The 12th all-time meeting between Creighton and the reigning back-to-back national champion Huskies was set up to be a memorable affair going in simply because of what was at stake. It’ll almost certainly be a hard one to ever forget because of how it transpired.
Jasen Green, a native son and fan favorite, had the best game of his college career. Jamiya Neal showed once again why he’s the do-it-all man. Creighton’s offense was sizzling in the first half and steady in crunch time. A pro-UConn crowd at tip-off was reduced to an almost exclusively pro-Jays crowd in the final minute.
Creighton’s 71-62 win over UConn in the semifinals of the 2025 Big East Tournament won’t supplant any of the ticket-punching moments from the Valley days, and it’s didn’t have the epic last second drama of Marcus Foster’s game winner over Xavier at this same stage back in 2017. What it does have is enough individual brilliance from some unsung contributors, a win over a budding rival, and some tension at the end right before the clock hit 0.0 and allowed the Bluejays to officially turn the page to title match with St. John’s.
This is Creighton’s fourth appearance in the title game at Madison Square Garden in the last eight seasons where one occurred. It’s the third such appearance that happened after the Jays lost one of their primary offensive initiators. In 2017, they met up with reigning national champion Villanova in the title game after Maurice Watson, Jr. went down in January in the midst of an All-American season. It was an eventual Final Four Villanova team lined up across from them again in 2022 after they reached the championship game despite losing freshman point guard Ryan Nembhard to a broken wrist in late February.
This year follows the same script. Pop Isaacs dropped 27 points in an upset of then No. 1 ranked Kansas, then had to undergo season-ending hip surgery back in early December. Greg McDermott and his crew put the pieces back together again, and after 15-5 regular season in league play and two more thrilling wins in the Big Apple, they find themselves back on destiny’s doorstep in search of their first Big East Tournament championship.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our team,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “Our strength is in our togetherness. We’ve had a lot of adversity this year. I’ve heard coaches talk all year long that we lost because we didn’t have this player or that player. We lost our second leading scorer eight games in, and here we are in the Big East championship game and finished second in the league.
“We had to retool things. Guys had to take on new roles, and they embraced that. We could have hung our heads and felt sorry for ourselves, but instead this group went to work. Selfishly, I get to coach them one more game, and this has been a very rewarding season and an unbelievable team to coach. This will be our fifth trip to the final. Hopefully five is our lucky number.”
How about the Omaha kid?
The city has a lot of pride for Creighton hoops. That would have been at a high with Friday night’s win no matter what. But when a native son is a major catalyst in the result — that takes it to a different level.
Enter third-year versatile forward Jasen Green. The Millard North grad had a career-high 15 points on a perfect 7-for-7 shooting in the first half alone after entering the game averaging 4.3 points per game on the season. He finished with 19 points, four rebounds, three assists, one steal, and no turnovers in 31 minutes.
UConn head coach Dan Hurley spoke very highly of Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth after the Huskies beat Creighton in Omaha back on February 11. Creighton knew that they would be devoting a lot of attention to limiting that duo as much as possible. Green along with senior guard Jamiya Neal, who also finished with a game-high 19 points in his own right, were ready to take advantage of it from the jump.
“They were doubling Kalk, trying to keep the ball out of his hands, and then they were pressuring Steven really heavily, so we couldn’t kind of get into the offense,” Green said. “I kind of knew that there were going to be openings, and so did Jamiya, because he got us off to really good start, and then he talked to me during one of the huddles, and was like, whenever you get the ball, just be aggressive, because they’re so focused on Kalk and Steven that the lanes are open. He got it going early, then I listened to him, and I started to have my way with those guys.”
Neal wasn’t just a catalyst offensively, but he also took on the toughest defensive assignment of the night in guarding UConn’s newly crowned Big East Freshman of the Year.
Liam McNeeley scored 23 in the second half of UConn’s 70-66 win in Omaha. He finished with a career-high 38 and joined Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant as the only freshmen in the last 20 years to produce at least 30 points, 10 rebounds, and five 3’s in a road game.
Afterwards, Creighton felt that most of his scoring punch came on self-inflicted mistakes. Jamiya Neal took that matchup to heart on Friday night at The Garden, holding the first-year phenom and potential lottery pick to 13 points on 6-of-20 shooting (including 0-for-5 from 3) over 32 minutes.
“I took [the matchup] very seriously,” Neal said. “I’ve never had anybody go for over 30 in the game, so that was kind of embarrassing to have him come in our house and go for almost 40 points. We took that really personally. We watched the film and saw where we could kind of capitalize on defense and kind of force them into Kalk and make them make tough shots, and that’s what we did tonight. I think he shot six for 20, so I think we did a pretty we did a pretty good job, but it was a team effort. Everybody had turns on him, and like I always say, it’s not that hard to play defense when you got Ryan Kalkbrenner behind you.”
Speaking of Kalkbrenner, this won’t be his first Saturday night at MSG. A major draw to him returning to Creighton for a fifth season was to win a Big East championship. He lost in the title game to Georgetown as a true freshman in 2021 in front of a social-distanced Madison Square Garden crowd, then again as a sophomore the following year to Villanova.
After Creighton’s 85-81 double overtime win over DePaul in the quarterfinals, Kalkbrenner let the entire media contingent know how much that goal has been on his mind this week.
“I’ve been saying ever since I decided to come back for another year, I haven’t gotten the Big East Championship yet, so to come back for another day and get another shot at staying another day and getting a shot at the championship is huge,” he said. “I really, really, really want this championship, and I’m going to play my butt off to get it.”
He did play his rear end off on Thursday and Friday with 32 points, nine rebounds, and five blocked shots in 47 minutes against DePaul, and 12 points while helping force UConn to go 10-of-21 on layups and 45.0% overall on shots inside the 3-point line while playing all but 73 seconds.
Will he have enough gas left in the tank for what will be a true road game against nation’s top-ranked defense, according to KenPom?
“No problem,” says the big guy.
“If you can’t get yourself up and ready for a Big East championship game at Madison Square Garden, you’re doing something wrong,” Kalkbrenner said. “Obviously, we’re going to be tired, but these are games you live to play for. I’ll have no problem. A game against St. John’s in the Big East final when you know the whole crowd is going to be cheering for St. John’s, that’s awesome. You love to play in those games.”
St. John’s hasn’t been to the Big East title game since the last time they won it in 2000. Creighton is still waiting for an answer after knocking on destiny’s door in 2014, 2017, 2021, and 2022. Either way, it’s going to make for a special day at The World’s Most Famous Arena.
The Jays vs. the Johnnies.
For Big East immortality.