In less than three weeks, the 2026-27 season (and the Alan Huss Era) officially begin when Creighton hosts UMKC. Before then, they have two public exhibitions to get ready for that night, beginning with Iowa State on Sunday afternoon.
It’s not only the soft launch of the Huss Era, it’s also the preseason debut for nine — yes, nine — new Bluejays (Trevon Carter-Givens, BJ Davis, Kayden Edwards, Wes Enis, Oswin Erhunmwunse, Katrelle Harmon and Brody Robinson). While the key pieces from a year ago are back, the rest of the roster has turned over, and that makes them a hard team to predict.
KenPom (#30) is a lot higher on Creighton than Bart Torvik (#39) and EvanMiya (#46) primarily because his metrics think their defense will be significantly better than the other two do. All three have the Jays offense ranked within a spot or two of each other inside of the top 25. KenPom projects their defense to rank 45th, giving up 97.7 points per 100 possessions.
Torvik has their defense pegged as nearly three points worse per 100 possessions, and ranked 75th, while the offense is projected basically the same as KenPom (less than one point difference, and ranked 24 vs 25). EvanMiya’s numbers are similar. It’s surface level analysis, but if Torvik and EvanMiya are right that Creighton’s defense will be average, then their ceiling is probably a fringe tourney team come March. On the other hand, if KenPom is right that the defense will be above average, their ceiling is a lot higher than that.
For their part, Big East coaches tend to agree more with Torvik/EvanMiya, as they picked the Bluejays to finish seventh in the preseason poll. Don’t think that went unnoticed inside the McDermott Center; according to guard Wes Enis, that sense of being overlooked is making their already intense practices even moreso.
“You’re gonna respect us after you play us,” Enis said on Wednesday. “No one is expecting anything, so let’s go dominate them and make them respect us.”
Enis is a gritty, hard-nosed player recruited at least in part with the hope that he can help Huss instill a tougher attitude in the 2026-27 Bluejays. He’s also emerged as a very vocal leader on a team that desperately needed one a year ago.
“I think the most interesting part has been the dynamic with the guys that returned, they were kind of desperately seeking someone to show them it’s okay to have a little bit of that,” Huss said this week. “They all kind of grabbed onto that and bonded with Wes and a little bit of his crazy, as he calls it. It’s been fun to watch that dynamic play out, and watch the guys be empowered to have their own little bit of crazy.”
The returnees have all commented about the difference in this year’s practices versus a year ago.
Jasen Green said that “the competitive edge that we have is what excites me the most, because I don’t think I’ve been a part of a team that hates losing this much and is this competitive during practice all the time.”
Hudson Greer said practices are “all gas and no brakes.”
“It definitely feels more intense than preseasons I’ve been a part of in the past,” Isaac Traudt added. “We have very competitive guys, which is awesome because that can be a superpower for us. And us returners don’t want last year to happen again. So that’s part of that competitive fire, too.”
Traudt also called out Enis specifically, saying fans will notice his leadership right away.
“The great thing about having Wes is we have the true vocal leader that we probably didn’t have last year,” Traudt said. “But you know, it can’t just be him. So I’m trying to fill that spot as well.”
Better communication alone won’t solve their defensive woes from a year ago. Better rim protection might. And that’s where Oswin Erhumwunse comes in. He blocked 70 shots a year ago for Providence, 40 more than the Jays’ team leader (Jasen Green with 30).
That ranked 20th best in D1, and while it doesn’t approach what Ryan Kalkbrenner did (he had 93, 107, 72 and 89 blocks in his four years as a starter), if they can figure out a way to keep Erhumwunse’s aggressiveness while cutting down on the foul trouble that plagued him as a Friar, he could be in the same zip code as a rim protector. How he looks defensively in CU’s system is one of the big things to watch for on Sunday.
It’s folly to put too much stock into stats from an exhibition, but last week’s closed door scrimmage with Omaha showed some promising signs. For instance, Creighton forced eight more turnovers than they did in any game a year ago, and one more than their record for most in a single game during Greg McDermott’s entire tenure at Creighton. Again, it was not a regular season game and all stats require a spoonful of salt.
But it’s such an outlier and such an eye-popping number that it also can’t just be entirely dismissed, either.
Along those same lines? They were whistled for more fouls than all but two games a year ago, and there’s only been one other game since 2019 where they had more than they did against UNO. Grain of salt, etc…but it’s clear the talk about desiring a more aggressive style of defense is not just talk — they mean it.
Last October’s exhibition with Iowa State was Exhibit A about not drawing too many conclusions from a game that doesn’t count. Creighton arguably looked better in that game than they did at any point the rest of the season — especially during a 7-1/2 minute stretch where they had a 23-0 run that featured 10 straight defensive stops and an offense that created great open shots, which they made. They’d spend the rest of the season trying (and mostly failing) to replicate their success that night.
A month later when they played in the regular season, it was a different story. The Cyclones dominated both ends of the floor, and midway through the first half, CU missed 11 of 12 shots and committed five turnovers in a 14-2 ISU run that effectively decided the game. Based on the exhibition, Creighton looked like the team that would be headed to the Sweet 16 come March; the regular season matchup foreshadowed that Iowa State was actually that team.
And with the Jays going through some preseason injuries, the game will be even less of an accurate barometer.
“We got some guys beat up,” Huss said at the team’s media day on Wednesday. “I’m guessing we’re not gonna play everybody.”
Jasen Green and Hudson Greer have missed practice time, but were on the court Wednesday. Isaac Traudt and Jackson McAndrew have, too, and they did not practice Wednesday. Once they figure out who’s available, Huss said they’ll script out the first 28-30 minutes of the game to ensure they get everyone into the game in the spots they want them in.
“(Jackson’s) been a little nicked up the last couple practices. He’s got a foot that’s been bothering him,” Huss said. “So he may have to step back for a minute and let that go, let that run its course.”
As for Iowa State? They’re a team reloading after another Sweet 16 run. Star big man Joshua Jefferson (16.4 ppg., 7.4 rpg., 4.8 apg.) was a first round draft pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves; Milan Momcilovic (16.9 ppg.) left for a bigger NIL windfall at Kentucky, and Nate Heise and Tamin Lipsey exhausted their eligibility.
Lipsey is potentially back thanks to the 5-in-5 eligibility rules; a member of the class of 2022 who didn’t sign any professional contracts, Lipsey is currently eligible because of a lawsuit in Indiana. But like Fred King and Brody Robinson for the Bluejays, his status could change with the wind. Unlike King and Robinson, the eligibility of Lipsey — or lack thereof — could dramatically alter the outlook on Iowa State’s season. He’s one of the best point guards in college basketball.
And when sophomore guard Killyan Toure returns in January from a shoulder injury, the Cyclones could have one of the most potent offensive backcourts in the country, and will definitely have one of, if not the, most disruptive defensive backcourts.
Add in Jaquan Johnson, last year’s Missouri Valley Defensive Player of the Year, and opponents will have a hard time scoring from the perimeter against ISU.
As it has been the last handful of years when these teams have met in the preseason, it will be a great test against a skilled, well-coached team that will give CU’s coaches invaluable film to analyze heading into the season. Just don’t get too excited, or upset, about anything on the stat sheet.
- Tip: 12:00pm
- Venue: Hilton Coliseum, Ames, IA
- TV: ESPN+
- Announcers: Alex Cohen and Derrin Hansen
- Streaming in the ESPN+ app (subscription required) or via the ESPN Unlimited channels on YouTube TV
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Connor Happer
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com
- Live Stats:
Creighton is 58-6 since 1981 in fall exhibition games thanks to 26 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. Among the teams that Creighton has defeated in recent exhibitions include No. 16 Iowa State last year and No. 14 Purdue in 2024.
Fifth-year seniors Jasen Green and Isaac Traudt are both eligible, as both men redshirted their initial college season in 2022-23. Fifth-year seniors Brody Robinson and Fredrick King are not currently eligible (as of Oct. 15). Robinson is part of the lawsuit in Tennessee to get eligible, while King is part of the lawsuit in Kentucky. Of the 165 players listed on Big East rosters just five years ago (2022-23), only two of those men are still playing for the same school without transferring: Green and Xavier’s Michael Wolf.
Creighton returns 71 starts from last year’s team (30 by Jasen Green, 23 by Isaac Traudt, 14 by Austin Swartz, 4 by Jackson McAndrew). All 20 of Creighton’s teams since 1997-98 to have returned 71 or more starts have played in the postseason other than the 2019-20 club that was ranked No. 7 nationally when COVID-19 cancelled the postseason.
Iowa State owns an 18-15 record all-time against Creighton in games that count, and an 8-3 record in Ames. Creighton has not beaten Iowa State regardless of venue since a 99-94 double overtime win in 1990, 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 in Las Vegas last November, where Iowa State won 78-60.
The Bluejays and Cyclones have met in the preseason five years in a row either in an exhibition or closed-door scrimmage.
This will be CU’s second-earliest public exhibition game on the calendar ever. The only earlier game came when the Bluejays and Cyclones tangled in Omaha on Oct. 17, 2025.
They’ve never played on October 18 until this year.