With 5:57 to go in the first half, Creighton led Le Moyne 42-15. And new coach Alan Huss was so mad at his team that he burned a timeout to let them know about it. They’d led 42-9 less than thirty seconds earlier, and had just given up back-to-back threes to the same player.
“You have to play to the standard and not the score,” analyst Nick Bahe said on ESPN+ as the cameras captured Huss yelling at his guys, explaining to the viewers at home what he imagined Huss’ message was.
They ended the half on a 12-2 run and took a 54-17 lead into halftime. Message received? Not exactly.
Two minutes into the second half, CU led 62-20. And then for the fourth straight game, they had a prolonged stretch of incredibly poor play. They didn’t score again for 3-1/2 minutes; they went another six minutes after a bucket from Trevon Carter-Givens with no points. Add it up and you had a 20-2 Le Moyne run from the 18:04 mark to the 8:39 mark, cutting that 62-20 lead to 64-40.
That’s right — they went nearly 10 minutes against one of the worst defensive teams in D1 with just two points. They had nine turnovers in that span, shot 1-of-13 from the field, and were 0-of-3 from the line. Meanwhile, Le Moyne was 6-of-17 from the field and a perfect 6-of-6 from the line during that stretch.
“I wish I had a profound answer as to why,” Huss said on his postgame radio show. “It’s been this team’s M.O. to this point to be inconsistent, and ultimately, that falls on my shoulders. So we’ve got to reexamine how we’re preparing. We’ve got to reexamine how we attack our process, how we message.”
“I’m really frustrated with them. I’m frustrated with myself. I’m frustrated with the staff,” Huss added in his press conference. “I’m just frustrated, period.”
He seemed especially frustrated with the bench players, because when they went up by 42 at 62-20, they subbed in Katrelle Harmon, Hudson Greer and Carter-Givens immediately, and then Isaac Traudt shortly thereafter.
“You can’t look at scoreboard and come in off the bench and think, ‘OK, I’m about to go get some easy baskets’ and be cute and flip the ball around casually. It’s gonna end up in a result that no one likes,” Huss said. “They wanted to be loose, free, easy…and there’s nothing about Division 1 basketball, it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, doesn’t matter what the scoreboard is, if you assume it’s going to be loose, free and easy you’re going to go on a run and it’s not going to be a run you like to be on. That’s what I mean when I say we deviated from process. Our traps weren’t tight, we reached and grabbed and wanted to to be easy. We committed seven fouls right off the bat because we weren’t physical in the ways we want to be physical. We were physical by reaching, grabbing, slapping. That’s not it.”
Much like the two exhibitions and the opening win over UMKC, when they were good, they were really good on both ends of the floor — and the rest of the game, everything seemingly fell apart at once.
The “good” in this one included a fast start, as they jumped out to a 13-0 lead just four minutes in. Their defense forced a shot clock violation and two turnovers, Oswin Erhunmwunse had two dunks, Wes Enis scored two tough buckets in traffic, and they were off and running.
Oswin flushes the putback!
Creighton 9
Le Moyne 0
H1 https://t.co/zuPjw4GNik— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 6, 2026
Ahead 18-9, they ripped off a 24-0 run over the next seven minutes, taking an absurd 42-9 lead. Jackson McAndrew had 14 of those 24 points, including a personal 12-0 run featuring four 3-pointers in two minutes. The second of those four came on this play where everyone got involved — BJ Davis blocked a shot defensively and trapped a Le Moyne player on the baseline before stealing the ball, then throwing it up the floor to Austin Swartz, who threw a cross-court pass to Enis. That pass carried him out of bounds, and he flung a pass behind his back to Davis, who drew the defense and kicked it over to McAndrew. Whew.
Team basketball😁
Creighton 30
Le Moyne 9
H1 https://t.co/TWKxZRyd7B— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 6, 2026
Somebody get a hand up!
Creighton 35
Le Moyne 9
H1 https://t.co/HTHSxKniBM— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 6, 2026
Late in the half, the Jays’ freshmen took center stage. With 2:57 to go, Carter-Givens stole the ball at the top of the circle and took it the length of the floor for a dunk. 15 seconds later, Harmon rebounded a missed shot and pushed the ball up the floor, where he found Carter-Givens streaking to the rim. His alley-oop made it 46-15. And after five points to end the half from Greer, the Jays led 52-17, tying a record for the largest halftime lead in their 24 seasons at CHI Health Center.
Freshman to Freshman connection!
Creighton 46
Le Moyne 15
H1 https://t.co/W33mPqZWzG— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) November 6, 2026
Huss had an interesting remark late in his postgame radio interview. He said in early-season buy games, there’s decision on how much of your stuff to run (and allow future opponents to have film on).
“Do you want to get into the whole catalog or do you want to save a few that other teams don’t have an opportunity to scout? And we chose the latter this week,” Huss said. “There were a few times where we could have gone to some of those set actions to go get us a basket, but we didn’t.”
He said while typically they call two set plays per timeout — one coming out of the first dead ball, one for the second dead ball — they only called one per timeout in the two games this week, giving them some surprises to spring on Kansas State and Iowa when they need it.
“We were trying not to put our full catalog on display here early, so we have to lean into our motion principles and those need some work,” Huss said.
He also said in hindsight, the unintended consequence of spending so much time on defense in practice has left their offense behind at this stage of the season.
“We’ve spent a lot more time on that side of the basketball than we have in years past. It’s very time consuming, and our offense is lagging behind where it normally would. The good news is, for the fans, for our team, it’s going to be better offensive basketball here in time. We’re just very much a work in progress right now, and that’s, again, that’s on Coach Huss for not having the guys fully ready. It’s not our intention to have our offense clicking 100% right now. It needs to continue to get better. And hopefully, by the time we get through this non-conference schedule, it’s humming at a high level again.”
Inside the Box:
For the record, Creighton’s other 37-point halftime leads came on Dec. 28, 2019 (58-21 vs. Midland) and Dec. 9, 2016 (62-25 vs. Longwood). Their last halftime lead bigger than 37 was a 54-16 edge over Grambling on Dec. 6, 1999 at the Omaha Civic Auditorium.
Alan Huss had six points and two rebounds in 13 minutes that night.
Jackson McAndrew led the team in scoring with 19 points, making 5-of-8 from three point range and setting a new career high for points. He said once he got rolling, it felt like everything would go in, and he looked like the shooter he was as a freshman for the first time since that season. Even better, he says his foot feels great.
“I haven’t had problems with it since I got back on the court for the first time. It’s felt great,” McAndrew said. “I mean, I’ve had little ankle tweaks and stuff, but we’re not worried about that. So, I feel good. It’s good to be back.”
He also elaborated on how the new defensive scheme affects the big guys, as some of them have adjusted better than others.
“You’ve got to actually play defense now,” McAndrew joked. “Two years ago, if you got beat, (Ryan Kalkbrenner) was right there. So it was a lot easier. But, I mean, I think this defense is really good when it’s working. Obviously, in the first half, we created so many turnovers and sped them up. But I think just for me and the other big guys on the team, it’s tough to stay in front of the quick guards. But just using our length and being there, obviously taking away the shot, but not over-extending too much and making sure we’re staying front, too.”
“If he can just be a B-plus on defense and just be out there long enough, good things are gonna happen on offense,” Huss said, adding that the next step is for McAndrew to be more vocal. “He’s got to be more vocal because he just has so much credibility with all of our guys because they respect him. They respect his work ethic, his demeanor. He’s what our program is all about.”
Oswin Erhunmwunse scored in double figures for the first time as a Bluejay, with 10 points, four rebounds (three offensive) and an assist. More important, he had just two fouls. He said on the postgame radio show that the staff has worked with him relentlessly on cutting down on the cheap fouls that plagued him at Providence.
“I’m on a mission to make sure like, I don’t get fouls on illegal screens, or like trying to block a shot as a secondary defender instead of as a primary defender,” Erhunmwunse said. He noted that the approach and culture at Creighton are very different from Providence, and it was a really difficult adjustment at first.
“They hold us accountable a lot over here, like going to class, waking up to go get breakfast in the morning. I’m not like trying to put Providence down, but just like a lot of stuff that we do here is very intentional. The coaches always say if you’re a good student, you’re gonna be a good player.”
“I’ve gotten the chance, like I said, to learn how to foul less, be productive, learn more stuff, and be able to feel free and play my game,” Erhunmwunse continued. “I have amazing teammates, I play with Austin Swartz, we have the best relationship on the team, we go out to eat after, like, every practice. I feel like that’s the opposite of how it was there. It’s a strength of this team how together we are, everybody loves each other outside of basketball. A lot of times they come to my crib, we chill, watch a movie, eat some food, all that. We go to the gym, everybody’s together. It’s not like a, ‘Oh my God, I want to leave. Oh my God, I’m tired.’ Everybody’s going to be in the gym, play around, play pool, play table tennis, and stuff like that. It’s just great. It’s just like family over here. Providence is great. But Providence is my past, and I’m focused on my future right now.”
If you thought the soundbites from Erhunmwunse were done, you’d be wrong. He also had takes on Omaha’s downtown food scene and the Henry Doorly Zoo.
“I like the zoo. Oh my god. Big fan of the zoo. I’m from Nigeria so I was like, you know, I went to the zoo back home in Nigeria and stuff but like I’ve never been to a zoo in America,” Erhunmwunse said. “I think I went to the jungle with the birds and the monkey and stuff, and I went to the aquarium, so like, I need to go see everything else. Maybe one of these off days I’m going to go again before it gets cold.”
“I mean, like, the food here is great. Blue Sushi, oh my god, I love sushi. So, like, me and my teammates, we go every day. We go get sushi,” he said. I imagined John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg sitting there like the Deltas when Bluto was on a roll — stay silent, let him go, and enjoy the show.
“And I love Châm Pang Lanes,” Erhunmwunse continued. “They have the little bowling pins! I mean, it’s fun. I get the opportunity to still be a normal human. I really love it. I visited here coming out of high school and I played here freshman year against my boy Jackson. I’m so happy to be teammates with everybody and I’m happy to be in Omaha. It’s a dream come true.”
Trevon Carter-Givens had another big night off the bench, scoring nine points with four rebounds and a steal.
“Trevon’s made things really difficult for Coach Huss because he’s not supposed to be ready, but he just does so many things,” Huss said, amusingly referring to himself in the third person. “He’s going to have to figure out how to play, even if he only weighs 125 pounds. He’s just gonna be out there. He makes so many good things happen because he cares so much.”