Two minutes into the second half, Kansas City led 44-38 after leading for the final nine minutes of the first half. They were hitting tough three-pointers, making Creighton uncomfortable defensively, and beating them both to the floor and the glass. Leading scorer Jaylen Smith had 15 points, with the early ones coming on blown assignments and once he was feeling it, even good defense wasn’t enough to stop him.
This was not how Alan Huss’ debut as Creighton’s head coach was supposed to go.
“We’ve got to grow up,” Huss said in a blunt assessment of his team’s performance. “We’ve got to make sure that we grind out possession by possession. We tried to get it all back at once. We’re not supposed to be a team that’s denying 50 feet from the basket. We’re supposed to make that first catch tough when we’re in our press, and then after that it’s supposed to be back to our gaps. The integrity of our shell got violated a number of times tonight.”
Thankfully, the messy first 22 minutes will not be what anyone remembers from his first win. How he and his team responded will be the lingering memory.
Sparked by Hudson Greer, Katrelle Harmon and Trevon Carter-Givens off the bench, they ripped off a 17-0 run that was fueled more by great defense than by great shot-making. There was even some trapping and full-court pressure reminiscent of Huss’ former coach, Dana Altman, heating up Kansas City’s guards and forcing turnovers, and speeding up the game in the process. It looked like one of the runs Altman’s teams used to unleash, packed with hustle, hard work, being in the right spots, and piling one turnover after another in an avalanche that buried their opponent.
For 3:45 of game clock — from the 16:08 to 12:23 mark — Kansas City did not attempt a single shot. They were never even close, as Creighton’s defense forced a remarkable seven straight turnovers. Four steals, a shot-clock violation, an offensive foul, and a wild pass out of bounds. They retook the lead early in that burst, with both Greer and Austin Swartz turning their own steals into points (Greer driving the length of the floor for a layup, Swartz hitting a three in transition).
Two steals, a swat and a dunk: here’s three plays where Creighton turned defense into offense last night. Hudson Greer with a steal and a transition layup; Austin Swartz with a steal and a three in transition; Travon Carter-Givens blocks a shot, runs the floor and throws down a lob pass for a dunk.
— Tom Nemitz (@WBR_Tom) November 3, 2026
They were diving so often for loose balls on the floor that members of the Manajays were constantly coming out to wipe up perspiration. One of them, a student manager named Seamus, was so dedicated to doing his job as quickly and thoroughly as possible that he began getting recognition from the crowd. This was a full team effort, players and managers alike.
“I mean, that first half we were definitely soft to say the least,” Greer said on the postgame radio show. “The guys on the bench felt like we had to give some energy, and I feel like the guys that subbed into the game, we definitely gave that. It’s so much more fun to play that way. It gets the crowd going, I feel like, when we turn our defense into offense. It’s way easier than coming down against a set defense and trying to make a play and read the defense versus saying, ‘Hey, we have Trevon. We have me. Just go throw an alley-oop and bring it home.’”
Ahead 46-44, they weren’t done. Another steal by Swartz led to another transition layup. And then came the moment of the night. Carter-Givens annihilated a shot attempt on defense with a violent block, ran the floor, and was rewarded with a flip-up pass for a dunk. Seconds later, he blocked another shot.
Bringing the BOOM💥
#GoJays https://t.co/NibNx5SLYX
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 3, 2026
A work of art 🎨 🤌
#GoJays https://t.co/n1rtB94dcO
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 3, 2026
With five minutes left, another lob dunk to Carter-Givens gave CU their biggest lead of the night at 16, 66-50.
“We tried to come out and put together stops so we could get on the run and that’s what happened,” Carter-Givens said. “We got the crowd into it, and then after the crowd was into it, it was just over from there. Shout out to my teammates, BJ Davis and Wes Enis. They came out and their main goal was to stop (Jaylen Smith) from scoring, and that’s what they did, and after that, nobody else was really scoring.”
They’d cruise to a 76-61 win from there, outscoring Kansas City 43-22 in the second half. What did the Jays’ new coach say at halftime to light a bonfire under his team?
“Yeah, there wasn’t a ton to say. We were clearly the softer team in the first half. They were the aggressor, and we didn’t play with enough force. We didn’t play with enough toughness,” Huss said. “That’s a really good Summit League team right there and our guys didn’t respect that clearly. They weren’t ready for that, and it took them punching us in the mouth and really being the aggressor for us to respond to that. That part’s disappointing. We gotta learn to respect everyone.”
The steals and blocks were the loud part of the defensive shift in the second half, but the quiet part was perhaps more important. Kansas City’s Jaylen Smith had scored 15 points in the first half (6-of-10 shooting overall and 3-of-5 from three), and was scoreless in the second with only four shot attempts — including just one three-pointer. Wes Enis deserves a lot of the credit for taking him out of the game, but not all of it, as Huss correctly noted.
“Wes personally talked about Jaylen Smith having a goose egg in the second half. I think he, BJ, and Katrelle, the three guys had guarded him — I mean, we switch so much that everybody gets a little piece of him — I thought those guys did a better job in the second half of really taking it personally. Understanding that late in possessions it was gonna end up in his hands. We’ve got to get a high hand contest on it, then we got to go rebound the ball when he misses. Those guys took a lot of pride in it and I was proud of that effort.”
Enis also noted that the Jays dove on the floor five times for loose balls in the second half after doing it just once in the first half. No wonder Manajay Seamus and his towel were so busy.
Inside the Box:
Creighton’s 15 steals were two more than they had in any game a year ago, as their high was 13 at Butler on March 4, and their most in a game since the 2020-21 season. More remarkable: They had 15 or more steals in a game just five times in 16 seasons under Greg McDermott.
- At Georgetown (2/9/2021)
- DePaul – 18 (2/15/2020)
- Tulsa – 17 (12/19/2012)
- Nebraska – 16 (12/11/2020)
- At Marquette – 15 (3/3/2019)
And they had 15 in Game One of the Alan Huss Era.
They forced 22 turnovers, which is also the most in a game since 2020-21. There were only three games in McDermott’s 16 seasons where their opponent had more than 22 turnovers in a game.
- Tulsa – 25 (12/19/2012)
- Nebraska – 25 (12/11/2020)
- At Georgetown – 24 (2/9/2021)
- Xavier – 22 (3/10/2017)
- At Marquette – 22 (3/3/2019)
For all of the talk about Alan Huss’ Creighton teams playing a more aggressive style of defense, it took all of one game to show that they meant it.
Individually, Wes Enis led all scorers with 25 points on 7-of-18 shooting (5-of-13 from three). He also drew six fouls and went 6-of-8 from the line. 17 of his 25 points came in the second half as he got hot from deep, making 4-of-8 from three after halftime.
His leadership and defense were what Huss remarked on afterward, while acknowledging what everyone could see, that Enis never saw a shot he didn’t like.
“The guys knew that they didn’t play up to our standard in the first half,” Huss said. “That’s where, for all of Wes’s things — sometimes you want him to maybe take a better shot here and there — having him in the locker room when we’re not doing things to the proper standard, he’s a pretty good enforcer.”
BJ Davis added 13 points and four steals in 21 minutes, while playing a key role defensively.
“I think (Wes) is an elite on ball defender. Both those guys (BJ and Wes) gotta be a little better off it, but they both did some really good things on it. I thought for the most part that second half especially we really did a good job of uh you know just being in the right place and helping each other at the right times and then still getting back and blocking out.”
Hudson Greer had four points, five rebounds and three assists in 16 minutes off the bench, an instant spark of energy when they desperately needed it. In a relaxed and candid conversation with John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg after the game on the radio, Greer talked about out how much he likes defending.
“I mean honestly I feel like that’s kind of one of my calling cards is playing defense and making sure that my guy doesn’t score,” Greer said. “Emphasizing that more this year caters towards me a lot. Some of those long closeouts can be kind of tricky chasing guys, because I mean for me, I’m either going against a ‘four’ who can be bigger or chasing smaller guys around. Being versatile is important.”
It was the two freshmen who were the real bright spots. Katrelle Harmon continued making his case for a bigger role, with six points and a team-high six assists in 24 minutes. More than that, the offense flowed more naturally with him running the point, and as his defense improves, it’s going to make for some interesting decisions on the rotation.
The real disturbance to the rotation might be Trevon Carter-Givens. In 15 minutes he had six points, four blocks, and defended without fouling. He’s going to struggle against bigger, stronger bodies in Big East play, but his talent is such that he can still be a factor in the meantime.
Huss gushed about Carter-Givens after the game. Possessing a 7’5” wingspan and a standing reach similar to what Ryan Kalkbrenner has, Carter-Givens led the Nike EYBL Circuit in blocked shots, something Kalkbrenner also did. They both arrived on campus needing to bulk up for the Big East battles ahead, expected to contribute in year two or three. Kalkbrenner’s intelligence and instincts earned him a role before his body caught up. Could the same happen for Carter-Givens?
Huss went ‘there’ after one game — using Carter-Givens and Kalkbrenner in the same sentence.
“He’s improved so rapidly from the time that he stepped on campus. He’s got some physical tools; he’s super quick off his feet, he has some real feel for where the ball’s going, but his intelligence, that’s maybe where he’s so similar to Ryan. When you’re that smart, you’re just constantly picking up messages, whether they’re intended for you or whether they’re intended for someone else. Because of his intelligence, he’s gone from being a guy that was a lot of activity without achievement early this summer to the one you see now. He played so hard and he would make a spectacular play, but he was just running all over the place and wasn’t sure where to go.”
“But because of his intelligence, he’s learned to be more efficient in such a quick period of time, and I really mean this. He’s been the guy probably more than anyone that’s really messed our rotation up here because when I recruited him, I thought he was gonna be a great player in four or five years, three years, two years, whatever it is, I thought he was gonna be maybe an NBA player. I thought that from the first time I offered him a scholarship and had him on a video call at High Point, I thought he had a chance to be an NBA basketball player, but I just thought it was going to be several years down the road as he added weight, but as we saw tonight, he can be impactful even before he adds the weight.”
To that end, Carter-Givens said he’s on a five-meal-a-day diet, heavy on proteins and grains. He says he’s put on 10 pounds since arriving on campus, and is still growing.
Finally, the last time Creighton opened the season against Kansas City, they also struggled to put the Roos in the rearview mirror, winning 89-82. That night in his collegiate debut, another talented center introduced himself as Justin Patton nearly had a double-double with 12 points and 8 rebounds. On back-to-back possessions early in the game, he took lob passes and threw down alley-oops, a sign of things to come.
Highlights:
Press Conference: