Creighton entered Saturday’s game at St. John’s as 13.5 point underdogs, and immediately spotted the Red Storm an 8-0 lead just 102 seconds in before Greg McDermott called an early timeout. St. John’s ultimately scored on six of their first seven possessions, taking a 13-2 lead with the points coming in all the ways CU wanted to stop them from scoring: free throws on a Zuby Ejiofor offensive rebound on the first possession and three transition buckets (two from missed shots before their rebounders were in position, one of a live ball turnover). Of their first 16 points, five came at the line and eight came in the paint.
Not ideal, as they say.
“The start was certainly disappointing, especially because of how it happened,” McDermott said. “First one was because of an offensive rebound, and then we had two turnovers in transition. And that’s a killer at the start of the game because it got their crowd into it.”
The Jays chased that early 11-point deficit the rest of the day. Late in the first half, they made a push, though, with Fedor Zugic hitting three 3-pointers in under three minutes. The third cut the lead to five at 28-23 with 6:54 left in the half, but they’d get outscored 14-4 the rest of the way and trailed 42-27 at the break.
Fedor for 3️⃣#GoJays // 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/gYI5bKePwS
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) February 21, 2026
THREEDOR.
Žugić has knocked down 3 from deep!#GoJays // 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/WcFhHjdMAG
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) February 21, 2026
During that stretch, the Jays missed their last six shots of the half. And unfortunately, after scoring the first five points of the second half to briefly cut the lead to 10, another prolonged slump followed — this one lasting
After Jasen Green’s layup with 16:28 to go made it 44-34, they wouldn’t make another field goal for nearly nine minutes (8:45 to be precise, but who’s counting). And with just four made free throws over that stretch, the deficit ballooned to 31 at 69-38 before Josh Dix finally ended the drought on a layup with 7:43 to play.
“I think we were a little bit tentative and maybe afraid to go in there at least early in the game, and then at times I thought the ball stuck too much,” McDermott said. “And when you hold the basketball, even for a count against a team like St. John’s, you’re really running the risk of stalling out your offense because they’re able to recover. When we had possessions where the ball moved and we had good movement off the ball, we tended to get a good shot.”
The 81-52 loss was Creighton’s fifth defeat by 20 or more points this season. Over the last 30 years, they’ve only had two seasons with three or more losses that bad — 2017-18 when they had three of them, and this year. And so they head into the final three games at 14-14, hoping to position themselves to make a run in the Big East Tournament two weeks from now.
Winning three games in three days is a tall task given that they haven’t even won two in a row since the end of December, especially since two of the three are likely to be the teams they played this week (UConn and St. John’s). But while everyone else can see the writing on the wall, the only way forward for the team itself is to look for slivers of hope and signs to be encouraged by.
“I told the team, our focus needs to be on the good things we did on this trip,” McDermott said, acknowledging the task his staff has in keeping the team’s morale as high as they can despite their NCAA Tournament goals being realistically out of reach. “Because of those good things, we had a great practice Thursday at Yale. I thought our practice yesterday in the Garden was really good. That’s where I want their mindset going into Monday. I don’t want us to hang our heads. We’ll take a look at what we needed to do better in this game, like we did the UConn game, and pull some of the things that we did well. We need an upbeat, connected practice Monday and Tuesday in preparation for an important game Wednesday.”
Inside the Box:
It sounds absurd to say say after a 29-point loss, but Creighton’s defense was not the reason they lost. St. John’s made 46% of their shots overall, and was 3-of-14 from three-point range. It was their second-worst game of the season from three, with only their win over Seton Hall on January 20 being worse (they were 2-of-12 in that one). That’s also the only game this season where they shot worse than the 21.4% they made in this one. And unlike so many times this year, offensive rebounds and second-chance points weren’t really a killer, either — St. John’s had nine second chance points on 10 offensive boards.
No, far too often, Creighton’s offense put their defense in a tough spot. 40 of St. John’s 81 points came off either turnovers or fast-break buckets following missed Creighton shots.
“They’re an elite team, and one through five, just kind of the way they’ve amped up their defense and switching and just the pressure that they bring, it’s huge,” Owen Freeman said on the postgame radio show. “We kind of got to see that today, obviously, with how this game went.”
“Their defensive versatility makes it very challenging for us with the particular roster we have at this time,” McDermott added. “Their ability to switch, their bigs’ ability to stay in front of people and guards’ ability to kind of still fight in the post, they’re problematic on the defensive end.”
And when you only score 52 points, you don’t give yourself much chance of winning, regardless of what your defense does.
CU did not have a single player score in double figures, with Fedor Zugic leading the way with nine points. It’s just the second time that’s happened in Greg McDermott’s 16 seasons, and there’s only been three other games where the leading scorer had 11 or fewer points, for that matter.
- Jan. 11, 2016 – Toby Hegner (11) – Providence 50, Jays 48
- Jan. 31, 2015 – Avery Dingman (8) – Georgetown 67, Jays 40
- Jan. 03, 2015 – Zach Hanson, Devin Brooks (11) – Georgetown 76, Jays 61
- Nov. 29, 2014 – Isaiah Zierden (10) – Jays 57, MTSU 47