Friday night, Trey Alexander declared for the NBA Draft, announcing his intentions in a post on social media. While he technically could withdraw by May 29 and return to CU, as he did last summer after declaring, it’s expected that this time around he’s played his last game as a Bluejay.
A second team-All Big East selection this year, Alexander had a brilliant season where he averaged 17.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game. He scored 10 or more points in each of his last 17 games, and in 30 of 35 games for the season. And he scored 20 or more points in 15 different games, after scoring 20+ just five combined times in the two seasons prior. Incidentally, the only other players in the Greg McDermott Era to have 15 or more games with 20 points in one season? Doug McDermott (who did it in his sophomore, junior and senior seasons), Marcus Foster, and Baylor Scheierman (who also did it this year).
He had four double-doubles, doing it in two different ways. On February 28 against Seton Hall, he had 15 points and 10 assists, and on March 2 he had 18 points and 11 assists against Marquette. That made him just the third Bluejay since 1978-79 to have two straight games with 10 or more assists, joining Maurice Watson Jr. (who did it two separate times in 2016-17) and Grant Gibbs in 2011-12.
Against Iowa on November 14, he had 23 points and 11 rebounds, and against Villanova on December 20 he had 16 points and 15 rebounds. In that Iowa game, he was one assist shy of the first traditional triple-double in Creighton’s history, finishing with 23 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists. (Teammate Baylor Scheierman would do it a couple of months later, with a 15/10/11 line against Georgetown).
And he did all of that while playing 90.7% of available minutes (16th most in the country). At 37.3 minutes per game — and with nine games where he never left the floor — he played more than anyone in the Big East. Alexander was on the court for all 50 overtime minutes of each of Creighton’s last six OT games, and often saved his best for those moments. He shot 12-for-22 from the field (55.6%), including 2-for-4 from three-point range (50.0%) while making 9-of-10 free throws (90%) in extra periods. Alexander also had four assists, two blocked shots and two steals in those games. All totaled, Alexander scored 35 of Creighton’s 94 overtime points in those six contests.
He hit not one but two game-winning shots as a junior. The first came in a triple-overtime classic at Seton Hall on January 20. With the Jays trailing 88-87, Alexander took over, hitting two shots in the final minute that both gave them the lead. First, he dribbled into traffic, used two separate shot fakes to create space, and buried a fallaway jumper for the lead with under a minute to go.
And after Kadary Richmond hit a pair of free throws for Seton Hall to give them back the lead, Alexander answered with a three-pointer to give the Jays a 93-91 lead they’d never surrender.
Six weeks later, he did it again. On March 9 at Villanova, Creighton blasted out to a 10-0 lead, with Alexander scoring eight of the 10 points. And then when they’d given away a 24-point lead and needed a bucket to avoid going to overtime after blowing a second double-digit lead to Villanova this season, Alexander finished what he started. With the clock ticking down, he dribbled across the paint, rose up from 15 feet, and buried a game-winning turnaround jumper at the buzzer.
Alexander was the guy trusted to make those kind of shots, and though it didn’t always work out — he missed a potential game-winner on the final possession at home against Villanova, lost the handle on the ball while driving for a potential game-winner against Butler, and missed a would-be game winner in the first overtime against Oregon in the second round of the NCAA Tournament — he’d earned the opportunity to take those shots. And he made his share of them.
He proved his mettle early on. As a freshman, he was the catalyst in one of CU’s greatest March memories. With the Jays trailing 62-53 late in a first-round matchup against San Diego State, he assisted on one basket and hit the game-tying shot himself to cap a 9-0 run that sent the game to overtime.
He hit the eventual game-winner in OT, a breathtaking play where he dribbled into the lane, rose up to shoot but changed course in mid-air, holding onto the ball for a split second instead of shooting, and released the shot as he drifted back down to the ground when the defender’s arm was no longer in position to block it.
He ends his career 17th on the career scoring chart with 1,376 points in 107 games, and the author of some of the most memorable moments in CU hoops history. Here’s a video compilation we put together to celebrate Alexander’s time as a Bluejay.
