It was just over a month ago that Alan Huss officially replaced Greg McDermott as the new head coach at Creighton.
Since then, there hasn’t been a moment for Huss to rest.
The school did everything within its power to make the regime change smooth, hiring Huss, a Creighton alum and longtime McDermott assistant, as the head-coach-in-waiting last April. And yet, there is no way to fully avoid the chaos that comes with such a transition, especially when coupled with the utter mayhem of transfer portal season.
“Despite even our best efforts to make it a seamless transition, clearly there’s some transition that had to happen,” Huss tells Hoops HQ. “It’s been hectic. It’s certainly not unique to us, but maybe even a little bit more hectic by the transition dumped on top of an already hectic time.”
Nonetheless, the program has managed to navigate through the chaos well. In the wake of a disappointing 2025-26 campaign in which it finished 16-18 and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019, Creighton appears positioned to bounce back in Year One of the Huss era. After retaining several key pieces and signing a promising transfer class, Huss is confident that his debut roster has the ability to make a splash. “Most importantly,” he says, “I think we have the right people to begin our journey.”
The start of that journey marks the end of the most fruitful chapter in Creighton men’s basketball history. McDermott, the program’s all-time winningest coach, was at the helm for 16 years. Under his guidance, the Bluejays claimed two conference regular-season titles, spent 121 weeks in the AP rankings and made 10 NCAA Tournament appearances, including a run to the 2023 Elite Eight.
Succeeding an esteemed coach like McDermott always comes with tremendous pressure. For Huss, the weight is even heavier because of his longstanding relationship to the university. A former player at Creighton under Dana Altman in the late 1990s, Huss was a part of a memorable team that made three straight NCAA Tournaments. His coaching journey began at the high school level and eventually led him back to Omaha in 2017, when he joined McDermott’s staff as an assistant.
In 2023, Huss landed his first collegiate head coaching job at High Point. Relying on many of the principles he learned from McDermott, Huss guided the Panthers to back-to-back Big South regular-season championships. He had no intention of leaving the program… until Creighton called. The opportunity to return to his old stomping grounds and eventually assume the lead chair was too enticing to pass up. He accepted the associate head coach/head-coach-in-waiting position in early April 2025, not knowing when McDermott would be stepping down. A year later, Huss’ time arrived.
“I think the goal is to keep things as similar as possible,” he says. “Mac’s ability to not deviate from process over the years, that really separates him and makes him unique and elite at the same time. It’ll be my goal to replicate that as much as I possibly can.”
Mac’s last dance unfortunately didn’t go as planned. Creighton entered the season with high expectations after signing a loaded transfer class, but a combination of injuries, defensive woes and a rocky start led to the program’s worst record in more than a decade. In their first season since 2020 without star big man Ryan Kalkbrenner, who now plays for the Charlotte Hornets, the Bluejays surrendered 75.2 points per game and just barely cracked the top 100 in defensive efficiency (per KenPom).
Still, Creighton went into the offseason determined to retain as many guys as possible. Several of the team’s top players showed encouraging signs of growth throughout the season. Despite its struggles, it was a high character group that was bonded and battle tested.
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Given the “economic realities of 2026 college basketball,” as Huss puts it, the program wasn’t able to re-sign every player that it coveted, but Creighton will bring back six important pieces, including three starters and four of its best shooters. Productive forwards Jasen Green and Isaac Traudt, both rising seniors, have stayed loyal to the Bluejays for their entire careers, as has redshirt junior guard Shane Thomas.
Former top-50 prospect Austin Swartz, a 6-foot-4 sophomore guard, will return for his second season with Creighton after transferring from Miami last April. Swartz was one of the team’s most reliable offensive weapons, averaging 10.9 points while shooting 38.3 percent from deep.
Underclassmen Hudson Greer, a 6-foot-7 freshman guard, and Jackson McAndrew, a 6-foot-10 sophomore forward, battled injuries in 2025-26 but have already proven capable of being high-impact players. McAndrew, who started on the 2024-25 team that placed second in the Big East, was limited to just four games due to a foot injury.
With leading scorers Josh Dix and Nik Graves graduating and talented big man Owen Freeman transferring out, there were still significant gaps for Huss to fill via the portal. The number one priority for the program has been — and will remain — identifying players who best fit the Bluejay culture and the present needs of the roster, rather than just chasing talent.
“Talent without fit just equals frustration,” Huss says. “So for us, the first qualifier you have to have is you have to be the right fit. Without you being the right fit, there’s no point in us even seeing that there is talent, because it’s not going to work for us. Maybe that’s why we’ve been a bit of an outlier. You look at our successful teams over the years — most of them, I don’t think if you just lined our team up versus the average team in the Big East that you’re going to like our talent necessarily better than theirs. It’s always been about fit, culture and pieces where the sum of the parts is greater than the individual pieces.”
To compensate for the departures of Dix and Graves, two dynamic playmakers, Creighton signed a trio of guards: 6-foot-2 junior Wes Enis from South Florida, 6-foot-1 junior BJ Davis from San Diego State and 6-foot-3 freshman Kayden Edwards from TCU. Enis was the top scorer (16.4 points per game) on a USF team that finished 25-9 and earned the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid since 2012; Davis, a tenacious floor general, has been a major contributor for the Aztecs for the past two seasons; and Edwards, the third-highest rated recruit in TCU history, showed flashes in a limited role as a rookie.
The most critical addition was Providence transfer Oswin Erhunmwunse, a 6-foot-10 sophomore center. With Kalkbrenner gone and Freeman hampered by injuries, Creighton’s interior defense suffered mightily last season. Erhunmwunse, who averaged 2.1 blocks (third in the Big East) and 8.3 rebounds for the Friars, was one of the best rim protectors on the market. The similarities between him and Kalkbrenner, a four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, are clear. “Both of them have that elite block rate, which ultimately ends possessions and starts us with high value possessions. Clearly that’s important to us,” Huss says. “We’ve got to protect the rim and do so at a high level, especially if we’re hiding a guy or two on the other end of the floor, which traditionally we’ve had to. Adding that back into the mix is a good first step.”
Creighton landed another elite shot blocker in JUCO transfer Wesly Rosa, a 7-foot-2 sophomore center. Rosa averaged 8.0 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.7 blocks at Dodge City Community College. A frontline of Erhunmwunse, McAndrew, Traudt, Green and Rosa brings a lot of size and versatility to the table.
Huss believes the new team has the potential to be dynamic offensively and much improved defensively. That said, the program isn’t satisfied yet. As the calendar flips to May, Huss and his staff are still pursuing free agents who can contribute next season.
Amid the flurry of meetings, phone calls and visits, there hasn’t been much time for Huss to reflect on his journey. Twenty five years ago he had just finished his playing career at Creighton; now he is running the program. The responsibility that comes with his dream job certainly isn’t lost on him.
“When you’re coming home and doing it at your alma mater, it’s just an added layer of pressure,” he says. “There are a few times where I’ve felt a little bit of that — like, let’s get this thing right — maybe even more so than you normally would. Aside from that, I’ve got an important job to do and I’m trying to attack it daily and make sure that we make decisions that put our basketball program and our university in the best possible space.”
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