Scenes from Creighton's locker room

LEXINGTON | If you were watching the Creighton-Louisville game on Thursday afternoon, you might have caught a glimpse of an infant donning the blue and white of the Bluejays.

That kid belongs to Creighton guard Steven Ashworth, who might have skipped nap time to watch his father and teammates take down the Cardinals.

“Not quite sure if he understood the spotlight that he had, but we made sure to document a few things for him so that when he understands it, he’ll be able to appreciate that the articles or whatever that he was the first star of March Madness,” Ashworth said.

(Photo by Aaron Doster-Imagn Images)

It’s been quite a road to Saturday’s game against No. 1 overall seed Auburn for the Utah native. He started his college career at Utah State, took two years off for the traditional missionary service in the Mormon church and then found his way to Creighton, where he averages 16.5 points and 6.8 assists per game for the Bluejays.

But it was his son, Tommy Jay, who got all the attention on Thursday, which begs the question: does Ashworth think that will lead to any NIL deals?

You can definitely reach out to my email or the school if you got any connections with some baby NIL,” he joked. “I know Once Upon A Farm, Gerber, whoever, we’ll take it all.”

Outside Creighton’s locker room, Greg McDermott and Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes met up, hugged, and had a short conversation. As the Bluejays face Auburn on Saturday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, one might think the Creighton coach might ask for some advice from Barnes, considering the Vols took down the Tigers six days earlier in the SEC tourney.

McDermott wouldn’t admit either way, but he did give a pretty sarcastic answer.

“A fellow SEC coach would never tell somebody outside the SEC what’s going on,” the coach said. “There’s so much love in that league that, I mean, I tried and tried, but I couldn’t get anything out of it.”

Sure, we believe you, Greg.

An opposing scouting report lists the strengths and weaknesses of a player. Usually, it sticks to what the player can and can’t do on the basketball floor, but sometimes, an intriguing detail about an opponent might be stuck in as an extra piece of advice.

Enter Chad Baker-Mazara, who has become Enemy No. 1 for opposing teams and their fan bases.

So, with All-American Ryan Kalkbrenner standing in front of me, I had to ask: does Creighton have anything in their scouting report about trying to intice the Auburn player into doing something crazy?

The question was met with laughs from several Bluejays before Kalkbrenner could respond.

“I don’t know, we haven’t really talked about that,” he said. “We’ll see.”

Since Auburn and Creighton don’t meet up much, it’s not often that I get to ask Bluejays’ players about their head coach. McDermott is a mountain of a man at 6-foot-8 and not lacking in weight either.

So, the question I had to ask was if his players had ever seen a referee stand up to him.

“I have not,” Kalkbrenner said. “Usually, Mac doesn’t get into the refs that bad. But sometimes, I’ll see him really get into them.”

Has any referee wanted to fight him?

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that actually,” Ashworth responded. “Maybe out of a friendly because Coach Mac’s been around a lot and he treats all those guys in the best way. So I think there’s a lot of mutual respect.”

Alright, then. Looking to find out more, I turned to the person I knew would have the best opinion on if Bruce Pearl, in his prime, could take down McDermott in a fight: Dylan Cardwell.

The personal Cardwell went with his coach.

“I just watched the Chris Lofton SEC insider thing, and no one’s beating that dude (Pearl),” he said.