The warmup segment of Creighton’s 2024-25 non-conference slate is complete, and the Bluejays won all four games by an average of 24.25 points. They’ve showed steady improvement on both ends of the floor, kept everyone (mostly) healthy, and gotten meaningful minutes for every active player on the roster. In other words, they took care of business.
That’s not to say they’re where they want to be as the schedule ramps up.
“We’re just not there yet. There’s too much inconsistency,” Greg McDermott said after their 79-56 win over Kansas City. “We’re showing signs and I think we’re improving, in particular on the defensive end, but we have to understand that everything matters. Sometimes I think we get a little sloppy and maybe lose our focus a little bit. There’s just little things that are still happening too often for us to be successful with the schedule we’re about to play.”
After slow starts that plagued them against UTRGV (they trailed 12-8 and led by just eight at half), FDU (they were behind 10-2 and trailed 26-24 with seven minutes left in the first half) and Houston Christian (they made just one shot in the first six minutes, though HCU could only build a 7-3 lead), Creighton came out fast in this one. They led 14-10 at the first media timeout, with Steven Ashworth and Pop Isaacs both hitting threes.
Then they scored seven straight out of the stoppage, capped by a blocked shot by Ryan Kalkbrenner and a transition three from Jamiya Neal, to force Kansas City to take a timeout.
Though KC answered with a three to temporarily cut the lead to eight, 21-13, Neal then took a Fred King blocked shot 93 feet to the rim and used a Euro-step to score between two defenders. His explosiveness in the open floor was on full display, dribbling downcourt quicker than the opponents could run with him.
The Kanagaroos were never closer than 10 the rest of the night, as CU built a lead of as many as 34 points. As they continued a first-half onslaught, their ‘4’s got hot from outside with Issac Traudt hitting three triples and Jackson McAndrew hitting two.
“Isaac hit some shots, which was good but we need him to defensive rebound a little bit better,” McDermott said. “But he’s blocking out, and he’s going to the offensive glass better than he ever has. (Defensively) he’s talking, and his talk is on time and it’s loud, and he’s able to help his teammates in that regard. And I’m really proud of Jackson bouncing back from a really tough shooting game (0-of-7 from three against HCU). He let it rip tonight, and you know, he went in and got some defensive rebounds too and a couple of them in traffic, which was good to see.”
Defensively, they’ve held three straight opponents to under 0.90 points per possession after a rough opener that saw UTRGV score 1.12ppp and 86 total points in a 77-possession game. They held FDU to 0.90ppp (and 70 points in a 78-possession game), HCU to 0.64 (43 points in a 67-possession game) and KC to 0.80 (56 points in a 70-possession game.)
Neal’s increasing comfortability in his role at Creighton has played a big role. In this one, his assignment was to slow down Jamar Brown, a preseason All-Summit League pick who averaged 15.0 points and 6.1 rebounds a year ago. Earlier in the week, Brown scored 20 against a top-five Iowa State team who boasts one of the country’s most physical defenses, making 5-of-7 inside the arc and 3-of-6 outside. Against Neal and the Bluejays? 12 frustrating points on 20 shot attempts — 3-of-14 from two-point range and 2-of-6 from three.
“His shot challenge is better,” McDermott said. “You know, I had felt, even in the UTRGV game, that there were a couple times he just didn’t impact a shot. He’s long enough and athletic enough he should be able to do that, so that’s something we’ve been working on in practice. and Obviously he’s gotten better on that, but I thought he also chased screens well and he was active with his hands.”
Another area Neal has shown improvement though four games is in the halfcourt; his explosiveness on the break has never been a question, but if Neal can combine that with shot creation (for himself and others) in the halfcourt and lockdown defense, he could be a difference maker. Early in the second half, he fed Kalkbrenner for a lob dunk with a perfectly-placed pass that led the big man right to the rim.
“He made some really good decisions with the basketball,” McDermott said. ”You know, I don’t like him turning down those open threes, because we work on that every day to get comfortable with that. He’ll get better, and he’ll get more confident…he can’t be afraid to let it rip. He has to be an effective shooter for our team to reach its potential.”
After a three and a pair of free throws from McAndrew, Creighton had their biggest lead at 69-35. Their starters likely thought their night was done; instead McDermott put his starting five unit back on the floor with 8:12 to go and the Jays ahead 71-41. A four-minute scoreless drought followed, as KC went on a 11-0 run to cut the lead to 71-52.
“It was probably my fault. I sat our starters down and they probably thought they were done. But I just decided with a week off after this, they needed one more run,” McDermott said in a postgame interview on FS1. Then he laughed and said, “I don’t think they were quite ready to go back in — it sure looked like it anyway.”
But they finished strong, as Kalkbrenner, Isaacs and McAndrew scored six straight in the paint to put the game away.
With a week off before Nebraska on Friday night, Creighton is more or less where most thought they’d be at this point — promising individual pieces, but a bit of a work in progress as a team.
“We need consistency. At times defensively, I like what I see. At times offensively, our spacing and our pace is good — and other times it’s not,” McDermott said. “There’s probably a lot of coaches across the country at this time of year who would say the same thing about their teams on both ends of the floor, but we’re getting there.”
Inside the Box:
Ryan Kalkbrenner had 14 points and 12 rebounds in 29 minutes, and has scored eight points or more in a nation-leading 62 straight games. The last time he scored fewer than eight in a game? December 25, 2022 against DePaul, when he had just four on three shot attempts.
Over the first four games, he’s averaging 23.1 points and 8.5 rebounds per game with 10 total blocks. He’s 38-of-42 (90.5%) on shots inside the arc and 3-of-4 (75%) on threes, plus 18-of-20 at the line (90%). It’s tough to imagine his senior season getting off to a better start — what would a better start even look like? He’s missed five total shots in four games, has two double-doubles and a 49-point performance.
Jamiya Neal had a double-double too, with 11 points, 11 rebounds and six assists. He’s scored nine or more in three of the four games, using a dizzying array of moves around the rim to score in transition. It’s tempting to hedge bets on Neal’s ceiling by wondering what he’ll do against the meat of the schedule, but he did a lot of these same things for three seasons at Arizona State. He’s proven it against high major competition. And as he continues to adjust to CU’s more structured system, odds seem good that he’ll only get better.
And then there was Jackson McAndrew. The 6’10” true freshman was a consensus Top 50 recruit and at the time he signed, the highest-ranked recruit of the Greg McDermott era at CU — and he’s wasted no time in proving that he’s worthy of those rankings. He’s seemingly already carved out a role for himself after four games, scoring in double figures twice and playing minutes at both the ‘3’ and the ‘4’. Against better competition, it’s unlikely he’ll see time at the ‘3’ simply from a defensive matchup standpoint. But there’s minutes at the ‘4’ for someone — Isaac Traudt, Jasen Green, or McAndrew — to seize.
“We have a lot of guys that can play a lot of minutes, especially at the four and the three, so I’m just taking advantage of the opportunities I’m given and making the most of it,” McAndrew said on the postgame radio show after the win. “I’m getting more and more confident and comfortable on the floor, so I’m just gonna continue to work in practice so I can take advantage of my opportunities.”
He rebounded from a game where he went 0-for-7 from three-point range to score 15 points with seven rebounds in just 16 minutes of action. His confidence has never wavered, and neither has the confidence his coaches and teammates have in him.
“Those misses hurt, especially when you miss a lot in a row like that,” McAndrew said. “I kept telling myself, like I know what I can do and I know that’s not going to happen again. My coaches and Mitch (Ballock), they really helped with my confidence. So did my teammates, they kept telling me to keep shooting. They all know what I can do. I just have to stay confident and be ready when the opportunity comes. But when the shots go in it feels a lot better for sure.”