Time to embrace FUNBAD
The 2025-2026 iteration of Creighton University’s men’s basketball team is bad.
They’re not FUNBAD like some teams we’ve seen in the past.
The post-Doug year, with a roster filled to the brim of Missouri Valley level talent in a very stout BIG EAST, was FUNBAD because everyone knew they weren’t good but they did the one redeeming thing not good teams do: be entertaining. They’d push teams to the wire and play this weird smashmouth basketball that was equal parts trainwreck and pure hoops.
They’re also not the 2018-19 team that was jammed full of baby hoopers with some holdovers from the bygone years prior; they were FUNBAD because they did very stupid things exceptionally well with the loving grace that there was a promised land waiting on the horizon. With Mitch, Ty-Shon, and Zegs, that team had juice, but needed to take their licks to become the roving death sphere they eventually became.
This team is nowhere close to the latter years of Dana, a mismash of P’Allens and Wayne Runnels, the little Korver, Chad Millard, and a Harriman thrown into the mix. There were some sticks of dynamite on that team that had a ticking clock, ready to explode whenever the temperature was just right.
No, this iteration of Creighton hoops breaks all the rules of being FUNBAD because they’re both not fun and very bad.
Call it the spoils of the post-Kalk era (from here on out we will know this time as AK, or After Kalk) as we were treated to arguably the greatest collection of teams Mac could assemble in a 5 year span. It’s near impossible to return to a peak that you didn’t know you’d ascended; that mountain is too high and there isn’t another one on the planet remotely close to what you’ve just climbed.
Even with a new summit to take that gentle first step with a different cast of sherpas, we’ve been treated to a vanilla offense that stagnates more than it strikes; a good team will run an offense, but a great team will find ways to snatch a killshot when the offense breaks down. The ethos of this team seems hellbent on running a play, having it defended well, then praying the basketball gods will put the ball in the hoop for them. They just can’t seem to make it happen for themselves. That’s the lack of chemistry that defies this team, that’s the identity that’s disappeared - and god forbid they learn proper spacing in the half court. That itself is a travesty that makes the folds of my brain become very smooth.
The defense was always going to be an issue. Any casual observer could’ve foretold that; they just lost the best defensive player in BIG EAST history. Yet, the effort seems so torturous in its endeavor, as they love giving up 50-50 balls, and arrive late to contest rudimentary jumpshots, and find themselves blinded by the forest of each other and their opponent. Defense takes a certain amount of give a fuck, but these guys just can’t seem to wrap their minds around it, thinking instead of reacting, afraid to make a mistake, limiting their ability to shake it up. Ball screen defense is an art form that requires constant communication, it needs to be a breathing organism, and this season has shown us an obliterated carcass on the side of the road, being picked apart by predators looking for an easy meal.
There were some expectations bandied about before we started the climb of the season. The first is the depth; with the 4-star freshman in Hudson Greer redshirted, then not, then booted and hurt, we lost that piece in a whirlwind, while burgeoning star Jackson McAndrew never took a step out of the van at the mountain’s base, sidelined with big man’s disease* and crushing the depth at the 4 spot.
*for the uninformed, that’s just any foot problem plaguing anyone over 6’8
The second was the highly touted nature of the transfers; Josh Dix (he’s a good shooter!) and Owen Freeman (he was B1G freshman of the year!) departed Iowa City, coming from a school known for its lackadaisical basketball, and they’ve presented the Bluejay fanbase with the wettest, most nonchalant fart you could imagine. Dix will disappear for tens of minutes while Freeman has the effort level of a listless plastic bag rising in a gentle breeze - and maybe that’s equal parts Freeman being out of shape from offseason surgery, or it’s just a very meh, whatevs attitude. If they wanted to be FUNBAD, the duo could just break a sweat and show a give a fuck every now and then.
Nik Graves has the small bits of DNA to be FUNBAD, as he can make inexplicable decisions at a moment’s notice, but his inability to basketball properly as the team’s de-facto point guard puts him on the shelf of being just bad. He also seems overwhelmed in moments, overthinking his entire existence for long stretches of time, seemingly pondering what sport he’s playing while actively playing it.
Austin Swartz and Blake Harper need to have more plays drawn up for them; they have all the makings of being fun. Against Nebraska, Swartz seemed to be the only player getting enough run to be effective, and he cashed in on the opportunity. FUNBAD players always have the most points on the wrong end of a blowout loss, because they don’t get defeated and they just keep chucking. Harper has a little nasty to him that needs to see all the daylight; he was vocal enough before the Vegas trip to shine a light on the fact that the team doesn’t really have any player-led leadership, and wants his voice to be heard. If he can keep from getting lost in the shuffle of whatever the fuck the offense is, he can be a beautiful beacon in this dimly lit season.
The rest of the team has the makings of PURE FUNBAD, with Jasen Green having the heart the size of Jupiter, Fedor Zugic having the “I tinker with things in my garage” aura, Kerem Konan giving us the baby giraffe essence we hold so dear, and Isaac Traudt doing his best Jimmy Motz/Dane Watts impersonation. Ty Davis is the purest embodiment of FUNBAD; he’s bad but he runs around like every red wire of every bomb in every action movie needs to get cut with just mere seconds left on the ticker, except the wires are basketballs and the bombs are also basketballs.
There are bright spots on the horizon, sure, as this is still Creighton basketball, but this will be an exceptionally trying season unless Mac & Co realize that FUNBAD is the only way to go from here on out. Embrace the chaos, see if you can do stupid shit like that 2020-21 Georgetown team, and start to reshuffle the deck for next season. Let Freeman go to a Valley team, wave sayonara to Dix and Graves, but make damn sure that the FUNBAD boys get the run this season. They deserve it. We deserve it. The world deserves it.
