Big East Roster Analysis: Creighton Bluejays
This is not a team-by-team preview series for the Providence Friars’ 10 Big East rivals, though it’s not far off. What it is intended to be is a look at how each of the 10 rosters is put together for the coming season. There are a lot of new faces and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what each piece brings and how it fits together. I’m sure I’ll be wrong often, but I walk away feeling more informed, and I’m hoping you will, too.
Creighton Bluejays (see below)
I come to this roster with very few “takes.” Creighton says goodbye to Trey Alexander and Baylor Scheierman, and the Bluejays have replaced them with transfers Pop Isaacs from Texas Tech and Jamiya Neal from Arizona State — that seems, on its face, like a downgrade. Ryan Kalkbrenner returns for his fifth season, seemingly incapable of anchoring anything but a very good defense. And then Steven Ashworth wraps up his career with a second season in Omaha, providing spacing and a safe pair of hands on the perimeter. More than in recent seasons, behind the top 3-4 players, there are plenty of young, talented pieces to potentially build a deeper rotation.
I think anyone’s perspective about how good Creighton’s roster is comes down to one’s view of Isaacs. Is he simply an inefficient ballhog lacking playmaking skills? Or is he the fulcrum of a top-30 offense (Texas Tech’s was 27th last year) who still has room to grow, considering he underachieved as a 3-point shooter last season? My aesthetic biases lean against Isaacs, and I’ll point out that Alexander was almost as focal to the Creighton offense (as Isaacs was to Tech last season) and yet Trey was more efficient despite similarly mediocre passing and 3-point shooting numbers.
Perhaps a small reduction in Isaacs’ volume (his 28.4% usage in Big 12 play last season was fifth highest in the league) will lead to more efficient shooting, and his career 85% foul shooting (and 38% 3-point shooting as a freshman) means that a shooting bounceback may be coming after hitting just 29% at super-high volumes last year. My biggest concern in March is whether you can go deep in the Tournament with a guy who is capable of shooting a team out of games. To close out last season, Isaacs followed a 2-for-13 performance against Houston in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals with a 3-for-16 shooting night vs. NC State in the NCAA Tournament. Tech lost those games by a combined 36 points (and Isaacs had more turnovers than assists in both).
To get a sense of the sort of player Isaacs was last season, here is a set of comps based on similar size, usage, efficiency, assist and free-throw shooting numbers:
Russ Smith eventually became an elite playmaker — is that something Isaacs has in him? Mike Miles improved both his 3-point and 2-point efficiency while reducing his usage as a junior — is that in Isaacs’ future? Some fusion of Love, Ky Bowman and Mac McClung seems the slightly more likely outcome — the passing never develops, the shooting comes and goes, but his ability to maintain OK efficiency on super-high volume takes pressure of his teammates and means a stew with the ingredients of success and failure in every spoonful.
Elsewhere, the Jays never really figured out their non-Scheierman forward spot in the absence of Arthur Kaluma. Mason Miller was very efficient in very low volumes, but he continues to be iffy defensively due to his slight stature. Isaac Traudt hardly got on the floor after a promising start to the season after transferring from Virginia. Freshman Jasen Green played more toward the end of the season, including for 37 minutes over the squad’s last two NCAA Tournament games, due to his rebounding and size.
This year’s team needs to figure out that spot as well as Scheierman’s, who is known as a shooter but who was also an elite passer and rebounder. For now, Neal, the transfer from Arizona State, with one more year of eligibility left is penciled into that spot. Like Miller, Neal is a bit skinny and more of a slasher, despite attempting 253 3-pointers in three seasons (he’s made just 27%). He should provide versatile, athletic defense on the wing. It’s interesting that KenPom lists Alex O’Connell as his top statistical comp for his junior season. O’Connell transferred to Creighton from Duke and was a key part of the 2021-22 squad despite never quite getting his 3-point shooting efficiency to match his rep. Like O’Connell, Neal is a solid passer for a wing, and, like Scheierman, he provides some defensive rebounding.
Creighton’s four best defenses under McDermott have been the last four seasons, which also overlap with Kalkbrenner’s entire college career. That he’s back again will mean a high floor for the Jays, though I could see this team being a bit more like the 2021-22 team, which struggled offensively despite good defense. That mix will come down to Isaacs’ ability to shoulder a large burden with high efficiency and Ashworth and Kalkbrenner being able to add a few more shots per game.
Depth has been a going concern for Creighton in recent seasons, but two four-star freshmen should get a shot to contribute right away. Jackson McAndrew is a power forward from Minneapolis joining a squad starving for forwards. And Larry Johnson out of Southern California Academy seems likely to slot in as the third guard. Johnson, at 6-foot-4 but a high-level athlete, could even play the 3 in certain lineups without giving up too much defensively. McAndrew is 6-foot-9 with a 7-foot-3 wingspan, and he can stretch the floor at the four while perhaps providing more defensive resistance than Miller. High-level defense may take a year or two, since McAndrew’s body type is reminiscent of Miller’s. At center, Frederic King returns to provide depth behind Kalkbrenner.
One wild card is likely headed to Omaha from Europe to challenge for wing minutes. Fedor Zugic appears primed to join Creighton for fall semester with all but the NCAA eligibility left to be worked out. The 6-foot-6 Montenegrin wing can play the 2 and the 3 and seems to be a prospect insiders are excited to see stateside. I don’t know what to make of the competition in the video below, but Zugic showed a quick first step and the ability to be a ball-handler in pick-and-roll action. He feels like an offensive upgrade on Francisco Farabello, providing meaningful backcourt depth alongside Johnson.
I don’t come away from this study feeling any better or worse about Creighton. Kalkbrenner provides a very high floor due to his defense at the rim. The rest of the starting lineup seems just a bit worse than last year, though hope lies in the idea that having a super-high volume player in Isaacs will enable everyone else to be a bit more efficient on fewer opportunities. That and the depth of the bench might be enough for Creighton to stick at the top of the Big East and threaten another second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.