Creighton has a lot of question marks entering the 2025-26 season, with returning players responsible for just 36.7% of their minutes played and 28.0% of their points a year ago. Nine newcomers surround returning starters Jackson McAndrew (7.8 points, 4.4 rebounds per game) and Jasen Green (4.9 points, 3.2 rebounds). Only two others saw significant playing time a year ago — Isaac Traudt (4.6 ppg.), and Fedor Zugic (4.5 ppg.) — and Zugic played in just 22 games after gaining eligibility late in December.
2021-22 was the last time the Jays’ roster saw this much turnover. That squad surrounded a pair of players entering their second year in the program (Ryan Kalkbrenner and Alex O’Connell) with the nation’s fourth-best freshmen recruiting class (Ryan Nembhard, Trey Alexander, and Arthur Kaluma, among others). That team actually returned even less production than this year’s team — the 2021-22 Jays returned just 18.0% of their minutes and 15.8% of their points — and were the first CU team since at least 1980-81 to not return a single starter from the year before.
But arguably, even that team had fewer question marks in terms of the rotation. They knew Nembhard and Kaluma were going to start alongside Kalkbrenner and O’Connell. They had a pretty good idea that the top bench players would be Alexander and Mason Miller.
And so much like they did in 2021 when they added experience through the portal with Ryan Hawkins, this year the newcomers include five players who each played 500 or more minutes a year ago, including four that were regular starters for their previous teams. And that doesn’t include Karem Konan, who played more than 1,500 minutes the last two seasons as a professional in Europe. There’s a load of experience on the roster, in other words — just not here at Creighton.
Still, questions remain.
Who’s going to start Friday night, and who will be first off the bench? What about next Saturday against Colorado State? And on November 5 when the season begins for real against South Dakota? The answer might be different to all three.
In Friday’s debut, WBR’s Matt DeMarinis reported last night that Nik Graves, Josh Dix, Blake Harper, Isaac Traudt, and Jasen Green will get the nod. Greg McDermott told him after Thursday’s practice that Jackson McAndrew is dealing with a minor injury that will keep him out of the game, and Owen Freeman isn’t cleared for competition yet.
Traudt obviously wouldn’t be starting over McAndrew if not for the latter being banged up, but he’s had an outstanding fall that has earned him as much playing time as they can carve out, whether it’s off the bench or in the starting five. His shooting has been so hot, it’s often left teammates shaking their heads in disbelief.
“He’s shot the ball at a high, high level, so it’s been fun to watch, and defensively, I think he’s made some strides,” McDermott said Thursday after practice. “Certainly, his communication is at a really high level right now. He’s playing with a ton of confidence, so it’s been fun to see.”
Until Freeman returns, Green and Traudt are likely to split duties at the ‘5’ spot, with freshmen Konan and Dimitrijevic also an option, especially in their two exhibition games. When Traudt is the man in the middle, the Jays would likely employ a five-out offensive style without a traditional big in the paint, while Green brings more of a defensive mentality and ability to be a bruiser.
Beyond Traudt’s shooting performances, it’s been one of the hardest preseasons in memory to get a good read on. In talking to those who’ve been regulars at fall practices, there’s a sense that just when you (or the coaches, for that matter) think they have it figured out, someone has a big couple of practices, someone else regresses a bit, and the equation changes. Add in the fact that most of their summer workouts and fall practices have happened without expected starting center Owen Freeman on the floor, and you’ve got a team that not only isn’t sure who will earn minutes, but a team that also isn’t entirely sure what they’re going to look like, regardless of who’s playing.
That’s especially true defensively, which might be why McDermott has cited his concern for that end of the floor at every opportunity over the last month or so. Last week on the radio with Hurrdat Sports’ Ravi Lulla and Damon Benning, McDermott said as he’s watched their struggles defensively in practice, he’s constantly reminding himself and his staff that they knew this roster wasn’t great on defense coming in.
“We recruited them because they had a high level of skill, and then we’ll figure out (the defensive) part of the floor once they’re here,” McDermott explained. “You know, there’s a lot of ways to build programs. Some coaches want long, they want athletic, they want defenders, and then they’ll figure out how to beat somebody 56 to 54. We’ve chosen the skill route — guys that can handle it, pass it, shoot it, have a high basketball IQ — and then we figure out the defense later.”
They were able to have the best of both worlds, to some extent, over the last four years by surrounding a generational defensive talent in Ryan Kalkbrenner with the same sort of skilled players they’d built the program on previously. Without Kalkbrenner, the heavy drop coverage schemes they primarily ran will go away for the most part, and they aren’t likely to be able to defend elite post players straight-up like they could with Kalkbrenner. That means a return to the style of defense they employed in the Martin Krampelj/Christian Bishop years — sending double-teams into the post when needed and hard-hedging ball screens.
And while it’s unlikely this year’s Jays will be elite on both offense and defense, McDermott said he’s also reminded himself that they had plenty of success with this formula before.
“Some would argue that we didn’t play defense before Kalk, and they’d have a relatively good argument,” he said in that Hurrdat Sports radio segment. “You know, the conference championship team was really elite offensively but we weren’t great defensively.”
Laughing, he said he’d often tell assistant Al Huss, who coordinated the offense on that team, “‘We’ve got to score 85 tonight (to win). I’m just telling you that. So, you know, figure it out.’ And we might be back to that a little.”
He also said he’s reminded himself and his staff that as good as they were defensively last year, they also had to plan their way around size disadvantages (Steven Ashworth) and a lack of experience and strength (McAndrew).
“What we started with oftentimes last year defensively is figuring out the best place to put Steven, because we frankly we had to have him on the floor so we couldn’t put him in a situation where he was going to be in foul trouble,” McDermott said. “There was never a question of him competing and fighting and trying to do everything he could to survive. But his size was obviously a problem at times. So, we kind of started our (defensive) plan with figuring out where to best put him so he didn’t get switched on to an opposing player that was too physical or had too much size.”
So while he has worries and concerns defensively, he’s also excited at the possibilities their versatility will provide them. They’ll be able to switch screens more easily without fear of being on the wrong end of a mismatch; they’ll be able to gameplan based more on skill and less on covering up for size deficiencies. Ashworth stood 6’0” in shoes; Pop Isaacs, who began the season as his backcourt mate, is just 6’2”.
Nik Graves, at 6’2”, is the only expected rotational piece who stands shorter than 6’4” this year. Ty Davis and Austin Swartz are both 6’4”. Josh Dix and Fedor Zugic are 6’6”. Blake Harper and Hudson Greer are 6’7”.
“We have some interchangeable parts that I think can be a little bit disruptive defensively,” McDermott said. “When you build a team defensively, you start with how you guard the post and how you guard a ball screen. But you have to know the strengths of your big guys to be able to do that. And because Owen Freeman has been out really since he’s arrived, we’ve had to throw a lot of stuff at the wall and teach the rest of the roster a lot of different things until we can get him in the lineup and figure out what fits him the best.”
He said their plan is to have the rest of the team well-schooled in multiple different defensive schemes, so that when Freeman is cleared for game action and the staff can figure out where his defensive strengths are, the players around him are ready to adapt.
How well, and how quickly, they figure things out defensively will go a long way toward determining where they end up by March. You can see the two divergent paths on that road in the two biggest predictive metric models. Creighton is #41 on KenPom’s preseason ranking, solidly in bubble team territory, while Bart Torvik’s T-Rank has them at #23, which would have them in contention for a five or six seed in the tourney.
Both predict that the Jays will have an elite offense (12th best offensively according to Torvik, 22nd best on KenPom). But Torvik’s model predicts CU will have the 38th best defense — not elite, but still very solid (for comparison, last year’s team ended 43rd defensively on Torvik). KenPom’s model thinks the Jays’ defense slots in 65th best, which is closer to the 2019-20 team (#78) than it is to last year’s team (#44).
Everyone who’s observed the team this fall believes they will have more than enough offensive firepower to compete most nights. How they fare defensively will determine how good they can be — and as a result, the early edge in the fight for minutes is likely to come down to the players that show the most defensively and earn McDermott’s trust on that end of the floor.
The first chance outside the practice floor to sort out roles comes Friday night, as the Jays welcome 16th-ranked Iowa State. The Cyclones come in with a similar situation as the Jays — last year’s leading scorers Keshon Gilbert and Curtis Jones are now in the NBA, and they’re welcoming nine newcomers (five freshmen, four transfers).
Senior point guard Tamin Lipsey is out with an MCL strain in his right knee. Lipsey has averaged 10.2 points, 4.2 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 2.3 steals per game over a stellar Cyclone career; he’s already the storied program’s leader for most career steals (237).
6’9” senior forward Joshua Jefferson is their leading returning scorer from a year ago after averaging 13.0 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. He tallied 454 points, 259 rebounds, 109 assists, 74 steals and 26 blocks last season, becoming the first Big XII player to record 450+ points, 250+ rebounds, 100+ assists, 70+ steals and 25+ blocks in the same year. Arbitrary cutoffs? Sure. That’s some impressive stat-stuffing nonetheless.
Fifth-year senior guard Nate Heise, a 6’5” sparkplug who played three years for Ben Jacobson at Northern Iowa before transferring to Iowa State last year, led the Cyclones in three-point shooting percentage (40.9%, 27-of-66) despite a limited role off the bench. Junior forward Milan Momcilovic was close behind (39.6%, 63-of-159), averaging 11.5 points and 3.3 rebounds per game.
A pair of top-100 freshmen recruits (Jamarion Batemon and Xzavion Mitchell) are among their new class, and their transfer additions are headlined by Virginia transfer Blake Buchanan (5.4 points and 5.3 rebounds per game a year ago in 32 games, including 22 starts).
Joining him is Dominick Nelson, the reigning WAC Player of the Year. He averaged 14.4 points and 5.2 points per game a year ago, and led Utah Valley to the regular season WAC title. 6’9” bruising forward Eric Mulder joins ISU from Purdue-Fort Wayne, where he was the most efficient two-point shooter in the country last season (78.4%), averaging 8.4 points and 6.7 rebounds per game.
But the obvious question, given that these two teams will meet in a regular season game five weeks from now, is why this game is happening. McDermott and Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger had planned to have their teams compete in a closed-door scrimmage prior to the season once again — they’ve done so each of the last three Octobers — but then the NCAA changed their rules on exhibition games, allowing teams to play twice in front of fans. So in May, they agreed to make it one of their teams’ two exhibition games each of the next two seasons (CU will return the game next preseason in Ames).
And then on July 1 when the Players Era tournament organizers announced the matchups for that event, McDermott and Otzelberger were both frustrated. They talked to the promoters and pleaded them to switch the matchup, but it was too late.
“I guess it’s like playing a conference game; you play a team at home and then you go on the road,” McDermott said Thursday. “And it’s not like T.J. and I don’t know each other’s stuff inside and out anyway.”
Otzelberger said this week that he doesn’t believe in holding anything back just because they’ll see the Bluejays a month from now. “I just think that whatever gives us the best chance to win, do it. And whatever gives us the best chance to win when we play them a month from now, do that. It could be different things both times, but it won’t be because we’re holding back in the first one. We want to force a lot of turnovers. We want to take care of the basketball. We want to win the rebounding battle. When those things happen, we believe that we’ll put ourselves in great position to be successful. So, we want to get started right away doing that tomorrow night. We’re a lot more about the tough guy stuff than trying to overthink it.”
It’s the second straight year Creighton will face a top-25 opponent in an exhibition game, as they beat Purdue 93-87 last October. The Cyclones will be a steep test — they’ve been in the top 15 nationally in forced turnovers every year under Otzelberger, and ranked 13th in adjusted defensive efficiency a year ago. And as hard as it is to believe, ranking 13th made them the worst defensive team of the Otzelberger Era. The Cyclones were #1 in 2023-24, #8 in 2022-23, and #5 in 2021-22. This year’s group is projected by KenPom to finish #2, with a projected defensive efficiency of 89.5.
“Obviously you want to get some guys on the floor and play in front of a crowd and see how they react,” McDermott said Thursday. “We’ll throw a lot of different combinations out there. The most important thing is we get something out of it and nobody gets hurt. We’re going to play a lot of guys, we’re going to do our thing. There are certainly going to be some peaks and valleys to these games because of the amount of new players that we have and guys that are in some different spots, but you also desperately need to play somebody else, so that part of it will be really good for us.”
Otzelberger differs in his approach. There will be very little experimenting and trying out lineup combinations from the Cyclones. He reiterated on Thursday that their mentality simply doesn’t allow for it.
“We approach every single practice to win the drill in front of us, to win what’s right there. And so, we won’t approach this game any differently,” Otzelberger said. “We’re not trying combinations. We’re not experimenting with things. We’re trying to win the next possession. Whatever gives us the best chance to win the next possession is what we’re going to do. And that’s the mindset our guys build and how they practice every single day. That’s never going to change.”
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: Nebraska Public Media
- Announcers: Bill Doleman 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 $7.99)
- Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcer: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Live Stats:
- Forced turnovers have been key for the Cyclones under Otzelberger. Iowa State ranked 15th in the nation in turnover percentage at 21.6 percent of opponent possessions. ISU has been in the Top 15 in the country in each of Otzelberger’s seasons, ranking sixth in 2022 (24.6%), second in 2023 (25%) and second in 2024 (25.3%).
- According to EvanMiya.com, Iowa State led the Big 12 in “Kill Shots” last season, defined as the total number of double digit scoring runs in the season. The Cyclones had 32 two years ago to rank fourth nationally, and were second in the nation last year with 36.
- Greg McDermott is 32-0 in fall exhibition games as a Division I head coach, including an 10-0 mark at UNI, a 7-0 record at Iowa State, and a 15-0 mark at Creighton. All but two of his triumphs have been by double-digits, as the Bluejays have outscored foes by an average of 92.78 – 61.22 in fall exhibition games. Creighton is 56-6 since 1981 in fall exhibition games thanks to 24 straight victories. The only team since 1994 to beat Creighton in an exhibition setting has been Global Sports, which eventually merged and changed their name to EA Sports and had three victories.
- October 17th marks CU’s earliest public exhibition game on the calendar ever by more than a week. The previous earliest start was October 26th, done prior to the 2017-18 season (vs UNO), as well as last year’s game vs Purdue.
- Creighton has won at least one NCAA Tournament game in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. That makes CU one of four teams in the country to have a win in each of the last four NCAA Tournaments, joining Baylor, Gonzaga and Houston. This is the first time that Creighton Basketball has won an NCAA Tournament game in five straight years. The only other CU program in any sport to win an NCAA Tournament game in five straight seasons is Creighton Volleyball (2015-19).
Iowa State owns a 17-15 record all-time against Creighton in games that count, though the Bluejays have won 11-of-19 meetings in Omaha. Creighton has not beaten Iowa State since a 99-94 double overtime win in 1990, however, losing seven straight in a series marked by long streaks. CU won the first eight meetings from 1926-1939, ISU won six in a row between 1951-1954, and CU won four straight and five of six between 1975-1986. The teams last met on Dec. 4, 2021, when No. 19 ISU won 64-58 at CHI Health Center Omaha.
Greg McDermott is 1-6 in his career against Iowa State in games that count, going 1-4 as UNI head coach and 0-2 as CU head coach against the Cyclones. The teams have also played a closed scrimmage each of the previous three seasons, with each of the last two battles being one-possession games.
It’s likely to be a lower-possession, bruising, defensive battle against Iowa State, especially given how Otzelberger is approaching it. Given the exhibition setting, rather than winning or losing it’s far more intriguing to see how the Jays compete against the sort of opponent they’ll see a lot of in the Big East. Are they able to mostly get the shots they want offensively? Or do they allow the Cyclones to knock them off of their spots and disrupt their rhythm? Do they get frustrated and try to force things if that happens? If turnovers snowball and ISU goes on a big run, how do they respond?
The defense has been a big concern, but without Freeman it’s going to be hard to get a read on what things will look like two weeks from now when he hopes to be back in the lineup. Still, how the other players adapt to their hard-hedging, double-teaming-the-post style of defense versus the drop coverage they employed last year will be the most interesting thing to look for. Are they mostly in the right spots, making the right reads? Do their guards give up too much dribble penetration, or are too late on closeouts?
The answers to those questions are far more important than the scoreboard.