game. Indeed, for Jays fans old enough to have memories of him at Creighton, that technical foul came to define his career — eye-popping statistical numbers, head-scratching mental errors in the biggest moments.
Then came his junior year. The huge numbers got even bigger: Benjamin averaged 21.5 points, 14.1 rebounds, 5.1 blocks, and 2.1 assists a game. He scored 88 points in one weekend at the Civic Auditorium — 43 points (on 18-of-23 shooting) with 16 rebounds and 10 blocks in a Thursday night win over Southern Illinois, and 45 points (on 18-of-31 shooting) with 16 rebounds, five blocked shots and five assists in a Saturday demolition of Indiana State.
We’ve looked high and low for video of either of those games for a long time, in the CU archives and elsewhere, but have come up empty. With few games televised and even fewer people who owned VHS machines to tape the ones that were, full-game footage of the 1984-85 Bluejays is a bit of a unicorn.
All that searching has finally turned up something else, though: a full-game TV broadcast of the Jays’ 71-68 overtime win two weeks later at Bradley. Benjamin is at the height of his powers in this one, notching 29 points, 12 rebounds and a career-high 12 blocked shots. His monstrous presence in the paint caused every big man on Bradley’s roster to foul out before the overtime period, leaving the Braves with few scoring options in the era before the three-point shot, and the Jays pulled away for the win.
From mid-January to mid-February of 1985, there was a case to be made that Benjamin belonged in the conversation for best college basketball player in the country. This game comes in the midst of that stretch, and is completely enjoyable. There’s Braves’ coach Dick Versace, with his big hair and even bigger personality, mocking the officials and acting as much as a cheerleader as a coach. There’s Willis Reed, roaming the Creighton sidelines in a blue blazer with Billy Bluejay embroidered on the chest, intimidating the officials with his imposing physical presence. Both coaches would get T’d up and nearly tossed from the game before being restrained by assistants. One of those assistants? Future Bluejay head coach Tony Barone, fiery as ever, on the Bradley bench in this one wearing a bright red sport coat. There’s future Bradley coach Jim Les, making huge plays in the Braves’ comeback attempt. Mostly, there’s Benoit Benjamin blocking a dozen shots and altering a dozen more, single-handedly affecting the game on both ends of the floor.
This win at Bradley moved them to 16-6 overall and 5-3 in the Valley. They’d win their next four, too, to get to 20-6, setting up a showdown at the Civic with #15 Tulsa. But a 78-63 loss torpedoed their season. They didn’t win another game, dropping their final four regular season games and their first round game of the MVC tourney to these same Bradley Braves.
As the epic collapse played out, turmoil engulfed the program. Teammates accused Benjamin of preferential treatment from the coaching staff on unspecified disciplinary matters. When university administrators travelled with the team on a late-February road trip, Reed felt like it was a challenge to his authority and an air of distrust began to build; he resigned with two years left on his contract after the season.
With Reed out, Benjamin, who had previously pledged to return for his senior season, opted to declare for the NBA instead. Athletic Director Dan Offenburger followed him out the door, resigning under pressure from the university following the unexpected departure of his hand-picked coach and his marquee program’s superstar player.
One month after the program appeared to be on an unstoppable trajectory, it was all over.
Benjamin was drafted third overall by the LA Clippers, and had a very good, if unspectacular, professional career for a very long time. He scored 9,223 points, 6,063 rebounds and 1,581 blocks in 15 seasons with the Clippers, Sonics, Lakers, Nets, Grizzlies, Bucks, Raptors, 76ers and Cavaliers. But “very good” looks fairly mediocre in the context of the 1985 NBA Draft. Patrick Ewing and Wayman Tisdale were drafted ahead of him. Chris Mullin, Detlef Schrempf, Charles Oakley, Karl Malone, Joe Dumars, A.C. Green and Terry Porter were drafted after him. A mix of Hall of Famers and superstars, and then Benoit. An afterthought in the Class of ’85, and an afterthought in the annals of Creighton history for Jays fans too young to remember his playing days.
But for one glorious month in the winter of ’85, he was an unstoppable force, and this was one of his finest games.