Creighton has played three games against outside competition (a closed door scrimmage with Iowa State, an exhibition with Purdue, and Wednesday’s opener against UTRGV). In those three games, they’ve scored 82, 93, and 99 points — there’s room for improvement, but at this early stage of the season not a lot to complain about.
The defense is another story. They’ve allowed 83, 87 and 86 points in those three games, and saw UTRGV make 14 threes against them on Wednesday — they were late on closeouts, out of position on rotations, and simply played poor fundamental defense on the perimeter. Add in the fact that CU had done a full scouting report and prep for UTRGV, drilling their players on the importance of running them off the line and forcing them to take shots tough twos — only to see a lack of execution — and you had a very frustrated staff.
Greg McDermott called it “disappointing,” and noted that while there were a couple of threes that took fortunate bounces or went in despite being well-challenged, more of them were the result of a breakdown in execution on things they’d hammered in film study and practice.
“Those are the frustrating ones,” he said.
“I think we probably felt pretty good about the Purdue game, deservedly so because we did some really good things, but defensively, there were some warts,” McDermott added. “Are you mature enough to learn from victory? When you get smacked in the face and you get beat, then your eyes are wide open. But are we mature enough and are we to the point where we can watch film and learn the same in victory as we can in defeat? That’s going to determine our progression.”
Steven Ashworth agreed, and said it really comes down to toughness. “We’ve got to be tougher mentally, we’ve got to be tougher physically,” he said. “Also, we have to recognize who we have back there and where we can be a little bit more tough on the perimeter. We have the 3-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year waiting for them if they get past us. That all comes with watching the film to see places where we can increase that toughness.”
Getting Pop Isaacs back on the floor will certainly help. The Texas Tech transfer missed Wednesday’s game with an undisclosed minor injury. McDermott didn’t seem worried about it after the UTRGV game, saying he was cautiously optimistic Isaacs would play on Sunday.
“It’s a time of the year that if you have something that’s lingering, it’s probably time to take care of it so it doesn’t linger all year,” McDermott said. “Obviously, he’s our secondary ball handler, especially with the starting lineup, and that’s probably why we went with Ty (Davis) as much as we did just to give us another ball handler out there. We need someone that can operate in space and operate in ball screens and push it in transition. Pop’s good at all those things, so we have to get him healthy. That’s the most important thing.”
Two weeks from now, Nebraska visits and will provide their next real test against an opponent with postseason aspirations. In the meantime, three games against rebuilding mid-majors remain — it’s imperative that the Jays use these games to grow and improve. Because once November 22 rolls around, just two of the 27 remaining games come against an opponent ranked 100 or worse by KenPom — the two games against DePaul.
Next up is Fairleigh Dickinson, or simply “FDU” as they not-so-subtly ask everyone to refer to them in their media notes. FDU is two years removed from a Cinderella turn in the NCAA Tournament; you might recall the 16th-seeded Knights taking down top-seeded Purdue 63-58 to become just the second-ever 16 to beat a 1. The entire coaching staff and almost the entire roster are new since then, however, and they’re coming off a 15-17 campaign where they missed the postseason.
The one player who does return is senior Cameron Tweedy, who missed last season due to injury. In a sixth-man role, the 6’6” forward has provided a spark off the bench — they’re hopeful he can return to his pre-injury form, as he scored 10 points and had six rebounds in the upset of Purdue.
This year’s group is undersized, with their tallest starter standing 6’8” and their tallest rotational player just 6’10”. They do take a lot of threes, though not as many as UTRGV (54.7% of UTRGV’s shots have been threes through two games, or 23rd most in D1; FDU has taken 43.4% of their shots from deep, 99th most). But more importantly when it comes to how Creighton defends them, their two primary big men almost never attempt a three-pointer, much less make enough of them to take CU out of their drop-coverage packages.
Their starting center, 6’8” 220-pound Bismark Nsiah, is a transfer from DII Jefferson College. He averaged 11.5 points and 6.3 rebounds a game last year for a Jefferson team that won their conference and advanced to the DII NCAA Tournament. In their season opener at Miami (FL), Nsiah was fairly ineffective — he played just 18 minutes and scored six points with one rebound and three turnovers. He also struggled to guard Miami’s center Lynn Kidd, who scored 24 on 10-of-11 shooting and grabbed nine boards in just 26 minutes. Had the score been closer than 113-72, Kidd might have had a line that looked something like Ryan Kalkbrenner’s for CU.
His backup is 6’10”, 210-pound Jacob Warren, who didn’t fare much better defensively against Miami. Warren came off the bench in all 32 games for FDU a year ago and showed a decent shooting touch in a limited role, making 18-of-37 inside the arc (48.6%).
FDU’s backcourt is led by 6’3” Terrence Brown, a slashing guard who started 17 games as a freshman and averaged 10.2 points per night in NEC play. He hung 21 on Miami and made 8-of-14 from the floor, primarily off the dribble inside the arc. Brown will take threes — he made 4-of-6 against DIII Purchase College on Thursday — but against D1 opponents a year ago he was just 17-of-67 (25.4%) from long range.
Junior forward Jo’el Emanuel earned a spot on the All-NEC Preseason Team after a breakout season where he averaged 10.6 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. Like Brown, he’ll take threes (he was 14-of-53, or 26.4% a year ago) but he’s better in the paint. The 6’6” Emanuel took 56.8% of his shots at the rim a year ago, many of them second-chance opportunities as he grabbed an offensive board on a remarkable 8.8% of his team’s missed shots. That was on display against Miami, as he made 5-of-6 shots inside the arc and scored 13 points with five boards (two offensive).
6’5” Dylan Jones is a JuCo transfer from Snow College in Utah, where he made 40% of his three-pointers. He’s picked right up where he left off, making 8-of-18 (44.4%) through two games at FDU including 5-of-10 at Miami. For a Creighton team that has struggled to defend the perimeter so far, knowing where Jones is at all times has to be Job #1.
6’3” Ahmed “Tyree” Barba-Bey played at DII Jefferson College with Nsiah, and transferred to FDU with him. Last year he averaged 13.8 points and 5.2 rebounds, and had a well-rounded game — he was 112-of-200 on two-pointers (56.0%) and 56-of-175 on threes (32.0%). He shares time with 6’1” junior Brayden Reynolds, a slasher and defensive specialist who comes off the bench as an energy guy.
Tip: 4:00pm
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FDU was picked third in the 2024-25 NEC Men’s Basketball Preseason Poll. The Knights are slated to finish behind Wagner and Central Connecticut, who tied for first.
FDU will be battle-tested in the non-conference slate this season, with several high level games on their schedule. The Knights will travel to Miami, Creighton, Nebraska, LaSalle, Villanova, Minnesota, and Boston College before conference play begins in January.
Miami’s 113 points vs FDU came on 66.7% (46 of 69) came largely by dominating the Knights in the paint with 66 points (33 field goals), including making 27 of 36 layups or dunks.
Ryan Kalkbrenner has now scored in double-figures in 23 straight games and has a block in 15 straight games. And with 1,820 career points, he’s now passed Kyle Korver (1,801) for the sixth-most career points in program history.
Kalkbrenner is the first Bluejay with 40+ points and 10+ rebounds in the same game since Chad Gallagher had 40 points and 11 rebounds vs. Wichita State on Feb. 17, 1990. And just for fun: the only Creighton player to score 40+ points in consecutive games is Benoit Benjamin, who in 1985 had 43 points vs. Southern Illinois on Jan. 17, then added 45 two days later vs. Indiana State. The only Bluejay since 1991 to score 30 points in consecutive gams is Doug McDermott, who had four such streaks.
Steven Ashworth has now made 35 consecutive free throws, tied for the third-longest streak in program history according to available records. The longest streak belongs to Doug McDermott (45 from Dec. 1, 2013 to Jan. 4, 2014), while Booker Woodfox made 36 in a row from Dec. 6, 2008 to Jan. 6, 2009. Ashworth’s 35 in a row is tied with Bob Portman for third. On Wednesday, he became Creighton’s first player with at least 25 points, seven rebounds and seven assists in the same game since Ryan Sears had 25 points, eight rebounds and eight assists vs. Southern Illinois on Jan. 8, 1999.
Creighton has never met FDU, and neither has Greg McDermott. He is 3-0 against teams from the NEC, though, defeating Chicago State once in 2011 with Creighton, and Wagner twice (2004 with Northern Iowa and 2016 with Creighton).
CU has played on November 10 just twice in the regular season: a 96-61 win over North Dakota in 2022, and a 92-76 win over Yale in the 2017-18 season opener.
In that game against Yale, Creighton wasted little time settling in. They made eight of their first 12 baskets, including back-to-back threes from Khyri Thomas and Toby Hegner — both assisted by Marcus Foster — to begin the night. The last of those eight made baskets in the opening salvo was this gem from Foster where he was simply stronger than Yale’s defender:
Later in the half, freshman Mitch Ballock started a fast break by grabbing a rebound and feeding it to Mintz in transition, who found Martin Krampelj streaking down the floor; Krampelj slammed home this dunk:
Ballock’s first points in his CU career came next on a three:
And then Thomas scored seven straight points on an array of moves in the paint and beyond the arc to extend the Jays’ lead.
The Bottom Line:
The Vegas line had not yet posted when we published; KenPom predicts a 33-point Creighton win and ESPN’s BPI gives CU 99% odds of victory.
FDU is likely to have many of the same problems defending Ryan Kalkbrenner that UTRGV did, without the ability to go with a five-out lineup on the other end to somewhat offset it. There’s concerns defensively for CU that have been able to be explained away somewhat, but if FDU hangs around in this one and scores 80+ like the Jays’ first three opponents have, that will no longer be the case.
I think Creighton takes care of business in this one.
Creighton 103, FDU