Three days after a big win on the road against #14 UConn, Creighton continues their road trip Tuesday night in Chicago against DePaul. There’s a temptation to look at DePaul’s record (10-9, 1-7 in the Big East) and, combined with a 39-game regular season losing streak in Big East play that they snapped last week, assume this is the same old DePaul. You know, the one Creighton has defeated 20 times in a row, including all 11 meetings in the Windy City since joining the Big East.
That would be a mistake.
With former Butler and Ohio State head coach Chris Holtmann now at the helm, the Blue Demons are a more formidable team than their record indicates — and the program is finally expending the resources needed to be competitive. Holtmann’s veteran staff is full of former head coaches, including Brian Mullins (who coached SIU for five years), Jack Owens (longtime Purdue assistant who coached Miami Ohio for five years — and LaVall Jordan, the guy Butler hired to replace Holtmann when he left for Ohio State.
That staff literally started from scratch, with DePaul’s entire roster departing after last season. For better or worse, the 2024-25 Blue Demons feature 14 new players and seven new coaches, none of whom carry any emotional baggage from last year’s 3-29 train wreck or the struggles from the seasons before it.
Three of their seven Big East losses have come in overtime, to Providence, Seton Hall and #7 Marquette. And now that they’ve snapped that 39-game Big East losing streak and won a conference game for the first time in 730 days, they can finally move forward.
Among the 14 new players, Jacob Meyer (13.6 ppg.), CJ Gunn (11.5 ppg.) and Isaiah Rivera (10.1 ppg.) have emerged as the leading scorers. The Blue Demons have established an offensive identity as a team full of shooters who can get hot from three-point range. They rank 13th in D1 with an average of 10.7 made three-pointers per game, and have made 10 or more in 13 of their 18 games. Their 203 made three-pointers are the most in the Big East.
48.4% of their total shots have been threes, and they’ve made them at a 37.6% clip. But as Bluejay fans know all too well, when you’re that reliant on the three, you have to live with the ebbs and flows — there’s going to be games where you seemingly can’t miss (like against Wichita State, where they set a new program record with 17 made threes), and games where nothing goes in (like against Villanova, where they were 7-of-27 from three in a 100-56 loss).
The trio of Meyer, Gunn and Rivera have made 113 of the Blue Demons’ 203 made threes. Rivera is a career 41.8% shooter from three-point range (17th best among active players) and David Skogman, their 6’11” center, is at 41.0% (28th). DePaul is the only school in the country to have two players in the top 30, and Texas Tech is the only other school to even have two players in the top 50.
That presents problems for opposing defenses because DePaul can spread the floor with shooters — a problem compounded by the fact that DePaul shares the ball well and doesn’t turn it over much. They average 17.2 assists per game, 25th most in D1 and second in the Big East, and have an assist on 63.2% of made baskets, which is fourth nationally. And for Creighton in particular, Skogman’s ability to stretch the floor will force them to make a decision with Ryan Kalkbrenner, who would ordinarily be the primary defender on him.
Meyer is a 6’2” sophomore who started his career at Coastal Carolina, where he led them in assists (78) and averaged 15.7 points and 5.1 rebounds per game, while shooting 40% from three. He had a streak of 24 straight games with double-digit scoring that was snapped on Dec. 17, 2024; at the time it ranked third in the Big East behind Eric Dixon and Kam Jones and was the ninth-longest active streak nationwide. Holtmann described him as a player who’s “wired to score points”, and indeed, he’s been in double figures in 44 of the 49 games he’s played in college, including 17 of 19 for DePaul this year.
Gunn is a long, athletic 6’6” wing who played two years at Indiana and was a four-star recruit out of high school. He shot 34% from three-point range a year ago off the bench for the Hoosiers, and averaged just over a steal per game. He’s been a reliable scorer for DePaul, and had 21 against Marquette (though he was 3-of-10 on threes, he was 6-of-11 inside the arc), 21 against Seton Hall, 17 at Georgetown and 16 against Xavier.
Their third player in double figures, Rivera, is a 6’5” grad transfer who played at both Colorado State and UIC. He averaged 8.6 points and 3.7 rebounds as a junior at Colorado State, and then 14.7 points per game and 4.2 boards last year after returning home to play for the Flames — Rivera is a native of Geneso, Illinois. He’s shooting 45.2% from three-point range (42-of-93) so far this year, and did his best Reggie Miller impression against Marquette, making four 3-pointers in 43 seconds during the overtime period.
Point guard Conor Enright started all 33 games for Drake in 2023-24 as the Bulldogs won their second-consecutive Missouri Valley Conference Tournament title, advancing to the NCAA Tournament. He averaged 6.9 points, 3.2 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 steals for Darian DeVries’ Bulldogs, and has doubled his assists per game for DePaul, averaging 6.7 assists so far this year to rank 11th nationally and second in the Big East. Enright has recorded five or more assists in 14 games this season, including nine with 8 or more. His assist rate is 39.3, ranking 14th nationally and second in the league behind Kam Jones.
In the middle, NJ Benson and David Skogland get the bulk of the minutes. As a starter, Benson is averaging 11.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.0 blocks, 1.2 assists and 1.0 steals per game; overall he’s averaging 8.5 points and 5.8 rebounds. Playing for Missouri State last year, he led the MVC in offensive rebounding and was second in blocks. Skoglund, meanwhile, is a sixth-year senior with the ability to stretch the floor. The two compliment each other well, and give opponents two totally different styles to gameplan for.
So how have they struggled to win? Well, defensively, DePaul has been a mess. In league games, their adjusted defensive efficiency ranks 10th of 11 teams at 117.9. They’ve allowed opponents to shoot 41.5% from three (11th), 53.8% from two (9th), with an effective field goal percentage of 57.1 (10th). They don’t block many shots (7.6%, 9th), don’t come up with steals (7.2%, 9th) and have allowed an offensive rebound on 32.1% of missed shots (11th). Perhaps the lone bright spot has been drawing charges: DePaul’s defense has drawn a total of 26 offensive fouls this season, 17 of which have been drawn by Conor Enright. No other player on DePaul’s roster has more than two, and Enright’s 17 are believed to be among the highest in the country (it’s not an officially tracked stat.)
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Ill.
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Chris Vosters and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: Cox channel 78 (SD), 1078 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 620 (SD), 1620 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: FS1 Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 219, Dish Network channel 150
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcer: Connor Happer
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 384 as well as on the SiriusXM App
The Blue Demons bench is averaging 30.11 points per game which ranks 28th nationally and leads all BIG EAST schools. DePaul’s bench has outscored its starters in five games this season, including at St. John’s. Jacob Meyer had been DePaul’s leading scorer off the bench, before moving into the starting lineup against Providence.
DePaul’s wins against Prairie View A&M and Mercer were the first back-to-back 30-point wins in a quarter of a century, dating back to the 1999-2000 season. four wins this season by 25 or more points, the most 25+ wins in a season for the Blue Demons since 2006-07
Holtmann returns to the Big East this season where he took Butler to a Sweet Sixteen and had a 70-31 record in 3 season
John Bishop’s streak of 393 straight games on the mic for Bluejay Radio ends tonight, as the vocal ailment that appeared during Saturday’s call at UConn is still bothering him. Connor Happer will be in Chicago on the call for the Jays in his place.
Creighton is 3-1 since the calendar turned to 2025, continuing a recent trend of January success. CU was 7-1 in January last year, 5-2 in 2022-23, 3-4 in 2021-22, 6-2 in 2020-21 and 5-3 in 2019-20 in the month of January. That gives Creighton a league-best 15-4 record in the past three seasons in January, as well as a 29-13 mark in the first month of the year in the past six seasons.
Ryan Kalkbrenner (17.7) and Steven Ashworth (17.0) have played in a combined 300 collegiate games, and they’ve used that experience to make Creighton one of three Power 5 teams nationally with multiple players averaging 17.0 points per game or more. Northwestern (Brooks Barnhizer & Nick Martinelli) and Rutgers (Ace Bailey & Dylan Harper) are the only other two Power 5 teams that can say that.
Creighton has won 25 of the last 26 meetings (including 20 straight) with DePaul to take a 30-16 lead in the all-time series.
Creighton is 23-1 in the series since joining the BIG EAST, and 11-0 in Chicago since joining the league. Twenty-two of the last 24 meetings in the series have been decided by double-figures.
On January 21, 2012, Creighton rolled over Indiana State 75-49 in front of a national TV audience on ESPN2. From Ott’s recap:
“The afternoon set up well for star sophomore Doug McDermott to introduce his game to a national television audience. ESPN2 was in the house, ready to heap praise on McDermott. But the Sycamores decided to force Creighton players other than Dougie Fresh to beat them, hounding McDermott with double and triple teams. ISU held him to a season-low 12 points and forced him to commit 3 turnovers. But McDermott helped in other ways, by grabbing 11 rebounds for the second time in three games and swinging the ball away from him and toward open shooters. His teammates did the rest.
If casual basketball fans tuned in to watch McDermott and get a feel for how the sophomore All American candidate can take over a game, they instead saw the real reason the Bluejays might be a tough out come March. The Jays spread the ball around beautifully, assisting 17 times on 24 made field goals while turning it over just 10 times. Seven of Creighton’s 14 first half field goals came from beyond the three-point arc, as the Bluejays effectively buried the Sycamores in an avalanche of long-range shooting. Jahenns Manigat, Josh Jones, and Ethan Wragge each made two treys in the first half, while Grant Gibbs added one, and CU headed to the break up 42-25. An 8-minute dry spell late in the game cost Creighton a chance to truly decimate the Sycamores (the Jays only scored 7 points from the 8:40 mark until Taylor Stormberg hit a shot with less than a minute to play), but by then the afternoon had taken on the feel of an early season non-conference game against a cupcake opponent. It was anything but a trap; in fact, the outcome and the way the Bluejays got there probably serves as more frightening to opponents than would a career night by McDermott.”
The Bottom Line:
Creighton is favored by 6.5 in Vegas, with 76.6% odds of victory according to ESPN’s BPI. KenPom predicts a five-point win with 69% odds of winning.
Bluejays 79, Blue Demons 71