The staff was really torn about this. What is everyone's thoughts? I'm in favor of it.

Most of you I'm sure saw this but if you didn't the Jays will be playing in the Paradise Jam MTE in the Virgin Islands next year. The tourney run Friday thru Monday Nov. 18th thru 21st. That's 3 games in 4 days--you get a off day either Saturday or Sunday depending on if you win or lose your first game. It's not the greatest field in the world with NC State the only real headliner. A bunch of other teams who we could get home and homes or even buy games fill out the field including past foes Ole Miss, Oral Roberts , St Joe's and Loyola.

Despite the field there are a couple of great things about this event--
1) It's not a crap ass Maury Hanks event
2) Most of the tourney is covered by CBS Sports--including semis and finals
3) The tourney runs the weekend before Thanksgiving so any holiday plans are not screwed up by the event
4) And most importantly-Its in the Virgin Islands!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am plannning to go so--so for any of you planning to also attend we will have some sort of Bluejay Banter.com event. Details to come.

Tonight on the only year-round Creighton sports talk show, we'll talk to CBSSports.com's Gary Parrish about the Big East and the upcoming basketball season. I think there's a chance that that ridiculous 50 states of college basketball thing might come up, too. Plus, we each go through Creighton's schedule game by game and predict whether each game will be a win or a loss. It's without question the most productive use of our time.

We're live tonight and every Monday night on 1620 The Zone, 1620thezone.com and the 1620 The Zone apps.

Heath, I noticed a post on twitter from practice. Will the Banter team be providing minor updates throughout the preseason?

Appreciate the insight.

Just found out the closed door scrimmage this season is at Mizzou

I wanted to start a thread like we did last year that lists when recruits will be on campus. So far we know:


Davion Mintz October 3rd

This may have been previously addressed, apologies if I missed it.

Are the games going to be available online? The official Creighton page does not have any links on the schedule.

Last night's skills practice was interesting. It was only for veterans, the freshman have their own skills workouts which I'm told are a bit slower paced. However, Martin Krampelj was there because he wanted to get an extra workout in before he had to do some work. It was very very clear that he was a freshman amongst the group when they did team defensive drills but I saw a lot of things to like about Martin. He has an extremely high release point on his shot. Most of all the thing that stood out the most was his athleticism. He gets off the ground so quickly and anytime he had a chance to dunk it in drills or offensive work he did. For a legit 6'8" he is so athletic, he was matched up a lot with Kenny Lawson, Cole Huff and Toby Hegner and did decent for a freshman. You can tell things are moving too quickly for him right now as with any freshman however but wow the talent is there!

I don't really know what to say about Marcus Foster other than Creighton has never had someone as explosive as him in the 15+ years I've been watching. He is a stud.

I swear Ronnie Harrell gets taller every time I see him. Like all the practices I've been to, he didn't really do a whole lot that stood out aside from make the only three he shot in the offensive vs defense team workouts. Him and James were getting yelled at a lot for their defense.

Geoff looked pretty good in the half court offense against Zach but when they did full court one on one drills Zach obviously got the better of him. Zach looked like the beast he did in last summer league but I was told that his confidence is his biggest problem right now.

Toby also had some success out there. I love his competitiveness. He's a developing leader.

Mo Watson and Coach Murphy were both absent, both went home for family members graduations.

Lastly, in regards to the duo from New Orleans. They're just a weird deal because it doesn't sound like Gresham will qualify and the ideal situation for Creighton would be to start him at IWCC. I don't know if he would be able to qualify at other schools but Creighton's academic standards probably aren't going to help Creighton's cause with those two.

THIS INFO STAYS HERE!!!

Out of all the guys Creighton is after for the 2015 recruiting class, which player would you want Creighton to get the most? Feel free to give a top 3 or top 5.

Some of Creighton's top targets currently include:
Matt McQuaid
Chris Clarke
Glynn Watson
Ty Hudson
Justin Robinson
Matt Milon
Chris Silva
Khryi Thomas
Jimmy Whitt
Shake Milton
Aaron Falzon
Markis McDuffie

Just to name a few

Just wondering what everyone thinks? Is it time to make a change in the baseball program? Before you think this is an overreaction to one tournament loss consider the following:

--In two years only one regular season title and no post season titles. While this is a short time period Ed's own words were when we joined the Big East-"We want to dominate the Big East" That's hardly domination folks
--No NCAA appearances in the last three years. And the last time we did make it to the NCAA's it should be pointed out we finished in 8th place in the conference.
--Attendance and over all interest has dropped significantly over the last two years.
--Following up on the point above the attendance at the recent Big East tourney was an embarrassment. Barely drawing 10,000 people for four days is a joke. (Yes I know better than last year but we need to raise the bar a little higher than that)
--Baseball booster interest declining.
--Good assistant coaches leaving. It's no secret that a couple of these guys left because they either couldn't get along with Ed or didn't like his style of play.
--Speaking of style of play, Ed's style is fine when you are winning but even then pretty boring baseball. You have to play flawless baseball to succeed and lately his teams have been far from that.
--While pitching has been ok to good, our everyday line up lacks any fire power and frankly very few guys that can hit the ball at all. Two innings in a row yesterday we left the bases loaded. Why? Because time and again we are sending up .250-.260 hitters to come through in those clutch spots. Yes we need speed to play at TDA, but can we not recruit some sticks?
--Over the last two years Ed has made more and more bad moves. Look no further back than his move yesterday to bring DeCaster in who has struggled mightily??
--Lastly, and perhaps more importantly to many of us, we have lost 11 of the last 14 versus Nebraska. This is totally unacceptable. Nebraska has not been very good during this stretch. And there is no reason, despite what Husker fans say, that Creighton shouldn't be as good or better than NU at baseball.

I know some of you really don't care, which I guess is a problem in itself as even though we are a northern school we still could have some decent success and at least make the NCAA's on a regular basis.

So what do you think?

6'3" SG, transferring from Charlotte. Shot 46% from three last season. Is unofficially visiting South Carolina today, and said Creighton, Butler, VCU, and St. Joe's are also in line for visits.

2017 Guard Marques Wilson plays for the Omaha Elite and is originally from Edmond, Oklahoma. He just received an offer from ISU. He is pretty high on Creighton's 2017 recruiting list. Drock has been on him for a while. Jacob knows a lot more about him!

Login to view embedded media
Login to view embedded media

Creighton is very close to announcing that they're hiring Boston College assistant coach Preston Murphy as the new assistant. That is not for public knowledge yet.

Patrick Sellers is leaving Creighton to join Dave Leitao's staff at DePaul. It's probably happening today.

6'2 G Marlon Stewart will be committing today. He broke his hand this summer but played for the DRose all stars AAU. Coaches see him as PG/Combo guard, they say he's a really good shooter. His recruitment process went very quickly as you all know.

https://rivals.yahoo.com/basketballrecruiting/basketball/recruiting/player-Marlon-Stewart-166501


Please keep this on the DL, don't want to steal the kids thunder as he's making an announcement today.






This post was edited on 9/22 3:47 PM by Banter Heath

This post was edited on 11/12 4:03 PM by Banter Heath

Since we probably will add one more guy to the 2015 class, I figured it would be best to go ahead and give Marcus his own thread!

This post was edited on 4/20 9:10 AM by Banter Heath

Time to stop straddling the Fence: Are we gonna continue "Shooter U" or are we gonna change to adapt to the BE reality of more physical style of play?

Can't continue to run Shooter U sets n plays while recruiting more and more athletic, physical players to handle the BE bruising style.

Truth be told none of our players are a problem. Our older players were recruited for the "shooter U" style of play. The coaching staff now says and are now recruiting for the BE style brawls, ie, physical play, aggressive play, and football style contact. Don't blame the players for the coaches indecision or the coaches lack of stones to change the style of play. However. If we now are recruiting for the BE style of play, why are we persisting in running 4 out, 1 in shooter U sets and plays?

The issue is in recruiting for the style of play OR in changing the style of play and recruits for the new reality in the BE. If we are recruiting more athletic, slashing, dribble drive, or bruising style players, why continue to run the Shooter U sets that our new players cannot be effective in?
Change the style of play to allow our more athletic (and perhaps less efficient shooters) to utilize their talents effectively.

The players are not the problem. Confusion, halfway measures, and trepidation are the enemy here. The coaches need to make a coherent, cohesive decision regarding Creighton's style of play - and stick with it.

If we still aspire to be "Shooter U" - Fine. Recruit shooters and let them shoot.
If the goal is to play and compete with standard BE rough n tumble style of play - Fine. Continue to recruit the more athletic players and change the style of play to reflect the new BE realities.

Fence straddling is not allowed, as such doctrine and practices will hinder and perhaps kill, success.

I guess Jeff Goodman tweeted he was transferring but later deleted it so not sure what to believe. If he does transfer it wouldn't surprise me but man that would be a major miss on recruiting for the staff.

Heath, you have anything on this that you can report?
Thanks

For the first time in five years since he has been here, we had a few calls on our postgame that questioned Coach Mac. I guess this is very understandable since we just got beat by 27 points on our home floor. Most were around his comment he made to John and Nick after the game in which he said "I have no answers"

There are also many who have made statements explaining the current state of the team. "team is built for the Valley" (some truth to that) or "coaches can't make shots" (true).

Was wondering where everyone is right now? My two cents-It does concern me when a head coach makes that statement. I mean thats what we are paying you for. When you make that statement you can be coming from three different ways as I see it-- 1) Players aren't listening (I really don't think thats the issue) 2) I'm in over my head (I know thats not the issue-like Mac or not-he's coached successfully at a high mid major and in one of the top conferences in the country-albeit with less success) 3) We haven't got the horses to compete. Thats probably the closest of the three. But frankly I think all of that is on the coaches--not from just a recruiting standpoint but in the sense that they chose the kind of offense for this team--the "let it fly" approach. I remember last summer thinking we would see a pound it down low approach and grind it out--much like many of Mac's teams did at UNI. Sure in seeing 2/3s of this season that approach probably wouldn't have been very effective either.

So it seems to me that we are going to have to wait for two seasons (while we will be improved next year we are still sorely missing a rim protector). How patient will fans be? Your thoughts

-

I haven't been compelled to post since Mr Mcquaid ripped my heart out, for the 2nd time. But after watching last nights game, I couldn't help thinking that maybe it is time Avery, Austin and Will (our 4 year seniors) come off the bench. It appears to my, untrained, eyes that Hanson, Hegner, Kreklow, Brooks and Milliken are our most effective 5. Granted I don't see practice or know anything about defensive rotations but, at this point, I feel like it time to play the guys that give us the best chance to win. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like loyalty and trust aren't working.

Heath - any new info on who the Jays might go after for the last spot in 2015? It's becoming abundantly clear that the Jays need an upgrade in the athleticism department next season.

So any inside info on him? He's down to 6 which includes us. What are the chances we get a visit?

Heard this rumor this morning, it's official according to Twitter. I'll let you know what I found out as far as reason. As of right now it's "Violation of team rules"

He wont play, travel or even practice during the suspension. Very disappointing.
This post was edited on 12/16 3:24 PM by Banter Heath

Guard Conner Frankamp is transferring from Kansas. He was ranked 34th overall in the 2013 recruiting class out of High School. 6'0 guard is from Wichita. It's very very early but sounds like he is considering Creighton, Illinois, WSU and Northwestern. I'm sure we will hear about more schools soon.



This post was edited on 10/31 1:00 PM by Banter Heath