Nebraska and Creighton in the Elite 8 is not some Loess Hills meth dream. It could happen.
In all the hype from the usual East Coast pundits about perennial blue bloods, don't overlook the Heartland.
Forget that I am a Child of the Corn for a second. I have not been a Nebraska basketball fan since the days of "The Polish Rifle," Eric Piatowski. I wished Freddy Hoiberg well when he took over this woeful program, but I am part of an elite fraternity of "Jayskers," those who root for the historically dominant Creighton Bluejays basketball team and the once-and-future dominant Nebraska Cornhuskers football team. The steady success of Nebraska women's volleyball has been nice, but let's be real. It's still about Cornhusker football and Bluejay basketball in the Heartland, a sellout crowd for women's volleyball at Memorial Stadium, and badass Caitlin Clark next door in Iowa, notwithstanding.
Creighton at its "Let It Fly" best is a sight to see. If you watched Dougie McDermott and Ethan Wragge eviscerate the vaunted Villanova Wildcats a few years back in Philly, you saw Coach Greg McDermott's offense work as intended: complete, heart-crushing, lethality. If you saw Creighton blow out number one Connecticut at “The Health Center” in February, you saw it again. In Coach Mac's elegant system, when it's rolling––players pushing the ball up, the center scoring down low, wings hitting threes, guards dribble-driving at will, the rock ripping around the horn and back at pinball speed, the Jays stealing without fouling on D––you have as close to godly perfection in college basketball since the John Wooden UCLA Bruins. The Creighton onslaught comes fast and furious leaving even the most stalwart and conditioned teams spent and bewildered.
There are five enduring problems: 1. Creighton has an uncanny tendency to let teams back into the game when the Jays are up by 20 or 30. It's as if their Jesuit Woke indoctrination kicks in and they feel sorry for the opponent and want to naively help them out somehow. It's nuts; 2. The Jays sometimes move away from feeding their 7’ 1” center Ryan Kalkbrenner and start jacking up threes without the proper advanced mix of ball movement and dribble-driving. In those instances, they are prone to getting blown out. See how under-seeded Colorado State drummed the Jays into submission early in the year; 3. They can get out-muscled by more "athletic" teams. See the Jays' loss to San Diego State in last year's Elite 8 in Louisville (I was there); 4. If an opposing squad has strong, pesky guards and a dominant center, they can offset the inside-outside Hobson's choice the Jays force upon defenses. In that scenario, it’s best to press the Jays and get up in their grill. They tend to panic. 5. Turnovers. The Jays commit too many.
Even if everything is going haywire, however, the Jays have a not-so-secret assassin: the Pistol Pete of the Plains, Baylor Scheirerman. If the tough kid from Aurora, Nebraska is on––he’s a former high school quarterback––you've got problems.
Nebraska is also a high-flying offensive machine, but their defense, though better than in years past, is still a trifle suspect. If they are going to win one or more games in the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament—Nebraska is the last Big Five conference team to never win an NCAA tourney game—it wil be due to their slightly odd, extra cheery, under-the-radar sushi master, Keisei Tominaga. The best Japanese player in America, this Ginsu-sharp lefty has the potential to carve up a few brackets. Watch what Pat McAfee has to say about the colorful crafty guard he dubs, "The Japanese Steph Curry": https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/3976548.
Though the Bluejays crushed the Huskers early in the year, Nebraska has gotten better, eventually taking out then-number-one Purdue at Pinnacle Bank Arena in January and playing mighty Illinois tough in the Big 12 Tourney. Extra motivation comes from Nebraska’s athletic director, Trev Alberts, who recently announced that he had clandestinely moved from Lincoln to College Station. Who do the Huskers play in round one? Texas A&M, baby.
So, in all the hype from the usual East Coast commentators about perennial blue-bloods, don't sleep on the Heartland. Nebraska and Creighton in the Elite 8 is not some Loess Hills meth dream. With a little luck, and some streaky play, it could happen.