News and Notes from around Creighton and the Big East this week:
- On the scheduling front, another game leaked this week, as CBS’ Jon Rothstein reported the Jays will host UT-Arlington. They won 27 games a year ago, including two wins in the NIT (over BYU and Akron), and though they were a senior-laden team, they return three of their top four players. In other words: not a marquee name, but a team that should finish in the Top 100 of most rankings, and help buoy their NCSOS. Good pickup.
- On the recruiting front, the Jays lost the battle for Michigan grad transfer Mark Donnal, a big man that would have been immediately eligible. He picked Clemson this morning:
- Meanwhile, they remain in on Sacred Heart transfer Quincy McKnight, a 6’3″ guard who averaged 18.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game as a sophomore for the Pioneers. He’s a sit-one to play-two player drawing interest from all sorts of places:
- 247Sport’s Director of Recruiting Jerry Meyer was on with 1620’s Sharp & Benning this week, and discussed Creighton’s continued recruitment of five-star Brian “Tugs” Bowen among other topics:
https://soundcloud.com/liquid-shane-o/april-25-seg-7-jerry-meyer-director-of-basketball-scouting-for-247sport?in=liquid-shane-o/sets/april-25-2017
- Speaking of recruiting, Doug McDermott spoke to GoldAndBlack.com — Purdue’s Rivals site — about former CU assistant (and new Boilermaker assistant) Steve Lutz. Among his comments:
“He was at Creighton with my dad for seven years and I think part of him maybe he just wanted a change of scenery and a chance at Purdue to establish himself even more in the Big Ten,” McDermott said. “Obviously I think his dream is to be a head coach one day and the move probably helps him to get higher in the profession.”
- Lutz’s replacement, Alan Huss, was a guest on a couple of Omaha radio shows this week to re-introduce himself to CU fans. First he joined Nick Bahe on 1620 for a wide-ranging discussion of Creighton hoops back in the late-90s, his recruiting connections, and more:
https://soundcloud.com/game-time-with-nick-bahe/april-24-seg-3-alan-huss-creighton-assistant-coach?in=game-time-with-nick-bahe/sets/game-time-monday-4-24-17
- He was also a guest on Bluejay Banter, where the guys talked him about his path to becoming a coach at his alma mater. The Huss conversation starts at around the 39 minute mark. There’s a great chat with Zach Hanson earlier in the show, too.
- The Kobe Paras Effect continues to be a thing, if this photo of a group of Kobe fans in the Philippines wearing Creighton jerseys is any gauge:
https://twitter.com/_kokoparas/status/856347032478502913
- Here’s a Filipino youth team decked out in Creighton gear for a game:
https://twitter.com/ruddymadrigal/status/857491173354618880
- The 2017 Creighton Athletics Hall of Fame banquet honored Bret Simon, Vernon Moore, and Tara Oltman, as well as several individual honors for current student-athletes. Here’s all of the speeches from the evening. And here’s three current Bluejays dressed for the occasion:
https://twitter.com/_kokoparas/status/856621669644996610
- While the awards were announced in March at the Big East Tournament, the hardware arrived in Omaha this week. Here’s photos of Khyri Thomas and Marcus Foster:
- The Oklahoma City Thunder player “alias” names for their hotel rooms on the road leaked this week. Who’s Doug McDermott stay under?
- The latest mock draft from DraftExpress has Justin Patton headed to Atlanta with the 19th pick.
- Could the start of the college basketball season be moving to a Tuesday night? In a proposal released this week, it could be.
- Kyle Korver shared his shooting secret:
- It was Dollar Beer Night at Tuesday’s (ultimately postponed) baseball game against Wichita State, and CU fans made sure to let Fox Sports’ Steve Lavin know about it. Lavin, as you might recall, was in Omaha for Dollar Beer Night during hoops season and mentioned it in glowing terms several times on FS1 the rest of the season. True to form, Lavin was a great sport:
- Speaking of baseball, Ed Servais confirmed that next year the Bluejays and Shockers will play a three-game weekend series in Omaha:
- In more baseball news, Sharp & Benning talked about the team’s hot play on Tuesday:
https://soundcloud.com/liquid-shane-o/april-25-seg-5-creighton-baseball?in=liquid-shane-o/sets/april-25-2017
- In a team meeting on Wednesday, women’s basketball coach Jim Flanery made an important announcement: walk-on Aimee Rischard would be on scholarship next year. Watch the reaction (and Flan’s follow-up question):
- And finally, today marks seven years to the day that Greg McDermott was introduced as head coach at Creighton. He was introduced by athletic director Bruce Rasmussen as “Doug”, and thus began a long tradition of being mistaken for his son.
