Summertime…and the living is easy.

Men’s & women’s workouts are underway.  The men prepare for their initial practices beginning 8 July.  NCAA allows 10 practices in conjunction with summer trips.

Australia:  The Jays begin preparing for their trip to Australia.  Dates:  1-13 August 2019.  Whiteandbluereview has daily practice reports.

LE:  All East Coast Tour: Start off in Sydney, then fly up to Cairns in the north, finally back to the middle to Brisbane.
A bit odd…like going from Charleston, SC  to Boston to DC? A whole lotta flying for the fellas.

LE:  3 Aug 2019-There is evidently a branch of the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence in Sydney as well as Melbourne.  The Jays are spending their time in the Sydney area.

Blog posts for the Aussie trip and videos, etc at www.gocreighton.com

August 5 6 p.m. Sydney area…

(3 a.m. CST) [b]B’Ball Australia Centre of Excellence Shore School Live stats likely.
No video.[/b]

August 8 8:30 p.m. Cairns area…

(5:30 a.m. CST) Cairns Taipans Cairns Convention Centre Live stats likely.
No video.

August 12 7 p.m. Brisbane area…

Brisbane Bullets Invitational team up against the Creighton Bluejays (NCAA Division 1)
About this Event
It’s the Bluejays against the Bullets at Auchenflower Stadium, with the visitors from Creighton University to take on a Brisbane Bullets Invitational side.The Invitational team will be coached by CJ Bruton and feature players from the Bullets NBL roster and development squad, plus invited players including the best from the QBL and South East Queensland’s most promising up and coming talent.The Omaha based university is on an Australian tour and will be keen to show off their talents against their Australian opponents. Secure your seat fast, as there won’t be tickets sold on the door (online sales only)!

Team USA:  As stated previously, graduate Geoff Grosselle and Ty-Shon Alexander will represent the USA in the 2019 Panam Games (Basketball) in Lima, Peru, from July 26 to August 04, 2019.  Ty-Shon will catch up with the Jays team in Australia afterwards.  Team USA (Basketball) left today for Lima, Peru.

https://www.teamusa.org/News/2019/July/25/Team-USA-Welcomed-To-The-Pan-American-Games-Lima-2019-With-Athlete-Village-Flag-Raising-Ceremony

Pool play is vs Puerto Rico, Venezuela, & US Virgin Islands.

7/31, 10:30 am CT vs Virgin Islands, no TV                                                                                  8/1, 10 pm CT vs Venezuela, ESPN Deportes                                                                                8/2, 10 pm CT vs Puerto Rico, ESPNU                                                                                              Medal rounds Aug 3-4.

Local News –

Our latest commit, 7 footer Kelvin Jones (grad transfer) is on campus.  Practicing. Needs conditioning work, but servicable.

Denzel’s Back!  Reports are he’s on campus, but will have to sit out 1st semester. Probably see him on the court by the Arizona St. Game.

Recruiting –  from www.Whiteandbluereview.com

2019 Division III transfer Austin Hutcherson is in Omaha for an official visit this weekend. The 6-foot-6 guard from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, averaged 20.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and shot 39.2% from three last season as a sophomore.  Was NESCAC FoY in 2017/18, 1st Team All-NESCAC in 2018/19.

According to reports out of South Bend, Hutcherson has already visited Notre Dame, and plans to visit Marquette and Illinois before making a decision. If he chooses Creighton, he would be a sit one/play two guy sitting along with Memphis transfer Antwann Jones, who is a sit one/play three guy for the upcoming season.

No word yet on any 2020 Kiyron Powell visit reschedule.

No 2020 Commits as of now.

Awards –

Men’s Basketball Earns NABC Team Academic Excellence Award

Martin Krampelj Named to 2018-19 NABC Honors Court

Plenty of chatter over on holyland of hoops irt UConn, expansion, recruiting, & biggest fan bases.  Check it out.  www.holylandofhoops.com

“Top tier teams rarely have true ‘down’ years and find a way to stay relevant every year.” – Adoraz (Holylandofhoops.com)

I recently asked about what the philosophy and strategies were for Jays basketball recruiting.  I was told by an anonymous source that the Jays;

Try to pick battles that make sense (prior relationships or geographical advantages).

Traditionally, Creighton Basketball, as a Midmajor, recruited for fit to its’ system.  The Jays went after players who had talents/skills to fit the style of play and had upside potential.  Our players were predominantly 2 & 3 star guys back in those days, with an occasional 4-star guy (Lawson, Miles, Morrison, Stinnett -247Sports) thrown in.

With the move to the majors in 2013 we had a shift in our recruiting targets up to the 4 star level.  Recent recruiting has still focused on fit for the Jays uptempo style and the team has had good successes in bringing in 4-star recruits.  In the six years we’ve been in the Big East, we have signed six 4-star HS recruits to the team.  With Jacob Epperson being the highest rated Creighton recruit (247 Sports 0.9664) since ratings began in the mid 2000’s.  Two of our transfers were also 4-stars out of HS.  Five of which are still onboard, counting transfer SF Antwaan Jones.

Surprisingly, all of our six Big East recruiting classes have been Top 100, with the 3 classes of 2016-2018 rated in the Top 50.  The 2017 class of Epperson, Ballock, and Alexander rated #25 (247 Sports).  Have we had our misses? Yes, like all programs we’ve missed a few we’d liked to have snared, but overall our recruiting has been successful.

The Jays also have had significant recent success in bringing in foreign players such as Canadian Jahenns Manigat, Slovenian Martin Krampelj, and Aussies Jacob Epperson & Samson Froling.

CU is at a significant geographical disadvantage on 90% of our recruits.  That is why we have pivoted to the international scene some.  CU will try on any player that makes sense (fits our style, fits from a character standpoint) from our región.  Otherwise Creighton will focus on taking advantage of our network and relationships both nationally and internationally .

Another area of success has been the growing college transfer market.  Who would have envisioned todays burgeoning lists of transfers back in the day when we picked up Gd Nick Bahe-KU (2005) and Fwd Chad Millard-Louisville (2006)?  Creighton has relied on cherrypicking a steady stream of talent from the transfer ranks, most recently Gd/Fwds Kaleb Joseph (4*), Damien Jefferson, Denzel Mahoney, and Antwaan Jones  (4*).

Creighton Athletics

Our 2 main message board sites had the Jays with 23 and 27 main 2019 offers with one site having over 15 additional recruits of interest.  Not knocking those sites by any means but my source inferred:

The other thing to note is that just because an offer is reported, does’t mean that an actual offer was made.  Kids, especially young kids, mistake a couple calls for an offer. We laugh all the time about kids that report we have offered that we called a couple times and never offered,  The Jays have even had a few times where we were reported to be a finalist and we weren’t recruiting the kid and had never offered.

My synopsys is that the overall state of recruiting for the Jays is good.  We’ve won a few battles and lost a few as well, but we’ve secured enough talent to remain competitive.  Here’s the thing…Can Creighton basketball recruiting improve and remain competitive in conference and on the national scene?

Adoraz (HolylandofHoops.com) says:  “Top tier teams rarely have true ‘down’ years and find a way to stay relevant every year.”

Good recruiting is one of the means for the CU basketball program to achieving and maintaining relevance.

By all means Yes!  We need to continue to schedule as well as we have, win at current levels or better, and also overachieve a bit more – both in the regular season as well as in the post season NCAAs. All the above will aid us in continuing to recruit effectively.  We must improve in order to remain competitive as our Big East brethren are killing it on the recruiting trail.  From Villanova to DePaul, all are signing high end recruits, and UConn rejoins the mix next season (2020).  It’s an arms race and Creighton must strive to stay relevant.

We are on the right path…stay the course.

Photos:  Creighton Athletics

Become strategically relevant.

Step 1: (Re)define marketing for your organization                                                                  Step 2: Align with corporate strategy                                                                                          Step 3: Cascade performance from pipeline .                          https://www.dmnews.com/customer-experience/news/13057959/3-steps-to-achieving-strategic-marketing-relevance

The common threads along the path to strategic relevance all come together around pipeline and your ability to build it or convert it as a total marketing system. The path to strategic relevance is straightforward: Define your marketing organization as an ecosystem of demand creation, align your mix to pipeline creation and Athletic Department/University (business) performance, and then measure everything you do according to its impact on the topline results of your business.  (Seek assistance from your Bus. Marketing and University planners for converting SR principles to your needs.)

Set goals.   Develop objectives/milestones to meet goals.   Measure results.  https://www.saba.com/blog/3-types-of-goals-you-should-set-in-2015