This is the second of our “Meet the Jays” segments featuring the 2009-2010 Creighton Bluejays men’s basketball players. Join us as we profile a different scholarship player each day leading up to the season opener at Dayton on November 14.
Over the past 12 seasons, one consistent attribute of Dana Altman’s team is the type of point guard running Altman’s offensive and defensive sets. These aren’t one- or two-year point guards; they’re three- or four-year starters, guys such as Ryan Sears, Tyler McKinney, and Josh Dotzler. This year’s team features two players who potentially fit this mold — sophomore Antoine Young and freshman Andrew Bock. And while Young is a combo guard who puts pressure on defenses with his speed and attacking nature, Bock potentially fits the bill of Altman’s past point guards.
Bock comes to Creighton from sunny California, where he led his Eisenhower High School team to a state championship. And while his team reached the greatest success possible, Bock also received a multitude of individual honors, including the state’s “Wooden Award” for his division as the state’s high school player of the year.
From early glances, Bock looks like a point guard more in the mold of Sears. He can distribute the ball, play defense, and become a scoring threat for Creighton. Here is an interview done earlier this year that was posted on YouTube with Andrew to give you a better idea of why he came to Creighton and what his game is like.
Fair or not, there are high expectations for Bock as he starts his first year of college hoops. Check out the stats for Sears, McKinney, and Dotzler during their first seasons under Altman and it is easy to see Bock has quite a track record to live up to.
Dotzler was putting up statistics similar to those of Sears’ freshman year, but he suffered an injury down the stretch in Valley play, which caused him to miss the last several games of his first season and changed the rest of his career at Creighton. Tyler McKinney started off a little slow as a freshman, splitting some starts with DeAnthony Bowden, but he grew into his role as one of Altman’s on-court generals. But like Dotzler, McKinney had some eye problems that caused him to miss some significant time, altering his career.
In Bock, I see a player who could someday be a combination of the three aforementioned legendary Bluejays point guards. Bock averaged more than 21 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals per game as a senior in high school, and some of those efforts were on display at the open scrimmages during the past two weeks. Young appears to be the incumbent to start the season as Altman’s lead guard, but if Bock continues to learn the offensive and defensive plays Altman could play both underclassmen at the same time to create havoc on both ends of the ball. Either way, the position seems to be solidified for the next few years, and depth might not be as big an issue of the injury bug bites a Bluejays point guard again.
See Bock and the Bluejays in their first exhibition game of the season Wednesday night against Missouri Western State.
