Picked to finish seventh in Big East in a preseason poll of league coaches, the Creighton men’s basketball team had a breakthrough 2019-20 season that saw it share the conference’s regular-season title and end the year ranked seventh nationally in the Associated Press poll. After a loss to San Diego State in Las Vegas, the Jays rebounded to post an eye-opening 83-76 overtime win over defending national runner-up Texas Tech the next night. The triumph over No. 12 Texas Tech started an eight-game win streak that featured home wins over Nebraska and Oklahoma as well as a road victory at Arizona State. The win over Oklahoma on December 17th improved CU to 9-2 and marked the Bluejay debut of Southeast Missouri State transfer Denzel Mahoney, the eventual Big East Sixth Man of the Year.

After stumbling out of the gates in league play, their season turned on January 18th with a late-game rally to beat Providence in Omaha. CU trailed 74-69 with just over 90 seconds remaining before a compiling a game-ending 9-0 run. That victory started a stretch that saw the Bluejays win 11 of their final 13 games en route to the title. The season-capping win over No. 8 Seton Hall (77-60) on Senior Day, in front of a sold out crowd of 18,519, helped CU earn a three-way share of its first Big East title with Seton Hall and Villanova.

The 2019-20 Bluejays had four men average in double-figures, led by All-Big East First Team guard Ty-Shon Alexander, who paced the club with 16.9 points and 1.3 steals per game while also developing into one of the top defenders in the conference. Point guard Marcus Zegarowski was named an All-American by the Associated Press, NBC Sports and Stadium in addition to earning Second Team All-BIG EAST accolades after averaging 16.1 points per contest and leading CU with 5.0 assists per game. Junior guard Mitch Ballock averaged 11.9 points per game and led the Bluejays with 93 three-pointers made and 43.5 percent marksmanship from downtown. Mahoney averaged 12.0 points per game and turned into a valuable weapon to the Bluejay arsenal, and teamed with junior Damien Jefferson (9.4 ppg., 5.5 rpg.), sophomore Christian Bishop (8.6 ppg., 5.3 rpg., 1.1 bpg.) and graduate transfer Kelvin Jones (3.0 ppg,. 3.6 rpg.) to hold down the frontcourt.

They were headed for a two or three seed in the NCAA Tournament, and then the 2019-20 season ended prematurely due to the COVID-19 coronavirus that spread throughout the country and caused widespread shelter-in-place declarations in the weeks to come. So the 2019-20 Bluejays, among if not the most accomplished teams in program history ended with these as their accolades: They hung a banner as 2020 Big East Regular Season champs; they finished #7 in the final AP Top 25 poll, their best-ever finish; and they beat six ranked teams, most in school history.