Saturday night, two teams with big expectations — and big question marks — meet in their lone public exhibition before the regular season begins in a week-and-a-half. #15 Creighton and #14 Purdue are both picked near the top of their respective leagues, and both are replacing stars that now play in the NBA.
For CU, that’s Baylor Scheierman (Boston) and Trey Alexander (Denver). While replacing them will be a challenge, the Jays are fortunate to be able to lean on seniors Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth as they figure it out.
“To return your point guard and your center, it’s a great place to start,” Greg McDermott said Wednesday at the Big East’s Media Day. “Their maturity, their leadership, they’re every day guys in practice in that their teammates know exactly what they’re going to get that day. They’re not going to change based on whether their shots are going in or not going in. They’re the first guys to celebrate their teammates’ success and they’re the first guys to rally around a guy when he’s having a tough day. Their leadership has been incredible so far and it’s going to be really important because we’re about to navigate the toughest non-conference schedule we’ve ever played.”
Kalkbrenner was named the Big East’s preseason Player of the Year this week, and could win an unprecedented fourth Defensive Player of the Year at season’s end. He’s a first team All-American in almost every publication, and widely considered one of the handful of best current players in college hoops.
Even with all those accolades, “Ryan deserves a little more credit,” McDermott said. “As you look back to last year and the draft boards after the season, and Donovan Klingan is a terrific basketball player, great college career, he’s going to have an unbelievable NBA career…but is Ryan that much different in the way that he impacts the game defensively? People didn’t go inside against UConn because he’d block it, he’d change it, or you just wouldn’t take it. People do the same thing against Creighton for the same reason.”
Transfers Pop Isaacs (Texas Tech) and Jamiya Neal (Arizona State) are terrific players who will be asked to do a lot. And an unforgiving non-conference slate leaves little runway to get their bearings.
“There’s such a learning curve it seems like with our system because we play faster, so you’re not necessarily fresh when you’re shooting because you’re flying up and down the floor,” McDermott said. “Baylor had an adjustment when he got here, Ashworth had an adjustment last year. How quickly can we get Pop and Jamiya to feel comfortable in what we’re doing offensively? Frankly it’s the reason not only that we went to Iowa State for a closed scrimmage, but the reason we’re going to play Purdue this weekend in a charity scrimmage rather than playing a Division 2 team. We decided we’d be better off with a couple more dress rehearsals for these guys against high quality competition.”
And then there’s Fedor Zugic, who could arguably be the biggest addition — when he’s able to take the court. The 6’6” guard did not play in Creighton’s closed-door scrimmage with Iowa State after tweaking his ankle; he won’t play in this one because the NCAA still hasn’t ruled on his eligibility. When he’s finally cleared, he’ll give the Jays a big, athletic shooter who has pro experience at a high level in Europe.
Purdue’s question marks come in the frontcourt, with two-time Wooden Award winner Zach Edey (25.2 ppg., 12.2 rpg., 2.2 bpg.), and Lance Jones (11.7 ppg.) gone. The other three starters return, though, as Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn are back after starting all 39 games a year ago.
Like Kalkbrenner for the Jays, Smith was named Preseason Player of the Year in his league. He’s coming off a record-breaking season, setting school and Big Ten records with 292 assists. Smith was the only player in the country to average at least 12.0 points, 7.5 assists and 5.0 rebounds per game and became just the second player in NCAA history to amass at least 450 points, 275 assists and 225 rebounds in a season.
Loyer averaged 10.3 points per game while shooting better than 44% from 3-point range. Along with Smith, they’ve won two Big Ten regular season championships, a Big Ten Tournament title and reached the program’s first Final Four since 1980. But Edey’s absence is giant — it’s impossible to replace a two-time national player of the year. Without his 7’4” frame creating havoc, defenses can and will scheme to slow down Smith and Loyer. How they respond could go a long way toward determining how well Purdue lives up to expectations.
Kaufman-Renn, the third returning player to start every game a year ago, will still be in the starting unit though where is to be determined. He may play center in a smaller lineup, or the 6’9” junior may slide over to the power forward spot. Another returnee, 6’10” senior Caleb Furst, is slated to get big minutes in the frontcourt.
“Creighton is a very good offensive team. They run a lot of different things,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said in his weekly press conference. “They lost a couple key pieces, but Greg’s always done a great job in reloading and playing to their strengths. They score the ball. You make mistakes, they’re going to run it to the other end and score.”
NET hasn’t televised a Creighton MBB game since Dec. 19, 2012 vs Tulsa. Avery Dingman had a career-high 21 points on 8-9 shooting in that one, as Rob Anderson pointed out this week.
Tip: 7:00pm
Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
TV: Nebraska Public Media
Announcers: Larry Punteney and Nick Bahe
In Omaha: Cox channel 1012
Satellite: DirecTV channel 26, Dish Network channel 9147
Streaming in Nebraska for free on NPM’s website
Streaming outside Nebraska on GoCreighton.com (webcast is $6.99)
Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
This is the second straight year that Purdue will play a charity exhibition game for victims of violent tornadoes after Arkansas edged the Boilermakers in Fayetteville last October, 81-77, in overtime.
Saturday’s contest marks a return to Omaha for assistant coach Paul Lusk, who served on Greg McDermott’s staff with the Bluejays for three seasons from 2018-19 to 2020-21. His son, Jack, is a 2023 graduate of Elkhorn North High School.
Purdue is looking to become the first team to win three straight outright Big Ten titles since the Boilermakers did it in 1994-96. Ohio State also accomplished the feat in 1960-62 as the only programs to record an outright “threepeat”.
The only team since 1994 to beat Creighton in an exhibition setting has been Global Sports, who beat the Jays three times in the 1990s. CU has won 23 straight exhibition games, including a 95-48 win over Wayne State a year ago and a 109-57 win over Drury two years ago.
CU was picked to finish second in the Big East Conference in the annual survey of league coaches, which was unveiled as part of the league’s Media Day. It marks the second straight year CU has been picked second, and fourth time in the past five seasons the Bluejays have been tabbed for a top-two finish. CU’s 2020-21 squad and 2023-24 teams were also both picked second, and eventually finished in second place, while the 2022-23 squad that eventually reached the Elite Eight was picked first and finished in third place.
Creighton is one of 12 schools with a preseason top-25 squad on both the men’s and women’s side in 2024-25, joining Alabama, Baylor, Connecticut, Duke, Indiana, Iowa State, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Texas and UCLA. The only five schools to be ranked in the preseason men’s and women’s basketball Top 25 of the AP Poll each of the last three seasons are Baylor, Creighton, North Carolina and Texas.
Creighton and Purdue have met just one time historically, a 91-72 loss in January 1961. Chuck Officer led the Jays with 17 points in the loss, while future Hall of Famer Terry Dischinger — the 1963 NBA Rookie of the Year and a three-time NBA All-Star — led the Boilermakers with 26.
Matt Painter and Greg McDermott coached against each other in 2003-04, when Painter was the head coach at Southern Illinois and McDermott was at Northern Iowa. The two teams split the regular season meetings with McDermott’s Panthers topping Southern Illinois 68-52 in the regular-season finale, denying Painter a perfect season in Missouri Valley Conference play. Both teams reached the NCAA Tournament that season, falling in their opening-round games.
On October 26, 2017 Creighton beat UNO 96-67 in a charity exhibition. While Marcus Foster and Khyri Thomas provided plenty of highlights, Manny Suarez — or “Mad Dog Manny” as people took to calling him on Twitter during the game — made a great first impression. Suarez had 14 points, eight boards, two blocks, one assist and a steal in 11 minutes.
Ronnie Harrell came up one point shy of a double-double, finishing with nine points, 13 rebounds (!), two assists and a steal. 10 of the rebounds came in the second half alone.
The Bottom Line:
It’s likely to look disjointed at times as both teams experiment with lineup combinations, but the home crowd will help CU pull off a close one.
Creighton 79, Purdue 73