Trailing 10-6 after four minutes Wednesday in Cincinnati, the guy at the bottom of the Xavier scouting report — Malik Messina-Moore — had already made two 3-pointers. Though Moore has been an excellent playmaker and leads the Big East in assist-to-turnover ratio, he’d made only nine 3’s and was their only rotational player shooting worse than 30% from three. Discouraging as that was, considering Xavier had three other starters shooting north of 40% from deep, the Jays took the lead on their first possession out of the timeout when Josh Dix sank a three-pointer. Less than three minutes later they led by double digits after threes from Nik Graves and Austin Swartz. And with their defense making everything difficult for Xavier, slowly the Jays began to create separation.
Got that one up quick ⚡️#GoJays x @J0shDix // 📺 FS1 pic.twitter.com/BzJN4h6pru
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) December 17, 2025
Graves was a sparkplug off the bench, burying a three right after checking in and then setting up Swartz’ three with a skip pass. And after Jasen Green drew a charge, Graves zipped a pass into the paint to set up an easy layup for Owen Freeman. After a Xavier timeout, Dix stole the ball under the Musketeers’ basket, started a fast break, and found Freeman for another easy layup to complete a 16-2 run — turning that 10-6 deficit into a 22-12 lead.
Steal ➡️ lob in transition#GoJays // 📺 FS1 pic.twitter.com/sUihcCzwBk
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) December 17, 2025
“This is not an easy place to play,” McDermott said. Indeed, Creighton has won six times in 15 tries at Cintas Center, with McDermott’s teams owning four of them — and they’re one of just two opposing teams with six or more wins there, behind Villanova’s seven. “But we were able to take the crowd out of it early, and I think that’s critical.”
Holding a 24-18 lead with 7:55 to go, Creighton unleashed their second huge run of the first 20 minutes — this one a 25-4 haymaker that lasted the rest of the half, building a 49-22 lead. Seven different Bluejays scored and three different Jays made an assist. The scoring summary is absurd to look at:
- Graves three, assisted by Blake Harper (27-18)
- Swartz three, assisted by Dix (30-18)
- Harper steal, Swartz layup, assisted by Harper (32-18)
- Swartz jumper (34-18)
- Graves one of two at the line (35-20)
- Freeman layup, assisted by Graves (37-20)
- Traudt rebounds missed free throw, makes layup, makes free throw (40-20)
- Green layup, assisted by Graves (42-22)
- Harper steal, Freeman layup, assisted by Graves (44-22)
- Dix three, assisted by Harper (47-22)
- Harper two free throws (49-22)
Put another way, after trailing 10-6 four minutes into the game, Creighton outscored Xavier 43-12 over the next 16 minutes.
Holy smokes.
“The ball moved and that’s the way Creighton basketball is supposed to be played,” Greg McDermott said in an interview posted to GoCreighton.com. “We made the extra pass. It was great all night. And then on the other end, we did a good job of taking away their transition. They’ve been elite in the first 10 or 12 seconds of the shot clock and we were able to slow that down.”
CU shot 58.1% in the first half (18-of-31), making 8-of-15 from three-point range, and had 15 assists against just one turnover on those 18 baskets. Creighton also had a 10-0 advantage in fast break points and 12-3 in points off turnovers, and their bench outscored Xavier’s 17-4.
Then the Jays scored 11 of the first 12 points in the second half, with two more three-pointers from Swartz, a three from Traudt, and a fastbreak layup from Swartz all in the first two minutes. That’s a 36-5 run spanning both halves and taking up 9:55 of game time — and a mind-boggling 18 minutes of basketball where they outscored Xavier 54-13. Just two minutes into the second half, the lead was 37.
Picking up right where he left off 🔥#GoJays x @austin_swartz23 // 📺 FS1 pic.twitter.com/ztf0k7KVWT
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) December 18, 2025
Austin knocks down another and he’s up to 21 on the night!#GoJays // 📺 FS1 pic.twitter.com/X0SbEtFLdy
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) December 18, 2025
The threes keep falling!
24 for Austin!#GoJays https://t.co/aYadwb575b pic.twitter.com/DPWXYwiYdY
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) December 18, 2025
Things got a bit sloppy the rest of the night, and Creighton turned it over 11 times over the final 18 minutes. But CU was able to maintain that lead, and take their biggest lead of the game in the final minute, extending the margin to 41 on a bucket from Kerem Konan.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the guys,” McDermott said. “It’s amazing, when you’re connected on defense, that sometimes shots have a way of going in when you’re connected. We turned a good shot into a great shot all night long.”
“You lose by 41 points, it’s very, very humbling. We had made so much progress, and we just took 50 steps back,” Xavier coach Richard Pitino said. “That was about as humbling, and I’m not an arrogant person by any means, but in 14 years as a coach, I don’t know if I’ve ever had one of these in a league game, opening night like that. We’ve been playing well and everything that got us to that we abandoned. Really disappointed in myself to allow that to happen.”
Then Pitino apologized to Xavier’s fans. “They didn’t show up to watch that.”
With the outrageously lopsided win in a road game the metrics predicted Xavier would win, Creighton’s rankings hitched a ride on a jet pack. They rose from #72 to #49 in KenPom overnight, and their NET ranking rose from #112 to #79. On Dec. 18 a year ago the Jays lost 81-57 at Georgetown; their KenPom ranking was 58 after that loss with a 7-5 record. So this year, despite all that’s happened, the Jays somehow are ranked nine spots higher at the same point.
Their adjusted offensive efficiency is up to 55th, and their adjusted defensive efficiency went up 25 spots to 60th.
No serious person would claim Creighton holds realistic NCAA Tournament chances if the season ended right now, but it’s also no longer as ridiculous from a computer number standpoint as it was 24 hours ago to think they might have a chance by March. They’re in position to be in position, as a prominent Bluejay Twitter burner account likes to say.
Inside the Box:
Austin Swartz scored a career-high 27 points, making 7-of-13 from three-point range and 3-of-4 inside the arc. He also had seven rebounds, four assists and a steal in just 22 minutes. He became the first Bluejay to score 20 or more in a game this season, and in doing so, Swartz shattered the Creighton record for points in a Big East debut which had been shared by Doug McDermott and Ryan Hawkins (19).
Since sitting out the Oregon game, he’s scored 66 points in four games (11, 16, 12 and 27) after scoring eight total in the first six games. He’s made 16-of-38 (42.1%) from three-point range and 9-of-14 inside the arc (64.2%) over the last four games, too.
“It feels great,” Swartz said on the postgame radio show. “But you know what feels better? Getting this dub under our belt and being 1-0 in Big East play. That’s what’s most important. But that felt awesome.”
“He was at an all-time low around Thanksgiving,” McDermott said. “To his credit, he dug himself out of it, put together some good practices, earned some trust from our coaching staff, and now he’s reaping the benefits.”
Nik Graves had 12 points and Green and Blake Harper both scored 11. Seeing Graves and Harper respond positively to their new role — McDermott cautioned on the postgame show that calling it a “demotion” is too strong of a word — was one of the best signs to come out of the win.
“The reality of it is we’re gonna play different guys on different nights, and whatever role I ask you to play, I expect you to play to the best of your ability,” McDermott said. “It’s hard for some guys that haven’t been in that situation where they’ve had to come off the bench or do something different than being a starter and playing all the time. There’s a period of adjustment for everybody, but it was great to see the smiles on their faces tonight. These guys have stuck together through kind of a difficult stretch.”
Ten different Bluejays scored and CU buried 16-of-33 from three-point range. They also had 31 assists on 38 made baskets (or one on 81.5% of their made baskets).
But as great as the offense was, this game was arguably won on the other end of the floor.
Xavier came in with a turnover on just 12.0% of their possessions, the top mark in the country. In the first half alone, Creighton turned them over eight times, leading to 12 points. For the game, Xavier had 14 turnovers, and 11 of them were credited as Bluejay steals.
It went beyond that, though. Leading scorer Tre Carroll came in averaging 16.9 points per game and had scored in double figures in every game this season. He’d made 39.6% from three-point range, too. But Carroll had seven points on 1-of-5 shooting, and missed all three of the 3-pointers he attempted in this one — with two of the misses not even touching the rim.
Second-leading scorer Jovan Milicevic came into this game averaging 12.9 points a game and shooting 42.% from three. He was held scoreless and missed both of his three-point attempts. And All Wright, who was Xavier’s best three-point shooter at 49% this season, also missed both of his three-point attempts and scored only four points.
Their top three 3-point shooters not only didn’t make a single shot from behind the arc, they only attempted a combined seven shots from there. Creighton’s scouting report defense was executed to perfection, pressuring the Musketeers deep enough from the basket to prevent them from even getting a clean look much less a make. Xavier’s 6-of-24 shooting from three was a season worst.
“Our defense really generated offense for us tonight, and I just thought we were really connected with some of our switching. The defensive game plan we put into place was executed really well, so I couldn’t be more proud of the guys,” McDermott said. “You know, it’s amazing when you’re connected like that on defense, sometimes shots have a way of going in when you’re connected. We turned a good shot into a great shot all night long. I thought we did an outstanding job to run them off the line and then when we needed to help, our help defense was there, too. We were also able to help the helper as well, which is an important part of the defense’s scheme.”
And finally, all kinds of records were set. Creighton’s previous largest halftime leads in Big East play on the road were 18, both at Georgetown (45-27 on Jan. 6, 2018) and at St. John’s (44-26 on Jan. 4, 2017). It is believed to be their largest halftime lead in a road conference game since 1948, according to research from CU SID Rob Anderson. The last time they had a halftime lead of 27 points or more in a road game against anyone, conference or not, came in 1990 when they led UTSA 49-22 in the first game of the Amana Hawkeye Classic in Iowa City.
The 41-point win was Creighton’s largest ever in a Big East road game, besting their 93-58 win over DePaul in 2017. It was tied their second-biggest margin of victory in a conference game regardless of venue, behind only a 69-25 win over Saint Louis in 1943. They also beat St. John’s by 41, 100-59, at home in 2016. Their previous eight wins in Cincinnati came by a combined 41 points, ironically the exact same number they won by on Wednesday.
It’s also the second-largest road win by anyone in Big East history, with only UConn’s 99-57 win at Seton Hall in 2006 coming by more points. Their 98 points were their most ever in a conference road win, MVC or Big East, one more than the 97 they scored at Seton Hall in 2024 — and it took them three overtimes in that one. Their most in regulation? 96 at #4 Villanova in 2014, or The Ethan Wragge Game.
Xavier’s previous largest loss at Cintas Center was 64-42 to Oral Roberts on Dec. 18, 2011 — the first game after the infamous Crosstown Shootout Brawl, as Xavier played without four key players who were suspended. Its only previous home loss by 32 points or more was an 86-48 loss to Dayton on March 5, 1977, at the on-campus Schmidt Fieldhouse.