Creighton has had two coaches over the last 31 years. Dana Altman won 327 games in 16 seasons, bringing the program back from the dead and building the foundation of Bluejay hoops as we know it. Greg McDermott has now matched his 327 wins, taking the Jays to new heights in the Big East and March Madness.
That’s no small feat — even sustaining the kind of success Altman had is hard for a program to do. Look no further than the current state of Villanova’s program for evidence of that, with Kyle Neptune’s third Wildcat squad stumbling out of the gate after his first two teams were far from the championship standard set by Jay Wright. That sort of falloff after a legendary coach departs is far more common that what CU has enjoyed.
In fact, as the OWH’s Jon Walker pointed out in Wednesday’s paper, only four power conference schools have ever had two consecutive coaches each win 300+ games: Kansas (Roy Williams and Bill Self), Michigan State (Jud Heathcoat and Tom Izzo), Purdue (Gene Keady and Matt Painter) — and Creighton. That’s it. That’s the list.
Here’s what’s really nuts: McDermott oversaw the move to the Big East and a massive step up in competition, and yet his .671 winning percentage is still Creighton’s best since Arthur A. Schabinger’s .714 win rate more than 85 years ago (though in fairness, Altman’s winning percentage would almost certainly be higher than .650 if he hadn’t spent two years clearing the wreckage of the Rick Johnson era that he inherited.)
Altman and McDermott’s 654 combined wins represent 38.4% of Creighton’s total wins in program history (1,699). McDermott alone is responsible for nearly 20% of CU’s wins (19.2%). Mac is 11-9 as Creighton’s head coach in the NCAA Tournament, and 19-13 in the postseason. All other CU coaches are a combined 8-17 in the NCAA Tournament and 17-29 in the postseason.
And with a win tonight, McDermott will stand alone as the winningest coach in Creighton history.
“Yeah, it’s really hard to believe,” McDermott said on his postgame radio interview after Sunday’s win. “Mostly because 15 years went pretty fast. It’s a credit to this community that we’ve had only two coaches in 31 years. You know, it’s a place you can call home right away. I know Dana felt that way, and it was hard for him to leave, and there’s a reason I’m still here. It’s a great place to live, and Creighton’s a wonderful institution, a great place to work. And you know, if you hang around long enough, you’re either gonna get fired or you’re gonna win a few games, and I’ve been fortunate to have some pretty good players…and we’ve won a few games.”
Speaking of long-tenured coaches, the opponent tonight is Houston Christian, who have a new head coach for the first time in 33 years. Ron Cottrell won 524 games from 1991-2024 at HCU, winning nine conference titles and advancing to ten national tournaments before guiding the program during its transition from the NAIA ranks back to NCAA Division 1 in 2007.
Craig Doty is now leading the program after winning three national titles — two at junior college Rock Valley (Illinois), and one at NAIA Graceland (Iowa). He then won 97 games in six years at DII Emporia State, coaching 12 players who’ve gone on to play professionally. It’s an impressive track record, no doubt.
His first HCU team comes to Omaha on the heels of a 90-59 loss at #19 Texas on Friday night. They gave the Longhorns a battle for 20 minutes, trailing 42-35 the half before UT opened the second on a 24-2 run to break the game open.
Their win came over NAIA Avila College last Monday, meaning that their last win over a D1 team came on February 10 of last season — a three-point win over Incarnate Word. KenPom’s metrics are so unimpressed with this year’s version of the Huskies that they’re ranked 357th out of 364 D1 teams in his rankings.
Their roster has 11 newcomers, including eight who transferred from other D1 schools. The Huskies’ tallest rotational player is just 6’7”, so it will interesting to see how they opt to defend Ryan Kalkbrenner. A similarly undersized UTRGV team stubbornly refused to double-team or trap him for most of the night, and he had a historic scoring night with 49 points. If HCU follows that same gameplan, it could be another huge night for Kalkbrenner. If they opt to send help, there will be open shots elsewhere.
As such, they often play a five-out lineup offensively — a whopping 58.8% of their shots through two games have been three-pointers. They were 10-of-30 at Texas, and 9-of-35 against Avila. So this will be a great measuring stick to see if Creighton can improve against that type of lineup, after struggling to defend UTRGV a week ago.
Offensively, Julian Mackey and Bryson Dawkins both average 15.5 points per game and are the only two HCU players averaging more than six points per game.
Mackey, a 6’2” senior guard who played at Georgia State a year ago, scored 20 points in the loss at Texas on 6-of-12 shooting (including 3-of-6 from three-point range). That’s an outlier — he’s made as many as three 3’s in a game just once in 2+ DI seasons, and was just 16-of-62 (25.8%) on threes a year ago. He was also 1-of-7 on threes against NAIA Avila last Monday.
Dawkins is a 6’3” guard who played last at North Alabama, and he scored HCU’s first nine points in the game at Texas en route to 13 total. He had a career-high 18 against Avila, and has had an impressive start to his time with the Huskies.
A pair of Lincoln, NE natives will get the start tonight as brothers Porter and Pierce Bazil play their first collegiate game in their home state. Porter is their tallest player at 6’7” and has matched up defensively against opposing centers; playing in their five-out lineup he took five 3’s against Texas and made a pair. Pierce is a 6’2” guard who scored 10 points in the opener against Avila off the bench.
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler 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
- Announcers: John Bishop and Tyler Clement
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 84 as well as on the SiriusXM App
HCU has three players that the Jays have seen before. Demari Williams spent the 2021-22 season at Arizona State, where he was a teammate of Creighton’s Jamiya Neal; they beat CU 58-57 on Dec. 14, 2021 inside CHI Health Center Omaha. Ajhany Lee made his collegiate debut inside CHI Health Center Omaha on Nov. 7, 2022 as a member of the University of St. Thomas, and had two points and two rebounds in 16 minutes in a 72-60 Bluejay win. And Elijah Brooks started and played 27 minutes for North Dakota against Creighton on Nov. 10, 2022, logging eight points, five rebounds and three assists as he made 4-of-7 shots from the field.
With the Bazil brothers starting, Julian Mackey and Trent Johnson (a 6’6” forward) will come off the bench. Johnson is a senior who played at Idaho State a year ago, and can stretch the floor — just under half of his shot attempts have been threes in his career, and he’s made 26.5% of them.
6’6” senior Peyton Rogers followed his head coach Craig Doty to HCU after playing for him at Emporia State. Rogers leads the Huskies with 10 rebounds on the year, coming off the bench in both games.
Steven Ashworth owns 40 points, 16 assists and 12 rebounds through two games this season. The only other Bluejay with those figures in any two-game span since 2005-06 was Trey Alexander last November, who had 43 points, 17 assists and 18 rebounds in wins over Iowa and Texas Southern last November.
Ryan Kalkbrenner is shooting 90.6 percent from the field through two games. The only two other major conference players since 1996-97 to shoot 80 percent or better from the floor (min 25 FGA) through two games both went on to be named National Player of the Year: Iowa’s Luka Garza in 2020-21 (25/29; .862) and Duke’s Zion Williamson in 2018-19 (22-27; .815).
Kalkbrenner has made 742 of 1,112 career shots, putting him at 66.7 percent overall. That places the senior center second in field goal percentage in NCAA history among players to make 700 or more field goals and at least four field goals per game. However, Kalkbrenner is first among all such players who have ever attempted 50 or more three-point field goal attempts.
Creighton is 3-0 all-time against Houston Christian, defeating the Huskies in 2007 (110-73), 2009 (83-56) and 2011 (97-62). If, like me, you don’t remember any of those games, it’s likely because the school wasn’t named Houston Christian when the games were played — the school was previously named Houston Baptist, and changed in September 2022.
Greg McDermott is 2-0 against Houston Baptist (er, Christian), coaching in that 2011 match-up as well as picking up a 64-56 win in 2009 as Iowa State’s head coach.
The last two meetings both featured fast starts. On December 22, 2009, Creighton jumped out to a 14-1 lead in the opening 4:20 of the game, as P’Allen Stinnett dished four straight assists followed by a three-pointer of his own. Meanwhile, the Huskies would miss their first eight shots from the field, and the Jays were off and running to a 85-56 win. Creighton dished out an arena-record 28 assists on 32 made baskets in improving to 5-6 on the season.
In the 2011 game, Creighton jumped out to an 8-0 lead after just four minutes and never looked back in a 97-62 win. At the under-12 timeout, the score was 16-3, as Doug McDermott and Gregory Echenique thoroughly dominated the paint. How much did they dominate? In the first eight minutes, as they built that 16-3 lead, those two combined for 14 of the 16 points and had more rebounds (9) than the entire Husky team (6). Meanwhile, the Huskies were legendary bricklayers, starting out the game 1-17 from the field and making a serious run at the record for fewest points in a half in arena history.
Creighton has played just twice on November 13. In 2006, they defeated Mississippi Valley State 78-42, as the 20th ranked Jays opened up the season with a win. The Jays had four players in double-figures: 14 each from Nick Porter and Anthony Tolliver, 13 from Nate Funk, and 10 from freshman Isacc Miles off the bench in his debut.
And in 2011, they blew out Chicago State 95-61 behind 21 points in 20 minutes (on 10-of-12 shooting) from Doug McDermott. Jahenns Manigat added 15 on five 3-pointers.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton is favored by 36.5 points in Vegas, with 99% odds of victory according to ESPN’s BPI. KenPom predicts a 32-point win. Expect to see a lot of the bench in the second half.
#14 Creighton 105, Houston Christian 68