The expectations of a contender
It’s hard to get a great concept of what Creighton men’s basketball is this season.
There are a lot of people around this state that use the phrase “off-season championship” in a biting and demeaning tone. There’s a particular euphoria that fans endure while imagining all of the pieces melding just right, the experience showing when the chips are down, a pleasurable fantasy coming off of a surprising season that showed the grit and determination of a team that’s rising to the top.
Like everything in life, fantasies so seldom reflect reality.
It was hard not to do a complete buy-in of that fantasy when the players themselves were beating the drum. It was a pretty unanimous opinion amongst the team that they would persevere and get a deep run in March going. Coach Greg McDermott echoed this, telling media that this team absolutely hated to lose. That the DNA of this squad was built to be a winner.
In the mind’s eye, when looking at what they were before, to what they could be, it was hard not to put stock into those ideals. The Maui Invitational shoved that right onto our dinner plate in front of us; a team that can scratch and claw their way into wins against two top-25 teams and come to the brink against Arizona - a sure-fire Final Four pick.
Those ideals - those fantasies - suddenly felt real. There was validation to them.
Then it all started falling apart.
They’ve lost four straight games, limping into a conference schedule that they were tabbed to dominate. They’re wilting in tests that they should be flashing those same signs of greatness. They have shown that they have a little extra in the tank when staring down the barrel of a double-digit loss, clawing back to within a possession or two, but ultimately looking up at a scoreboard at the end that shows those efforts to be fruitless.
Arthur Kaluma could’ve been drafted last year. He’s consistently lauded by the media as a potential first-round pick in the NBA draft. All the superlatives you could attach to a promising young athlete’s future have been glued to his #24 jersey. He’ll awe you with his ability to rock the rim, get chase-down blocks, and splash three pointers. In his 6’7, 225lb frame, he can do all the things NBA front offices dream of.
Coming into the year, Kaluma was tabbed as Creighton’s superstar. But he’s faltered at times this season, with meandering turnovers and less-than-ideal shooting from beyond arc. At times, it’s head-scratching, leaving die-hards and casual fans alike wondering where that guy - who scorched eventual national champion KU - went.
There’s Trey Alexander. The master of the mid-range shot. The winner who could will a team to victory with his intelligence, his playmaking, and his knack for getting the ball into the hoop during crucial moments of a ballgame. He was integral to Creighton’s success last season after Nembhard’s injury, putting them in a position to win a BIG EAST tournament title and teetering on the brink of a Sweet 16.
Now those sweet mid-range shots have drifted into the ether, his late-game heroics have bounced to his teammates like a hot potato, and his leadership seemingly listless. It could be the stress of defending the opposing team’s best player - a role Alex O’Connell took last year - wearing him thin on both ends, but if the trade off is controlling the opposition instead of creating a major weapon, then I assume Greg McDermott is willing to live with that.
A poor shooting performance on the road against a top-five Texas team, losing just at the wire? Acceptable. It is what it is. Good teams beat good teams, that’s perfectly fine.
Losing to a so-so Nebraska team at home on one of the worst shooting performances in recent memory? Letting the star of the Huskers dominate against the reigning Big East defensive player of the year? Allowing that small smattering of red within the CHI to beat their chest and yell and scream like they’d just conquered goliath?
Holy shit.
To roll into Las Vegas against a pretty shitty BYU team and allow them to dominate the paint - albeit without Ryan Kalkbrenner - and see a career performance from Arthur Kaluma die before it could properly flesh itself out?
Holy fucking shit.
The sky is falling.
You’re starting to fixate on the holes. There’s no real bench depth. Francisco Farabello isn’t the hired gun, 3-and-D guy we expected him to be. Frederick King Jr. is raw and talented but makes a lot of freshman mistakes. Mason Miller and Ben Schtolzberg haven’t made near the impact that the Jays needed. Shereef Mitchell is a spark plug but his erratic decisions and liability offensively gives teams a forgettable target defensively.
Baylor Scheierman doesn’t appear to be the glue piece the team needed. He’s not tightening up all of the seams to make this machine spin into the big dance. His shooting - when he’s on - is otherworldly. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence of how streaky he can be, but if he’s cold - and it seems that’s more often than not - who can the Jays rely on?
Ryan Kalkbrenner, maybe? With his size, the Jays have a real identity - when he’s fully healthy. He’s the most important piece to the puzzle, but you have to slow-burn his opportunities to leave a greater impact at the end of the season. To play Kalkbrenner 35-38 minutes a game isn’t necessarily maximizing his abilities. It’s the equivalent to anything in life - too much of a good thing will spoil it to ruins.
The same can be said for Ryan Nembhard. He’s the steady and zippy hand the system needs to run this thing properly, but when he’s forced to make up for his teammates’ shortcomings on a night-in night-out basis, it’s going to be hard for him to continue to step up. Fatigue in this system has always been a worry among people who intimately watch the Jays play, and if you lose the straw that stirs the drink, you’re left with a mouthful of bitters.
Now is the time to see how McDermott manages this. All of this. It’s what Marcus Blossom entrusted him to do. Can he find ways to get maximum efficiency while Kalkbrenner and Kaluma are on the floor together? Can he find a rotation to minimize burn on Nembhard and the rest of the starters? Can he find a proper pace where the offensive genius he’s shown can be both explosive and careful? Can he get Trey Alexander out of his funk and get him to be the gutsy champion he’s shown to be?
This team has faced a fair share of adversity and persevered through it.
If they can do it again, prognosticators will look back at this stretch and say it molded them. It gave them opportunities to look at those flaws and correct course.
It’s going to take creativity and a splash of selflessness to get there, and if any team is equipped to do it, it’s probably this one.
Probably.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
