Creighton Basketball '04 Preview

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When I came to Creighton in the fall of 1997, it had been eight years since Creighton's last NCAA Tournament appearance. They were barely on the college basketball map -- hardcore NCAA fans might have remembered Benoit Benjamin, the mid-eighties All American who was drafted third overall in the 1985 NBA Draft by the Clippers, and then played 16 underachieving seasons for 9 different teams. Even casual fans remember the Kevin Ross scandal of the early-80s, where Ross completed four years of college and couldn't read. (At a school where the average ACT score is 23 out of 36, Ross scored a 9.) For those fans who had forgotten the transgressions of twenty years prior, ESPN offered a kind reminder on their Outside The Lines program. The show aired the day after Creighton's 2-OT upset of Florida in the tournament.

Not exactly a nice legacy.

But in 1997, the term mid-major had not yet been applied to college basketball's middle class. This was before the Gonzagas, the Butlers, the Creightons, the Kent States of the world crashed the NCAA Tournament party with not just upsets, but deep runs into the Sweet 16 and further. I had no idea of their history when I enrolled for school. But when I got there and discovered that they did indeed play Division I sports, and were in the same conference as my Dad's school, Drake, I was shocked. With the basketball games free to students, I started walking the 6 blocks from campus to the old Civic Auditorium for games.

It was weird at first to cheer for someone other than Iowa in hoops; it took a while. It wasn't right away. At first, I went because its always better to be at a game in person than to watch one on TV in the dorms, regardless of who's playing. Slowly, I started to become a real fan of my school's team. 360-fast break dunks from Rodney Buford will do that.

But I was about the only one. That first year, 1997-98, the average attendance was about 4500, numbers skewed by a sellout against Nebraska. Most crowds were more like 3500. And the student section was pathetic; most students, if they knew there was a game at all, were too busy studying to go. The few of us who did go were a hearty bunch. The team wasn't very good, their style of play was unexciting, and the crowds were lethargic. Somehow, I got hooked. The Jays went to the NIT that year, where they lost to fellow Jesuit school Marquette in the first game.

My sophomore year, a fellow Iowan named Ryan Sears entered his second season as starting point guard, and his leadership turned the Jays into a formidable opponent; coupled with Ben Walker, they made up a hell of a backcourt. With Rodney Buford on his way to leading the school in points scored all time, the Jays won the Missouri Valley Tournament and were on to the NCAA tourney. I remember standing out by the fountain in front of the church, freezing my butt off with about 100 other students, looking crazy for the TV cameras as the backdrop for their reporter covering the "celebration". It was so sad. 100 people? That's not a crowd, that's a dinner party.

As the school headed to the NCAA Tournament, they discovered the pep band had no uniforms. God bless 'em, that ragtag group were trying not to suck, they really were. But they did. The bookstore cut them a deal on matching polo shirts so at least when a national TV audience on CBS saw them, they weren't all dressed different. This is how different things were just a few years ago. No fan base, apathetic students, a pep band without uniforms.

I thought that might change when they upset Louisville in the first round that year, before losing valiently to Stevie Francis and Maryland. (Incidentally, all existing copies of the tape of that game should go to the Unintentional Comedy Hall of Fame. Watching little Ryan Sears, white guy from Ankeny Iowa try to guard Steve Francis remains to this day a good laugh.)

Rodney Buford unleashes a thundering dunk on some poor bastard.

But it really didn't change. The next year was my most memorable as a student. With Buford gone (I'd say graduated, but that guy was such an incredible dope, I don't think he degree'd. I mean, this guy was my lab partner in a Journalism class, and normally that would be cool. But the guy never took his giant ghetto headphones off. Never did any work. Got a C. How? He scored 30 points a night.), it figured to be a down year. They struggled at times, but somehow managed to string wins together, aided by two freshmen: a lanky kid from Pella, Iowa named Kyle Korver, and an athletic jumper with an Air Jordan tatt on his arm named Terrell Taylor. There were the seeds of a student body rallying around them, but it seemed to be sporadic at best.

The Jays hosted Iowa in late November at the Civic. One of three times in my life that I've rooted against the Hawks, but definitely the most painful, actually being there in person. Creighton won incidentally, but I don't remember the score.

I spent Spring Break in New Orleans for Mardi Gras that year, and we would always have to check the paper for scores of the MVC tourney. When we saw they would be playing in the title game, we temporarily halted our bead throwing for 2 hours to watch the game. That's dedication, brother. After defending their MVC crown in St. Louis, they went north to Minneapolis for the NCAA's. The Jays lost to Auburn 72-69, after a blistering last-minute comeback fell short with Ben Walker's shot careening off the rim at the buzzer.

By my senior year, fan support was starting to pick up slightly. There were a half dozen nights where the student section was packed. The comeback against Indiana State was the most thrilling game I've ever been at -- with the season on the brink, against the top team in the league, the Jays rallied from something like 15 points down in the last ten minutes to win. My memory is a litte blurry on that one. Damn Michelob on tap at the old Civic. Kills the memory, it does.

The Jays' reputation was growing nationally enough that when they sputtered in the Valley tourney and lost, they earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. Their reward: a game against Iowa in Uniondale NY. Horror of horrors. My childhood team against my current college, in the NCAA Tournament, winner takes all. And I was working as an intern and would have to miss the game! (I smuggled a black and white TV in and watched covertly). Iowa won, but it didn't hurt as much as previous years, probably because the Hawks got absolutely killed by Kentucky two days later.

Dunk on them. Dunk on all of them.

With the emergence of Kyle Korver and Terrell Taylor as dual stars, fan support was slowly growing. My first year out of school, I snagged tickets from an old professor often, and watched the team grow into one that would once again win the Valley's automatic bid in St. Louis. This year, their fourth consecutive tourney appearance, it seemed like going home one-and-done was not enough. They needed to break through. The draw looked tough though -- Florida? Top-5 Florida? Ouch.

Of course, Creighton took them to double-overtime, where with Kyle Korver and Brody Deren fouled out, Terrell Taylor had to put the team on his back in the second OT. His buzzer-beater-three is etched in my brain like it happened yesterday. Listening to T. Scott Marr call the game on the Creighton radio network, it was 30 seconds before I knew what happened. Either the shot went in, or he was dying of a gun shot to the groin. The shot went in. The loss to Illinois two days on what was essentially a home court for the Illini -- the United Center in Chicago -- did nothing the dampen the enthusiasm for what returned the next year.

Terrell Taylor gets arrested and thrown off the team. So logically, the Jays go on to have the best team in school history, and Kyle Korver is an All-American, they rise as high as #9 in the AP Poll, and go 29-4. Great stuff. The entire town of Omaha swelled behind Creighton. It was unbelievable. As a student, when we would sit in an empty student section dreaming of what it would be like to play to a packed house every night, what it would be like to be nationally ranked in the top 10, to be unbeatable at home because of the crowd -- I wish I had been there to see it as a student. It was still pretty sweet as an alum. From the New Years Eve game at Top 15 Xavier where a close loss -- one where Korver gave birth to his legend with a Reggie Miller-esque barage of 3's in the closing minutes -- you couldn't go anywhere in sports circles here and not talk about them. Korver was a bonafide superstar. Everytime he launched a three, the Civic crowd would rise as one and more times than not, tear the roof off when the shot would go in. It was the dream season. Except for that whole upset-in-the-first-round business. I didn't like that so much.

Kyle Korver, the Greatest Bluejay.

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Hopefully last year's disappointing team can rebound this year and once again claim March glory. It starts tonight. Opening night at the Q. If you're there, stop by section 113, row 4, seats 5 and 6 and say Hi, talk some hoops, and root for the Jays.