Category: college basketball 365

Big East Media Day

On By @gtmoblueIn college basketball 365

Posers, frauds, and surprises!

Big East Conference

Men’s Basketball 9/28/2026 12:30:00 PM

2026 BIG EAST Basketball Media Day Set for Thursday
NEW YORK — On Thursday, Oct. 1, the BIG EAST Conference will host its annual Basketball Media Day at the Marriott Marquis in the heart of Times Square in New York City.

One of the premier preseason events in all of college basketball, BIG EAST Media Day features the league’s 22 head coaches and select student-athletes from across the conference. Comprehensive coverage throughout the event will include live interviews, press conferences, and exclusive content.

BIG EAST Media Day begins at 9 a.m. ET, beginning with welcome remarks from Fr. Brian Shanley, O.P., President of St. John’s University and Chair of the conference’s Board of Directors, followed by Commissioner Timothy J. Brosnan.

The BIG EAST will be the first power basketball conference to hold its 2026-27 media day. She starts ahead of a robust preseason exhibition schedule for its 11 member institutions. Exhibition tilts are set to begin the first weekend of October. In another 2026-27 first for the BIG EAST, Villanova will usher in the start of the regular season. The Wildcats’ men’s and women’s basketball programs play on an international stage as part of the Eternal City Tip-Off, in Rome, Italy on Sunday, November 1, 2026.

The full days’ events will be covered by the Peacock Channel.

Here we go!

Well, lo and behold…no surprises here folks. Nope! Well, other than the unusual confidence shown in #4 Marquette and #5 Providence. Every team in the league has delved deeply into the transfer portal for reinforcement players. Most have at least 5 transfers coming in. Even Marquette reached into the portal for help, after shunning such actions in favor of development for years. In these parts…the opinion is that no given team has an overt advantage. This is due to the high number of new personnel, coaching turnover, the time needed for bulk insertions of talent to mesh, mold, and gel into a team.

It is also a given that the pre-season coaches and media polls are guesses, favor the media darlings, and are more often incorrect than not. The BEast coaches preseason poll is horrendous and they overwhelmingly get it wrong on an annual basis. Now in fairness, the turnover in Big East coaches has picked up in recent seasons – so there’s that. But be that as it may , lemmings are lemmings…and plagues of them ‘blindly’ follow the leader(ship). A couple of media pundits have noted the oddness of Creighton being picked 7th in the standings. Specifically as the Jays have brought in a strong group of proven, seasoned, & mature players to offset the losses of a marginal group of exiting transfers. Saw a couple of posts (Norlander…Field of 68) that thought Creighton was lower, at 7th, than the incoming talent would suggest.

https://www.bigeast.com/news/2026/10/1/mens-basketball-uconn-picked-to-finish-first-on-2026-27-preseason-poll.aspx

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/big-east-conference-spending-new-commissioner

Coach Huss
Enis – McAndrew – Green

Huss: …on HS Recruits…

“I’m probably a little bit of an outlier in my views on high school basketball,” Huss said. “Maybe it’s skewed by the fact that I’m a long-time high school basketball and AAU basketball coach. I believe that the recipe for success for the last three decades has always been continuity. It’s been getting young players, attracting young players, developing young players, retaining young players. Whether that’s guys that have multiple years out of the transfer portal or that’s guys from high school basketball, I don’t necessarily care, but we’ve put a huge emphasis and we’re spending a ton of time on our class.

…on program continuity and skill…

“We’ve got a couple commitments in this [2027] class and we’re continuing to recruit more. We’re going to continue to lean into the high school piece and then honor the process of trying to retain those players as they develop in our program.”

“The idea is, obviously, always to be as skilled as you can,” Huss said. “When you think of Creighton basketball, it says ‘Let it Fly’ on our floor and in our practice facility for a reason. We’re all about shooting, skill, guys that can make shots from 22 feet away. When they can do that and they happen to be 6-8, 6-9, 6-10, 6-11, it makes it more interesting.

“It’s not all that dissimilar to what’s happening in professional basketball now. We’re trying to get longer, trying to get more positional size, and at the same time, we want to not sacrifice skill. I don’t necessarily think we set out to get all that much bigger, we were just able to do so.”

https://omaha.com/sports/college/creighton/article_2e94d8ef-06ac-41d6-9a3a-2d6a7ff1753e.html#tracking-source=home-top-story

https://twitter.com/search?q=BIGEAST%20media%20day&src=typed_query

Jim Harvey, a.k.a. @gtmoblue

Hussbus (Casey) at the bat!

On By @gtmoblueIn college basketball 365

Jays courtin’ multiple PG’s…in pursuit of Excellence!

Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

” The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clenched with hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate;
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out. ”

Snippet of “Casey at the Bat” – Ernest Lawrence Thayer

“But on the Hilltop there is Jubilee, as the HussBuss is Rollin’ mightily!”

Coach Huss is resetting the bar…establishing a new baseline, the ‘new’ Normal. In reaching-recruiting 6 high level PG’s (5 in the ESPN top 50), he is announcing intent to move the program to a higher level…into uncharted territory for lil’ Creighton. 3 top Pgs visiting within the last 3 weeks: #20 Pemberton, #30/31//33 Gordon, #39 Davis. Davis to Ohio St, Pemberton to Mich St, and now Gordon to the Jays!

This isn’t breaking news…not even top flight evening news. This is a periodic pulse of a growing program. Creighton has made big reaches, and steady strides before. This is another in that periodic series of program “stretches”…setting the tone for the next level.

Willis (Reed) brought in a Top 5 talent in Big Ben in ’82. Barone brought in Gallagher in ’87. Altman brought in Buford in ’95, Creighton failed in the 2006 Russ Westbrook recruitment & in 2010 in the Anthony Stover recruitment – both attempts to bump recruiting up to the ‘next level’. The Mac Era bumped up recruiting incrementally, Patton -2015, Ballock-Epperson-TyShon-2017, Zegarowski-2018; though most gains continued via transfers (Echenique, Gibbs, Foster, Watson, Hawkins, Scheierman, Ashworth, Traudt, Erhunmwunse, etc), until the 2021 Class / #12 nationally/247 (Kaluma-Nembhard-Alexander-Miller). Along with 2020s Kalkbrenner / Andronikashvili (#35 class), this team reached the Elite Eight and was one bad call from the Final Four! New heights indeed on the Hilltop. The 2022-26 recruiting classes ranked: 44 – 70 – 20 – 123 – 59 , and were heavily laden with transfers.

The program has hit new heights…and plateaus, before. Apke bringing us back to MVC conference play after 30 years as an independent. Barone re-establishing CU as a NCAA Tourney team. Altman’s sustained run of 16 years of steady, consistent excellence. Another 16 years of excellence and of escalating heights under Coach McDermott’s tutelage. But, it’s not enough to win 20 and make the dance these days. One dreams of more than Altman’s 21-22 W’s or Mac’s 23-24 W’s per year. More than making routine Sweet Sixteen’s and one lone shot at an Elite Eight. Thirty-two years of ‘good’ is… well… good.

But there are plenty more milestones, plenty more goals to achieve on the Hilltop. Multiple Big East / BET titles, a few more EE’s, and a handful of Final Four shots. Always room for a few more undefeated seasons (1917-18, 1918-19), and a few more 2-loss seasons (1916-17, 1919-20, 1923-24, 1924-25, & 1942-43). CU’s never had a 30+ W season, nor a Helm’s, AAU, NIT, or NCAA basketball championship. Plenty of milestones and goals left for my Jays to achieve! Plenty of room in the trophy cases and in the CHICO rafters for Final Fours and National Championship paraphrenalia! Hah!

Huss’ 1st recruiting class is currently ranked 7th-ESPN/6th-247.com nationally with the addition of #30/31/33 (ESPN/Rivals/247) PG Micah Gordon, and #65 PF London Dada, and is still a work-in-progress. Coach is a Jays homer, and is as tough / hard as 2-week old French bagettes!

We be Rollin’!!!!

Recruiting News!!!

2027 – Micah Gordon (Plainfield, NJ PG) has commited to the Bluejays! Highest ranked recruit in the modern rankings era. (Ctr Benoit Benjamin remains Creighton’s highest ranked recruit of all-time. Ben was 1st-5th in the 1982 Class (depending on sources), 1982 McD’s All- American.and Parade AA. Creighton – 1982-85; 1985 NBA Draft, 1st Round, #3, to the LA Clippers. Fifteen years in NBA.)

Welcome to the Hilltop, Micah!

Jim Harvey, a,k,a, @gtmoblue

#RollDamnJays