Greg McDermott talks Creighton's offseason transfers, rebuilding the roster and expectations (2024)

Creighton men’s basketball is long removed from being just another mid-major success story.

Since Greg McDermott took over in April 2010, and the program’s overnight transition from the Missouri Valley to the Big East three years later, the Bluejays have soared to national prominence.

CU has won a share of the regular-season title in one of the toughest conferences, had All-Americans and been to nine of the last 13 NCAA tournaments, including four straight that resulted in three trips to the second weekend.

The Jays have turned the middle of somewhere into the middle of everywhere.

Now, entering this season, they’ll transition from where the program was to where it’s going — all while maintaining, if not raising, the standard set over the better part of the past two decades.

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“You just do the work. There’s no shortcuts to success,” McDermott said. “Last year’s success doesn’t do you any good this year.

“If anything, it puts a target on your back.”

This summer, Creighton lost some of the most important pieces to its most successful stretch ever.

Baylor Scheierman and Trey Alexander, a tandem that scored 49% of the Jays’ points last season, are both now in the NBA. And Francisco Farabello’s role as an experienced, dependable sixth man was invaluable.

Replacing them — trying to, at least — was McDermott’s biggest challenge of the offseason.

The Jays returned 7-foot-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner for his fifth and final year of eligibility, along with the rest of a mostly homegrown core. They added two splashy transfers and four freshmen, including McDermott’s highest-rated recruit Jackson McAndrew and 21-year-old international prospect Fedor Zugic.

CU will undoubtedly look different this season than it has over the past few years.

“You’re really rebooting the entire team,” McDermott said, “because with Trey and Baylor and Bello’s departures, that changes the roles for the guys that are returning, somewhat. Roles are being identified, and guys are growing into them as things go on.”

It will take a combination of things, McDermott said, to fill those voids, whether that’s one person taking on that much more or by committee.

Kalkbrenner has been omnipresent in conversations about the best big men in the country this season. The three-time Big East defensive player of the year brings back 17.3 points, 7.6 rebounds and 3.1 blocks a game from a season ago.

Then there’s guard Steven Ashworth — entering his second year in Omaha after transferring in from Utah State — those four freshmen and a handful of returners with Mason Miller, Jasen Green, Isaac Traudt, Fredrick King and Shane Thomas.

But McDermott and his staff landed the transfers they did for a reason.

Former Texas Tech guard Pop Isaacs, an All-Big 12 selection, is a playmaker who can create his own shot and score anywhere, like Alexander. Former Arizona State forward Jamiya Neal, a high-flying slasher and menacing defender, can be the wing presence the Jays lost in Scheierman.

“They understand coming in that if you choose Creighton, this is what we’re about, this is how we play,” McDermott said. Along with setting the expectation early, he believes the key to transfers is how quickly they can be integrated into the system already in place.

“The pace is different. Some of the things we value might be different than the places they played before. You spent time learning all those old habits, just like we’re teaching our guys. So not only do you have to learn new ones, you kind of have to break old ones if things were different.”

Kalkbrenner is inarguably Creighton’s heartbeat this season.

That’s what he signed up for when he put the NBA on hold and decided to return for his extra year of eligibility.

Kalkbrenner said in early May, shortly after withdrawing from the predraft process, that this offseason was about improving his game as much as possible. He spent the past few summers with USA Basketball, rehabbing an injury and flirting with the NBA for the first time.

McDermott didn’t have to tell Kalkbrenner the importance of one last ride.

“My challenge to him is, if we’re going to make this decision, we need to make sure you’re a better version of yourself,” McDermott said. “And to his credit, I really believe he’s done that.”

This preseason is for McDermott to piece all of that together.

Rotations are still far from being set, he said. They’ll be tinkered with plenty before CU’s Nov. 6 opener against Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Everyone, from Green to McAndrew, will have opportunities to earn minutes. Those will come both in practice and the Jays’ two exhibitions — a closed one at Iowa State and one for charity against Purdue.

There’s competition for playing time at several spots, a difference from the past few seasons when Creighton’s lineup was mostly set before the season started. It’s healthy, McDermott said.

There will be ample time for the transfers, freshmen and guys wanting a larger role to prove themselves.

“You have to get guys ready,” said McDermott, who signed a five-year contract extension in March. “I think we have some guys that have made some strides, the freshmen seem to be buying in and figuring it out, and I think Jamiya and Pop have embraced what we’re trying to do. Now they’re just learning it.

“When you’re thinking a lot, your feet don’t move as fast until some of those things become habits. That’ll happen over time.”

And McDermott doesn’t want them chasing the ghosts of the program’s past. Nobody on this year’s roster will be a one-for-one replacement for who the Jays lost.

Players’ games are different than Alexander and Scheierman, McDermott said, and that’s OK. They’ll bring things to the table that neither one of them did, just as Alexander and Scheierman did things other people won’t be able to.

“We just want everybody to be the best version of themselves. That’s all you can hope for with any team,” McDermott said. “There’s lots of ways to win basketball games, and my job is to figure out what they do best and put them in a position to be successful.”

This season, more than anything, is about the Bluejays living up to — and, with a little luck, exceeding — the standard they have and continue to set for themselves.

They’ve done nearly everything they could. Marquee wins, trophies, accolades, honors.

But there’s a difference between reaching the second weekend of the NCAA tournament and being one of only four teams standing by the third.

The Jays have never been to a Final Four, the one thing that has always eluded them. It’s the prey this hunter has never captured, the glass slipper this old Cinderella has yet to find.

“Let’s get back in the NCAA tournament first, then we’ll worry about that,” said McDermott, who thinks making assumptions is asking for trouble. He knows that CU is taking a new-look roster into a loaded nonconference schedule and the gauntlet that is the Big East.

“Then it’s about matchups. It takes a little bit of luck. It takes the bounce of a ball or the blow of a whistle — or to not have a whistle at a certain time. There are a lot of things that have to fall in place for that to happen.”

Creighton is months away from even thinking about kicking down that door, regardless of how much the Jays would love to.

McDermott’s focus is on the now. It has to be. Otherwise, March won’t matter.

Photos: A look at Creighton men's basketball first official practice of the fall

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Greg McDermott talks Creighton's offseason transfers, rebuilding the roster and expectations (2024)
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