Late in the first half of Creighton’s win over Xavier last week, Jasen Green re-aggravated his left shoulder injury and couldn’t return to the floor. Third on the team in scoring (10.8 points per game) and their top rebounder (5.1 rebounds per game), even those numbers undersell Green’s importance. He’s played in 80 games as a Bluejay and knows multiple positions inside-and-out, a three-year veteran who’s developed into a leader. Or as Greg McDermott put it more succinctly after the game, “Jasen quarterbacks our defense. He’s so important to us.”
As the Jays head to Milwaukee to take on Marquette, McDermott had some cautiously optimistic news when he met the media on Monday afternoon. He noted that while Green has been sidelined since the Xavier game, he practiced on Monday and is expected to play against the Golden Eagles.
That’s doubly important because his primary backup, Owen Freeman, is questionable. After missing the Xavier game due to illness, he practiced Sunday and then missed Monday’s practice with what McDermott called a “leg issue.”
While the news on Freeman was discouraging, McDermott had better news about freshman Hudson Greer. He’d played just 17 minutes with six points over three games since returning from his injury. But against Xavier, he scored eight points, including back-to-back threes late in the first half and a dunk in the second half, and looked close to the version of Greer we saw before his injury.
“When he came back he wasn’t in (basketball) shape, you know, when you miss time with a lower body injury, it’s not like you’re on the side running and staying in shape,” McDermott said on Monday. “You have to rest it. He had to stay off of it. He’s getting in better basketball shape, and I think you saw that with some of his quality minutes the other night.”
“I think I’m really close. I honestly feel like I’m there,” Greer said. “I’ve been staying in the gym after hours, getting extra conditioning and getting extra shots up.” In fact, as Hurrdat’s Jacob Padilla tweeted out, Greer went straight from his press conference appearance back onto the floor to get more shots up — even though their flight to Milwaukee was leaving in a couple of hours.
Greer said that during both stints where he wasn’t playing — first when he was redshirting, then when he was injured — he’s tried to learn as much as he could from the sidelines. It shows. Though it’s a very small sample size of eight games, Greer’s defensive rebound rate is 19.1%, second best on the team. And offensively, he’s made 9-of-14 on two-pointers (64.3%) and 8-of-15 on threes (53.3%).
“Things happen, injuries happen, illnesses happen,” McDermott said when asked about a roster that has been in flux seemingly since fall practice began. “You’ve got to be ready for about anything and this year has certainly been a get ready for anything type of year.”
He joked that he’d love to bring Trey Alexander or Steven Ashworth back as late-season additions, like Alabama did with Charles Bediako. In 2023 Bediako signed a two-way contract with San Antonio as an undrafted free agent, and though he did not play in the NBA, he did play in the G-League. But because he did not exhaust his collegiate eligibility, he sued the NCAA to return to the Crimson Tide and got an injunction last week allowing him to do so.
Beyond the fact that it was clearly tongue-in-cheek, those two former Bluejays’ situations are very different from Bediako. Alexander had one year of eligibility remaining when he turned pro, but has appeared in 29 NBA games for Denver and New Orleans; Ashworth didn’t appear in an NBA game for Indiana before departing to play overseas, but already played five years in college (four plus his COVID season).
“Nobody really knows what the rules are. So, I don’t fault any coach that’s doing something within the rules and, you know, clearly it sounds like it’s been within the rules,” McDermott said of the Bediako situation. “We have European guys that played professionally and had contracts and had to go through a vetting process to gain their eligibility. And my guess is the guys that you’ve read about nationally from the G-League have had to do the same thing.”
***
Certainly in the second half against Xavier when freshman Kerem Konan was the primary center, the Jays’ defense struggled. But even with Jasen Green on the floor, Creighton’s defense has taken a sharp turn for the worse in January. In the win over Xavier, they gave up 90 or more points for the third time in four games (and they gave up 83 in the fourth game of that stretch). Their adjusted defensive efficiency has dropped from 42nd to 87th in less than three weeks.
“You name it. It’s just about everything,” McDermott said on Monday when he was asked if anything specific jumps out to him on film. “There’s a breakdown virtually every possession and it’s a different guy in a different situation almost every time. We plug one hole and another one spouts. But I think we’ve had a couple pretty good days of practice, so hopefully we’re moving the right direction.”
That’s not where you want to be heading into a pivotal week. Hanging on to the fringes of the NCAA Tournament bubble, CU plays a road game at Marquette followed a home game with UConn on Saturday. They really need to win both to keep whatever slim hopes remain of making it into the tourney, but a loss to Marquette would be especially damaging. The problem is that although Marquette’s record and metrics show them to be the worst team in the league, the Golden Eagles are a talented team capable of winning every night. If they manage to figure out how to do that, they could play spoiler for a bunch of the league’s teams — including Creighton.
It’s easy to forget now that their season has cratered, but Marquette came into the season predicted to finish fifth in the preseason Big East poll. Their preseason KenPom rating was #47. Those expectations were based largely on the belief that their defense would be elite; their Adjusted Defensive Efficiency was predicted to be 95.1 by KenPom, or 27th best in the country. On January 27, it sits 12.4 points worse than that per 100 possessions, at 107.5 (ranking 127th). To overcome that sort of underperformance, you’d need the offense to similarly overperform to compete, and instead it’s been pretty much exactly as expected. KenPom predicted their Adjusted Offensive Efficiency to be 111.1, and it’s currently 111.4.
And so after 21 games, the Golden Eagles sit at 7-14, winners of just two games since December 2, both by a single point (66-65 against Xavier, 105-104 against Providence). If the season ended today, they’d be seeded dead last in the Big East Tournament.
“Georgetown and Marquette are down right now but I think there’s a lot of talent on both those basketball teams,” McDermott said. “Nigel James is playing at a really high level, averaging 20 a game in conference play. Chase Ross is, you know, still very very talented. So they have a lot of pieces. They’ve lost a lot of close games. And they’re especially good at home.”
Ross leads the team in scoring overall at 15.6 points, but has fallen off a bit since Big East play started. He’s averaging 12.3 points in league play. He’s struggled to make baskets from everywhere; while he struggled in the non-conference, he’s been atrocious in Big East play. Ross is shooting 7-of-41 (17.1%) from three in 10 games, and 43-of-127 overall (33.9%). Ouch. CU got a first-hand look at that in December, when Ross shot 3-of-13 in Omaha en route to nine points. At the time, it was just his second game in single digits. But more than that, he also couldn’t find the space to create shots for his teammates — Ross came in averaging 3.5 assists per game and had zero in that game. His introduction to Josh Dix, Defensive Stopper was unpleasant.
James has gone the other direction. He averages 15.1 points, 4.6 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game for the season, but in Big East games, he’s averaging 19.6 points, 5.6 assists and 3.2 rebounds. He’s upped his three-point shooting from 40.8% to 48.9% (23-of-47). And he’s coming off a week where he averaged 26.5 points, 8.0 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 steals against Providence and Butler. He combined to shoot 64.5 percent (20-of-31) from the field overall and 5-of-9 (55.6 percent) from behind the 3-point line in 39.5 minutes per night. His week was highlighted by a Marquette freshman single-game record 38 points against the Friars. And like Ross, CU got a first-hand look in the earlier meeting. He scored 23 points with six rebounds, four steals and three assists.
6’8” Royce Parham moved into the starting lineup the game before these two teams met the first time, and at that point his season had been inconsistent. He’d scored 12 and 19 in the two games prior to visiting Omaha; he had three on just three shots here. But since then, he’s scored in double figures all but twice, and comes in averaging 10.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. In Big East play, he’s shooting 37-of-61 inside the arc (60.7%), and in the team’s two games last week, he averaged 16.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.5 blocked shots per contest, including a career-best four swats against Providence.
6’11” senior Ben Gold had started every game before that, but it didn’t turn into a one-for-one swap; depending on the matchup they’ve started Gold and Parham together four times, and they’ve played together roughly 30% of the team’s minutes. Gold complements Parham relatively well, as a stretch five who’s a pure shooter that pulls opposing bigs out of the paint.
While their overall defense has been mediocre, the one area Marquette remains elite in is forcing turnovers. They’ve come up with a steal on 12.9% of opponent’s possessions, 20th most in D1 and first in the Big East. They’ve turned opponents over on 18.9% of possessions. In the first meeting, CU had 12 turnovers but Marquette only converted them into eight points. That will be crucial again in the rematch.
“We have to care of the basketball. You know, Marquette thrives on live ball turnovers,” McDermott said. “They try to disrupt your offense with their defensive activity. That really cost us the Providence game. Our turnovers led to easy baskets. We’re going to have to do a better job there.”
Tip: 8:30pm
Venue: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, WI
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Nigel James’ 38-point game last week was the most by a MU true freshman since Markus Howard scored 34 against Xavier on Feb. 18, 2017. It was the most by a Big East player this season and is the most since Xavier’s Ryan Conwell had 38 against Marquette on March 13, 2025. It is also the most points by a Big East freshman since UConn’s Liam McNeeley had 38 at Creighton on Feb. 11, 2025.
Creighton is 4-3 all-time inside Fiserv Forum, while Marquette is 95-23 against all other teams there. Besides Creighton’s four wins, the only other visiting team to defeat MU at Fiserv Forum four times is UConn.
After opening league play with lopsided wins by 41 and 21 points, each of Creighton’s last four league victories have come by four points or less. The only other time Creighton has had four league wins in a row all by four points or less was during the 2009-10 campaign as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.
And finally, courtesy of Rob Anderson, some not-so-fun facts about the Jays’ defensive struggles:
- Xavier’s 93 points last week were the most points CU has ever surrendered in a conference victory that didn’t go to overtime. The Jays had been 0-18 in program history when allowing 93+ points in a non-overtime league contest.
- It was just the fourth time under Greg McDermott that Creighton allowed 54+ points in one half of an eventual Bluejay victory. It also happened on Jan. 27, 2021 (54 in first half by Seton Hall), Dec. 7, 2019 (54 in 2nd half by Nebraska) and Jan. 12, 2014 (54 in 2nd half by Xavier).
- Creighton has allowed 93 points or more in back-to-back games for the first time since Dec. 1 and Dec. 8, 2018. CU has not allowed 93 or more points in three straight games in almost 60 years (since Feb. 19-26, 1968).
- Creighton has allowed 83 points or more in four straight conference games for the first time ever. The last time CU allowed 83 points or more in four straight games (including non-conference play) was Dec. 12-29, 1987, when it did so in five games in a row.
- Creighton has allowed 90 points or more at least three times in a four-game span for the first time since Dec. 11, 13 and 22 of 1971.
Marquette leads the 103-year old series with Creighton by a 60-42 margin, but Creighton has won 10 of the past 15 meetings. That includes CU’s 84-63 win in Omaha on December 20th. Tuesday will be the 103rd all-time meeting, making Marquette just the third different opponent that Creighton has faced 100 times or more, joining its 153 meetings vs. Drake and its 100 match-ups with Wichita State.
Creighton is 14-12 against MU since the teams became Big East rivals, but the road team is 12-13 in those match-ups (CU is 6-6 in Milwaukee; MU is 6-7 in Omaha).
The Jays buried Marquette in a hurry in December, with a 25-2 run over 3:32 where Nik Graves scored 17 of the 25 points. It included an Ethan Wragge-esque spurt where he made three 3’s in 40 seconds, each more ridiculous than the last.
Nik Graves was scalding hot last night. How about 3 triples in 50 seconds for Creighton? This was wild: pic.twitter.com/6bhzj2kEdH
— John Fanta (@John_Fanta) December 21, 2025
On January 27, 2021 Creighton staged one of the most improbable comebacks in program history. Trailing Seton Hall by 16 points with 11:30 to go in Newark, and still behind by double-digits with six minutes left, Mitch Ballock made 5-of-6 shots down the stretch including the game-winner with 37 seconds to go.
With 38 seconds left and Marcus Zegarowski handling the ball, Ballock faked a ball screen — then ran to an open space, caught the ball, and sank his seventh 3-pointer of the game. Watch Ballock after the shot, too; like Zegarowski had on his three moments earlier, instead of celebrating, he ran back on defense and helped get his teammates in position. With the Pirates out of timeouts, that proved critical. They had three tries at three-pointers to tie it. All were heavily contested. All missed badly. And the Jays somehow, someway, stole a win.
“I told the guys after we lost a couple of games that we probably shouldn’t have, that now we have to go win one we’re not supposed to,” McDermott said after the game. “Their response to me was, ‘Coach, we expect to win them all.’ And you want that response, but tonight was one where we didn’t play our best for a long period of time, we snuck back into it, and we stole it.”
Vegas pegs Creighton as slight favorites (1.5 points), while KenPom and Torvik both predict a three-point Bluejay win. Marquette certainly has the firepower to keep the game close, and it doesn’t take much to imagine scenarios where CU drops this one. Ultimately, the Jays’ defense is just slightly better, and in a game where one team or the other is likely to need a couple of stops late, they’re more likely to do it.
Creighton 81, Marquette 76