UMKC v #22 Creighton Bluejays Game Guide

How to Watch, Stream, Listen

Game Time: 8:00pm CT

Location: CenturyLink Center, Omaha, NE

TV: FSMW / FSGO

Radio: 1620AM the Zone & 101.9FM the Keg in Omaha / 99.3FM in Kansas City

Series History

Creighton leads the series 8-3 vs. UMKC.

The most recent match-up occurred in 2013, with Creighton winning 96-70, with Doug McDermott pouring in 37 points.

Creighton and UMKC played every year from 1992-1998, with the Bluejays holding a record of 5-3.

UMKC enters the matchup with star player Martez Harrison, who matches up with Maurice Watson Jr. in size, and led the Kangaroos in scoring in 2015-16 with 15.6 PPG. The upset minded ‘Roos will visit Omaha an attempt to break free of a 4-game losing streak.

Verba de Ludis

Here we are on the cusp of a college basketball season in the wake of the strangest, most straining election cycle I’ve ever lived through.

To get a welcome distraction at this particular time is a welcome blessing for myself. I cannot speak for you, but becoming entrenched in the campaigning of politicians makes this a refreshing reprieve from the world around us.

Yet here we are. Anew. Refreshed. Some frustrated, some surprised, some in shock, some in jubilation. All the same, we’re to witness the opening evening of college basketball and I couldn’t be more excited.

This is it. For the next several months we’ll be wining and dining the college hoops season yet again. The anticipation of this season has been messy and fraught with hype and desires; the cream of the crop will remain on top but a darkhorse lurks in the shadows. That darkhorse no longer represents Creighton, it represents the foes they will face each week in this season.

The Bluejays have accumulated a solid, nimble team that will feast on lackadaisical opponents who dare to allow a fast break go smoothly. Creighton is no longer the underdog, but instead someone to knock off; someone to gain pleasure in beating. They aren’t necessarily Goliath, yet are no longer David. These guys are the real deal.

It’s interesting to look through a lens and see Creighton from this point of view. There’s an aura of respect emanating from the national beat writers, lest they dare call Creighton a mid-major, and the tandem of Watson & Foster will force teams onto their heels as they struggle to stop the rush of Bluejay blue. Perhaps a majority of this is hyperbole, perhaps there’s some semblance of reality. Regardless, I will proceed to hype this team up to no end.

UMKC will provide Creighton an opponent. UMKC is a team that features two players with the first name of Broderick. They feature a 5’11 guard in Martez Harrison who dumped in 14 points in an exhibition game against Missouri A&T. Most importantly, though, they’re the first opponent Creighton will face in the regular season this year. There’s weight to that.

This will be the first time players like Kobe Paras, Justin Patton, Davion Mintz, and Marcus Foster will be able to suit up in the Creighton whites and participate in a game that actually matters. For all the waiting we’ve done for these guys to show up, for all the hype they’ve garnered in the past, it all comes to a head as they finally log real minutes in a Bluejay uniform. If that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what will.

Most of all, enjoy your Friday evening. Watch the game from your computer in your office, at a bar with strangers, in your home with your family, on a yacht sailing around the world, inside the international space station, in a cave that somehow gets 4G, at the CenturyLink Center, in the closet of your ex-husband’s new girlfriend’s bedroom, at a water polo competition in southside Chicago, with your collection of imaginary friends, at a rodeo, in virtual reality, on the roof of a building in Manhattan, next to your beloved Mule, or just in your underwear on your couch. Let’s come together and bask in the warmth of college basketball.

I leave you with two things; a quote by Cormac McCarthy and a song by ‘Run The Jewels.’

Talk to you later.

Men have in their minds a picture of how the world will be. How they will be in that world. The world may be many different ways for them but there is one world that will never be and that is the world they dream of.