The last piece of Creighton men’s basketball’s non-conference schedule is in place, as the bracket for the Maui Invitational was released Monday morning. The Jays draw Texas Tech in the first round, tipping off at 1:30pm Omaha time (9:30am local time in Hawai’i) on Monday, November 21. The game will be televised on ESPN2.
Mark Adams’ Red Raiders finished 27-10 a year ago and lost by five to Duke in the Sweet 16. Four key players transferred elsewhere — Terrence Shannon Jr. (Illinois), Kevin McCullar (Kansas), Mylik Wilson (Houston), and Chibuzo Agbo Jr. (Boise State). But while the transfer portal taketh, it also giveth — they got a commitment from one the nation’s top transfers, Fardaws Aimaq, along with Kerwin Walton (North Carolina), De’Vion Harmon (Oregon), and D’Maurian Williams (Gardner-Webb). They also secured a commitment from one of the best high school players in North America, Elijah Fisher. They were ranked #24 in ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 last week.
Ranked #7 in that same list, incidentally? Creighton.
Either Louisville or Arkansas will be their second opponent; with a win the game would be at 7:00pm Omaha time on November 22 and televised on ESPN, while with a loss the game would once again be at 1:30pm Omaha time on ESPN2. The other side of the bracket includes Arizona, Cincinnati, Ohio State, and San Diego State.
Meanwhile, the two games that were unknown when we published our last non-conference schedule update in mid-July have now been announced. Both of them come at home before Thanksgiving: November 14 against Holy Cross and November 17 against UC Riverside. The Jays and Crusaders haven’t met since 1956, and it’s unlikely this one will be memorable — they finished #349 out of 358 teams in KenPom’s rankings a year ago and #343 in the NET, and are projected to finish #334 this year.
UC Riverside, on the other hand, has the potential to sneak up on teams and pull an upset if you take them lightly. They were 16-12 a year ago and return the bulk of a team who upset Arizona State on a 75-foot buzzer beater in early November; their projected T-Rank this season is #156. In other words, not a Q1/Q2 headliner, but not exactly a Q4 buy game either.
“I’ve always felt like if you’ve got a good team and some veterans returning, you need to challenge yourself with a good schedule,” Greg McDermott said on GoCreighton.com in the schedule release. “We’ve done that and then some. Not only are we playing a good schedule, but almost all of them are coming away from home. Most of them are neutral sites but we’re at Texas, and then we have the one high-major game at home with Nebraska, so that’s going to prepare us for just about anything we’re going to see in the Big East. The Big East will be outstanding again as always.”
In other scheduling news announced Monday, the Big East-Big XII Battle contract has been extended two years through the 2024-25 season, adding an 11th game to the series both years so that all 11 Big East teams can participate. With an uneven number, the Big XII hosts six of the 11 games in 2023-24, while the Big East gets the extra home game in 2024-25.
Matchups will continue to be jointly determined by the two conferences, with the home team choosing the venue of its game. Television for the contests will be determined by the national television rights holder of the home team, which (for now) is FOX Sports for the Big East and ESPN for the Big 12.
