Late in the first half, Creighton scored eight straight points including threes from Jasen Green and Josh Dix to take a 29-28 lead. But like the two home games that preceded it, they were unable to sustain that burst — and Butler immediately responded with an 8-3 run to end the half.
There had been six lead changes and five ties over the first 20 minutes, but with Butler’s leading scorer Finley Bizjack limited due to foul trouble, it felt like a missed opportunity. Greg McDermott felt otherwise. His message to the team at halftime was to stay with it and continue what they were doing.
“I thought we had some good looks the first half we didn’t make,” he said on his postgame radio show. “And I liked our activity defensively the first half. We got our hands on a lot of balls, we just didn’t come up with them. We told them those 50/50 balls need to be ours the second half, and Isaac Troudt set the tone early. You know, it ended up as an out-of-bounds play, but he dives all the way across the floor, and that was the kind of effort we needed, and that really set the tone for a really good defensive half, maybe our best of the year.”
And so they stayed the course, their open shots started falling, they started getting the 50/50 balls created by their defense…and in just over three minutes, Creighton grabbed ahold of the game. By the under-12 timeout, they’d taken a 16 point lead and put the game out of reach.
Traudt started the half by burying a three, and Dix followed with one of his own to put the Jays ahead 38-36.
Isaac Traudt from the spot 🎯#GoJays // FS1 📺 pic.twitter.com/gMwtimYORb
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) March 5, 2026
Isaac Traudt from the spot 🎯#GoJays // FS1 📺 pic.twitter.com/gMwtimYORb
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) March 5, 2026
Green scored at the rim, Nik Graves made a pair of free throws, and then Traudt poked the ball away to start a fastbreak that ended with Dix scoring on a layup. At the 16:51 mark, Butler coach Thad Matta had seen enough to know they couldn’t wait for the under-16 timeout to regroup — in 3:09 a four-point lead had turned into an eight-point deficit.
But there were no answers. Traudt made another three. Graves made four more free throws. And though Butler’s Michael Ajayi finally ended their six-minute scoring drought with a layup after they’d missed their first seven shots of the half, the damage was done.
Isaac Traudt is on point from deep! 3️⃣#GoJays // 📺 FS1 pic.twitter.com/MPbyvzEKu7
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) March 5, 2026
Green scored again in the paint, and then Dix hit a step-back three. And when a Graves steal created another fast break layup for Dix at the 11:25 mark, Creighton opened up a 58-42 lead, having started the half on a 26-6 run spanning eight-and-a-half minutes.
Josh Dix with the shake and step back! 🫨#GoJays // 📺 FS1 pic.twitter.com/kfiSNfCWGD
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) March 5, 2026
As impressive as that was, they kept their foot on the gas pedal, continuing to dominate Butler on both ends of the floor. With 5:39 to go, Graves drove to the rim for a layup and put CU ahead 69-49.
🚨DOUBLE DOUBLE ALERT 🚨
14 points and 12 assists for Nik Graves 🙂↕️#GoJays pic.twitter.com/Cx9SJXH6PQ
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) March 5, 2026
Three minutes later, Austin Swartz scored five straight on a fadeaway three and a dunk in transition, giving them their biggest lead of the night at 23, 74-51. At that point, they’d outscored Butler 42-15 after halftime.
🚨DOUBLE DOUBLE ALERT 🚨
14 points and 12 assists for Nik Graves 🙂↕️#GoJays pic.twitter.com/Cx9SJXH6PQ
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) March 5, 2026
The 76-59 win gives Creighton road wins at Villanova, UConn, Xavier and Butler, the first time they’ve ever won at those four schools in the same season. If that’s all you knew about the 2025-26 season, you’d (rightfully) assume they were in contention for the league title. But those were the only road games they won all season, and they went 2-2 against them in Omaha.
“It’s crazy that, you know, we’re 5-5 at home and 4-6 on the road in this league. That makes no sense,” McDermott said. “But you know, we’ve played some of our best basketball away from home, and I think this gives us a shot in the arm as we go to New York City. I think the guys will be a little bit more enthusiastic coming off this game compared to losing two close ones at home last week.”
And combined with DePaul’s loss to Villanova, there’s still a path to a top-five seed and a bye in next week’s Big East Tournament. If Butler beats DePaul on Saturday, the Jays will move up to the ‘5’ and take on ‘4’ seed Seton Hall on Thursday. Win that one, and the likely opponent would be St. John’s on Semifinal Friday.
With that being the case, it’s worth wondering if staying at the ‘6’ is the more favorable path, even though it requires winning an extra game — because that side of the bracket has UConn in the semis instead of St. John’s. The ‘6’ will open with Georgetown, and the winner of that game squares off with Villanova on Thursday with UConn likely awaiting on Friday.
Inside the Box:
Creighton’s Nik Graves became the first player with 14+ points, 13+ assists and 6+ steals in a Big East game in the last 30 seasons. His 13 assists were the most by a Bluejay in a Big East game since January 7, 2017 when Mo Watson dished out 14 in a win at Providence.
“That’s incredible, and you know we’ve kind of gone as Nik has gone,” McDermott said. “He hasn’t really shot the basketball very well since he hurt that knee, and hopefully a couple days off here this week he can get feeling a little bit better so his jumper comes back. But I thought he controlled the pace of the game, the tempo of the game, he got pieces of the paint and found his teammates for some easy scoring opportunities.”
Graves noted that Butler’s bigger, more physical (but slower) lineup without Azavier Robinson allowed him to use his quickness to create mismatches.
“I was able to get around some of the ball screen coverages that they threw at us,” Graves said. “That made it easier to make the read, whether the big stepped up, if there was a lob or, if not, able to get to a floater or kick it out to an open shooter.”
His six steals were the most by a Bluejay in five years, and something he credits to just being the in right place at the right time.
“You know, we work really, really hard on defense in practice each and every day, and it’s been a point of emphasis for us all year,” Graves said. “We had a lot of lapses in certain games, but we were all locked in today. But getting six steals in a game? I’ve probably never done that, honestly, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t even know if I had that in high school, so it was pretty cool.”
Meanwhile, Josh Dix had what might have been his best game as a Bluejay. He scored a season-high 22 points, making 9-of-17 from the field and 4-of-10 from three. 12 of his 22 came in the second half, including back-to-back shots early in the second half during the game-flipping run.
But as it’s been most of the year, his bigger impact came defensively. He hounded Butler’s leading scorer, Finley Bizjack, and held him to 10 points on 11 shots. In two games against Creighton with Dix as his primary defender, Bizjack had 20 total points on 6-of-23 shooting. He came into the game as the Big East’s third-leading scorer, averaging over 17 points per game.
Over the last eight games, Dix’ numbers have risen substantially as Jays Classic pointed out on Twitter.
First 23 games:
11.7 PPG
40.5% FG
29.9% 3FG (5.5 3PA)
Last 8 games:
15.9 PPG
49.0% FG
42.3% 3FG (6.5 3PA)
“That shot continues to look better and better, it looks more like the Josh we know,” McDermott said. “The arch back in his shot. Obviously it’s been hard on him and to see the way he’s played the last couple weeks here is really really impressive. And besides what he’s doing offensively, he’s always guarding the other team’s best player and I thought he had Bizjack’s number tonight.”
Jasen Green added 13 points and nine rebounds, just barely missing out on a double-double. And while Michael Ajayi scored 26, he needed 19 shots to get there — and of his 13 rebounds, zero came on the offensive glass despite Butler missing 34 shots.
“I thought the job he did to keep him off the glass was outstanding. He had eight offensive rebounds at our place and none tonight,” McDermott said. “The two things we really emphasized coming into this game were to make sure we won the free throw battle or keep it close, and then let’s get him off the offensive glass. We felt that they needed second chance points, they needed free throws to make their offense go, and we did a good job of taking those away.”
To that point, Butler had zero — yes, zero — second chance points after getting 18 in Omaha. The Bulldogs grabbed an offensive board on just 17% of their missed shots (6-of-34), way below their season average of 34.4%. And Butler only attempted eight free throws, after taking 19 in the game in Omaha. For a team that gets 22.2% of their points from the free throw line, those two statistical wins effectively neutralized their offense.