Alan Huss was very content with his situation. In his second season as the head coach at High Point, he had guided the Panthers to a 29-6 record and a Big South Tournament title, earning them a bid to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. His roster was shaping up quite nicely for the 2025-26 campaign, too. Everything was trending in the right direction, so Huss wasn’t particularly interested in any other job opportunities. Except one.
When the season ended, he and Greg McDermott started talking more seriously about the possibility of Huss rejoining Creighton’s staff as associate head coach and head-coach-in-waiting. Huss played for the Bluejays under now-Oregon coach Dana Altman from 1997-2001 and was one of McDermott’s assistants from 2017-2023. “It was something that obviously I had to consider just because it’s home,” Huss tells Hoops HQ. “And when you have a place that’s home, and especially a place that’s been as successful as Creighton basketball has been for the last couple decades, it’s intriguing. And it’s hopefully a place I can go and not move again.”
Huss officially assumed the position in early April, which has given McDermott peace of mind as he looks ahead to next season. “It’s always been my hope that someday one of my guys would replace me,” McDermott tells Hoops HQ. “I’m excited that he was willing to do it and that the administration here was on board with it. It allows me to walk away when I want to walk away and not have the fear that your program is going to implode when that happens.”
McDermott has not yet decided exactly when he will retire, but he expects it could be in the next couple years. “When you’re a Hall of Famer, you get to dictate your own terms,” says Huss. “So we haven’t gotten into the nitty gritty just yet on exactly what it looks like. From my perspective, obviously I’m back, so it’s closer than probably a lot of people on the outside realize. But he’s certainly earned the right to go out on his own terms and figure out when that is.”
While positioning the program for success down the road, McDermott and his staff have also put together a formidable 2025-26 squad using the transfer portal. Hoops HQ’s Tristan Freeman currently ranks Creighton’s transfer class sixth in the country.
For the past several years, the team has revolved around 7-foot-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner, the reigning Naismith Defensive Player of the Year. Kalkbrenner spent his entire college career with the Bluejays, helping them reach the Sweet Sixteen three times in five seasons. In addition to losing his star big man, McDermott had to replace All-Big East point guard Steven Ashworth (out of eligibility), starting wings Jamiya Neal (out of eligibility) and Pop Isaacs (transferred to Houston) plus reserves Mason Miller (transferred to Murray State) and Frederick King (transferred to Murray State).
A handful of players are returning to Omaha, including 6-foot-10 freshman forward Jackson McAndrew, who started 31 of 36 games, 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Jasen Green, 6-foot-6 freshman guard Fedor Zugic and 6-foot-10 sophomore forward Isaac Traudt. The Bluejays also have consensus four-star recruit Hudson Greer, a sharpshooting 6-foot-6 guard, and 7-foot-1 Serbian center Aleksa Dimitrijevic joining the mix. But as portal season got underway, McDermott had a lot of holes to address to ensure his team would remain a contender in the Big East.
One of his top priorities was to add experience. He also specifically targeted players who fit Creighton’s system, which emphasizes pushing the pace and hunting threes. “I think from a stylistic standpoint, there are certain things that we value that maybe other teams don’t value quite as much,” McDermott says. “High skill level is really important in our program.”
Fortunately, Creighton was able to land a pair of high-profile transfers early on. Iowa teammates Josh Dix, a 6-foot-6 junior guard, and Owen Freeman, a 6-foot-10 sophomore forward, were permitted to hit the portal before it officially opened because of coach Fran McCaffrey’s firing in mid-March. Freeman, who is slotted at No. 21 on Hoops HQ’s ranking of the top 50 transfers, committed to the Bluejays on March 26. Dix followed about a week later. Both players started for a Hawkeyes team that ranked 18th in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency, per KenPom. The former Big Ten Rookie of the Year in 2023-24, Freeman averaged 16.7 points and 6.7 rebounds last season before missing the final 14 games due to a finger injury. Dix averaged 14.4 points and shot 42.2 percent from behind the arc.
Creighton signed three other players in the portal in April: 6-foot-3 junior guard Nik Graves from Charlotte, 6-foot-8 freshman guard Blake Harper from Howard and 6-foot-4 freshman guard Austin Swartz from Miami. Graves, who averaged 17.5 points for the 49ers, figures to take Ashworth’s place as the starting point guard. Harper was named the 2024-25 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Player of the Year after averaging 19.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists, while shooting 40.4 percent from three. Swartz, a former top-50 recruit who came off the bench for the Hurricanes, is also a threat from deep.
McDermott is confident that his new commits both fit together and within Creighton’s culture. It was clear to him during the recruiting process that they all wanted to join the program “for the right reasons,” in part because Creighton wasn’t the highest NIL bidder on any of them.
Led by their exceptional transfer class, the Bluejays should have an elite offense. The roster features numerous dynamic guards who can spread the floor and create off the dribble, as well as a highly-skilled center in Freeman. The staff envisions playing through Freeman a lot — on the post and at the top of the key — and entrusting him to make reads out of pick-and-rolls or pick-and-pops.
McDermott believes that Graves, who shot just 41.7 percent from the field last year, will have cleaner looks at the basket and thus increase his efficiency in Creighton’s system. That is precisely what happened with Jamiya Neal, who shot a career-high 44.7 percent as a member of the Bluejays.
On the opposite side of the floor, adjustments will have to be made in the absence of Kalkbrenner. It’s hard to imagine there won’t be a considerable drop off without one of the nation’s top rim protectors, but the Bluejays do have solid positional size and length that should work to their advantage.
Perhaps this group’s greatest strength is its depth — a major point of emphasis coming off a year in which Creighton ranked 338th in bench points per game (13.3). The rotation will surely be deeper and the staff will experiment with various combinations and styles over the summer. “We have the possibility to play some different size lineups, maybe play some small ball, maybe play big,” says Huss. “The one thing people don’t understand about Mac is, everybody knows what a great coach he is, what a good guy he is, but when he gets to kind of sit around and tinker at the basketball stuff, that’s his domain. He does many things really well, but his ability to look at a group and see things that others don’t is truly his gift.”
Amidst the chaos of the past few months, it hasn’t fully sunk in with Huss that he will be taking over for McDermott soon. There will be a moment, Huss believes, when it will suddenly hit him, perhaps when he walks into CHI Health Center for the team’s first home game.
“This time of year is such a task-oriented time,” Huss says. “I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and think big picture yet. The month of August is typically good for that, once you’ve had eight weeks with your team over the course of the summer to get acclimated. But April and May are more about, let’s solidify the roster. Let’s make sure there aren’t any glaring weaknesses. Let’s try to get this thing in position to compete for a championship next season.”
With their future secure, the Bluejays have done just that.
