Shatel: Creighton basketball is in its Golden Age. Winning hasn't always been this routine
Joe Sobczyk can't make it to the Creighton season opener on Wednesday night. He'll be there in spirit.
What a spirit.
Sobcyzk, a CPA in the Kansas City area, has been a lifelong Jays fan. He grew up in Omaha, where one day in second grade he was called to the principal's office.
Big trouble? Nope. Good news. Joe's father, Tom, had called to let him know Creighton had beaten Florida in the NCAA tournament (2002).
Tom Sobczyk started this love affair back on Nov. 9, 1999, when he took young Joe to his first Jays basketball game — an exhibition game against Global Sports. Ironically, Creighton lost.
As Joe can tell you, there haven't been a lot of losses over the last 25 years.
He knows because he's ranked the top 134 Creighton games from 1999 to now. Sobczyk went back and watched all of them, mostly on YouTube.com .
He also ranked the top 88 Jays players from that era.
You can find Sobczyk and his rankings on X at Also, his Creighton basketball podcast, where he talks with fans and former players about all things Creighton basketball.
That's a lot of cool history. But there's no history like what we're witnessing right now.
This is the Golden Age of Creighton basketball.
As the Jays open the 2024-25 season against UTRGV on Wednesday, it's worth taking note of CU's place in the basketball universe.
Creighton lost two NBA players from a team that went to the Sweet 16 for the second straight year.
And the Jays are picked to finish second in the Big East and have the Big East pre-season player of the year.
They're predicted to make the NCAA tournament every year — because they make the NCAA tourney every year.
Arguably the best team in Creighton program history suited up for the Jays two years ago. Unless it was the team the year before that.
A sellout crowd will pack the CHI Health Center, where the school added several rows of pricey court side seats to meet demand. They added a bar just off the court level. And new table seating in the upper end zone.
You find the Creighton logo in every corner of Omaha, and outside Omaha. Every retail shop that sells sports gear is loaded with Jays merchandise. Most bars put the Creighton games on TV.
A Jays basketball ticket has never been hotter.
Creighton hosts the Kansas Jayhawks on Dec. 5. Alabama, Iowa, Iowa State and Gonzaga have all played the Jays in Omaha in recent years.
Top 50 recruits are coming to CU. So are some of the top transfers in college basketball.
Thanks to membership in the Big East, the majority of Creighton's games are on national TV.
Creighton has made the Sweet 16 three times in the last four years, including the Elite Eight in 2023. In the last 10 seasons, CU has missed the NCAA tourney twice (not counting 2020). The last time the Jays didn't win 20 games was 2015.
The best players in Creighton history are playing in the biggest games in front of the most eyeballs and fans.
And it's happening every year.
Do Jays fans appreciate what they're seeing? I think they do. But it's hard not to feel like this is routine. Like, this is the way it's always been.
It's not. I see former Jays players and older alums at Creighton games. They're wearing the modern logo. They look giddy. Their hearts swell with pride.
Creighton has a history of great players and coaches, going back at least to the 1940's up in the old gym in the Hilltop. Creighton has always had a passion for basketball. The program always had a standard.
But between 1969-70 (Eddie Sutton's first year) and 1997-98 (Dana Altman's fourth), while the Jays were battling in the Missouri Valley Conference, Creighton went to a total of six NCAA tournaments and had eight 20-win seasons.
Creighton basketball was a mom-and-pop shop in Omaha when I found it in 1991. Like a tight-knit family business.
I remember the spiral stairs up to the old gym for practice. The cozy Jaybacker Room at the Civic, with the giant bag of popcorn and a bartender behind a small bar.
The excitement and buzz when ESPN and Jay Bilas came to Omaha to do a Creighton-Fresno State game at the Civic for the "Bracket Busters."
The euphoria of beating Louisville and Florida in the first round of the NCAA's, but also knowing the Jays had little to no chance in the second around against Maryland and Illinois.
I often think of my old Creighton attorney buddies — Bill Hargens, Mark Enenbach, Leo Knowles, Doug Quinn, Jim Niemier and Tom McGowan —and how they are loving this Golden Age. None of them — nobody — could have imagined this back in the day.
There's a generation of Creighton basketball fans now that have experienced 16 NCAA tourney trips and 24 20-win seasons since 1999. This is Creighton as they know it.
The move to the Big East was the game-changer. So was Coach Greg McDermott's adjustment to the league. And, of course, the kid named Doug.
That 2013-14 team let the Big East know it wasn't just there to ask for autographs. They announced their arrival at Villanova.
Membership in the Big East meant you could go to the NCAA's every year. It also meant you would be expected to win there.
Coach Mac has brought Creighton to this place. He's been on quite a heater since 2019, with the run of all-time players and all-time teams, one after the other.
Now here comes Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth to help teach Pop Isaacs and Jackson McAndrew those expectations. It's their turn now. And historians of all eras are watching close.
"I do think it's the golden age," said Sobczyk. "I always think back to my perception of Creighton basketball when I was young. The goal every year was to make the NCAA tournament.
"Now the expectation is at a completely different place. We get to play Kansas at home. And UConn and Marquette and all these Big East teams we're playing, and all of the great players we have now. It's incredible."
You might even say golden.
, 402-444-1025, twitter.com/tomshatelOWH
Sports columnist
