The Quarter of the Century All Creighton Team

With a quarter of the 21^st century in the books, we thought it would be a great time to select a “Quarter of the Century “team. Of course when picking any all-time team we need some ground rules so bare with me.

To be eligible the players had to be on one of the teams from the 2000-01 season to 2024-25 season. When selecting players, while one season of excellence is certainly considered, a longer career of steady play is an over riding factor. Players are judged on their college career at Creighton only, not what transpired after they transferred or played professional basketball. I also named the players as if you were starting a team. So I tried to have three point guards, ten combo guards and/ or wings/forwards and two centers. In listing the starting five I tried to take into consideration the positions they played during their careers and still picking the best players for the starting five.

With the above criteria one example should be mentioned. Ryan Sears and Ben Walker’s entire careers were taken into consideration rather than just the one year they played in this century. I went back and forth on this one but decided if you just included one year your judgement would be shaded by their entire career anyway. So why not include their entire body of work? Hence Rodney Buford is not included in this discussion as his final season was 1999-2000, and the 25 year span begins with the 2000-01 season.

I have picked a complete 15 player roster, including naming the starting five from that group. I also picked a five man “practice squad” of players just missing the 15 man roster. I also picked a head coach and a three man assitant staff. To be eligible to be an assistant on the staff you had to be a Creighton assistant for multiple years.

So now that the ground rules are set let’s list the Quarter of the Century team.

Starting Five

Ryan Sears

Nate Funk

Kyle Korver

Doug McDermott

Ryan Kalkbrenner

While you could argue to add someone to the starting lineup, you also could not argue with the players selected. Four of them rank in the top eight all-time in scoring and Sears is the all-time assists and steals leader. I know some would go with more recent point guards in Zegarowski, Nembhard or Watson but neither is among the all-time leaders in key categories. Certainly both Nembhard and Watson missed chunks of seasons with injuries but see the criteria above in making tough decisions.

The Rest of the Roster

Marcus Zegarowski

Mo Watson

Marcus Foster

Baylor Scheierman

Trey Alexander

Ty-Shon Alexander

Mitch Ballock

Grant Gibbs

Khyri Thomas

Gregory Echenique

It gets tough when you get to this point. Went with Watson as the third point guard as he missed 16 games in his final year which could have greatly increased his career stats. Wanted to add another “four” but in the end had to put Gibbs over Wragge. Close call but some injuries prevented Grant from moving up the assist list and he was as strong a leader as we have ever had plus a strong defender with his size. The team has Kyle and Doug who have played the four plus you have others who played that spot as well.

Practice squad

Ryan Nembhard

Antoine Young

Ben Walker

EthanWragge

Anthony Tolliver

A bunch of others are worthy here as well but our rules for this exercise are only five for practice squad

Coaching Staff

HC-Greg McDermott

Asst-Darian DeVries

Alan Huss

Steve Lutz

I’ve always said Dana Altman is the man and he is the guy that got this all started. But it is really tough to follow “the guy” which makes what Mac has done even more incredible. Naming Drock as an assistant here is a no-brainer. The other two spots could be filled by many guys as Creighton has really been blessed to have some terrific assistants. Huss and Lutz have proven their metal once leaving CU and were both great recruiters which helped shape many of the rosters these past 25 years.