Walker: 3 takes on Creighton basketball’s loaded nonconference schedule

Here are three takes on the Jays’ loaded slate, one that starts with five straight home games and wraps up with a pair of preseason title contenders:

The Bluejays will enter next season with a bunch of questions.

They’ll have to figure out life without Baylor Scheierman and Trey Alexander. It’ll be a new starting five, though it helps returning Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth. Coach Greg McDermott already said the three highly touted freshmen will have a chance to make an impact.

The first four games — Texas Rio Grande Valley, Fairleigh Dickinson, Houston Christian and Kansas City — allow those things to be sorted out. Those opponents finished 2023-24 with a combined record of 43-81

A mid-November meeting with Nebraska in Omaha is a good first Power 5 opponent for the Jays, who will almost certainly be tested in a loaded field at the inaugural Players Era Festival.

Then come the big ones: Kansas and Alabama.

The Jayhawks are No. 1 in ESPN’s way-too-early preseason rankings for next year. The Crimson Tide, a Final Four team this past season, checks in at No. 2.

It’s a perfectly built nonconference schedule for these Jays. They’ll have time to answer a few of those important questions and find out what they’re made of before another season in one of the toughest conferences in the country.

CU reportedly burned the Battle 4 Atlantis organizers when it bought its way out of the event in exchange for a spot in the inaugural Players Era Festival, known for providing at least $1 million in NIL to each participating team.

The Jays did the right thing, though.

The PEF is about to change the landscape of early season multi-team events. The field will expand from eight to 16 teams in 2025-26. It’s already an exclusive club that’s set to add Gonzaga, Baylor, Iowa State, Michigan and St. John’s a couple of seasons from now.

NIL is almost everything today, and CU will have at least $1 million to work with each of the next three years.

Mountain West teams haven’t been kind to Creighton over the past few years.

The Jays’ memorable 2023 NCAA tournament run ended with a loss to San Diego State. Colorado State handed them their first loss last season. UNLV upset CU right after the Jays were ranked eighth in the country.

If there’s a trap game on next season’s nonconference schedule, it’s likely a rematch with UNLV in Omaha on Dec. 7 — right between Kansas and Alabama.

But the Jays will be hell-bent on exacting revenge on the Rebels after last year’s 79-64 loss in Nevada.