Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Key Stats:
Creighton goes 17-19 from the free throw line, thanks in large part to Christian Bishop going a perfect 7-7. The Jays also shot 8-25 from three, though the bulk of the misfires were from freshmen — Jalen Windham was 0-4, Shereef Mitchell was 0-2 — and from players like Marcus Zegarowski (1-4) who are working their way back from injury.
Recap:
The Jays’ exhibition Friday night quickly turned into The Christian Bishop Show, as the sophomore scored a team-high 21 points in 18 minutes. From finishing at the rim through contact, putting the ball on the floor to drive with his left hand, and dunking with his right hand, he showed off a tantalizing array of offensive moves. And he was efficient: 7-9 from the floor, 7-7 from the line.
It’s the latter number that was mentioned more than any other, though. As a freshman, Bishop was 16-of-37 (43.2%) from the line, and those woes continued in the NIT where was just 2-of-9. The confidence level and aggressiveness Bishop played with Friday night was a night-and-day difference from his first year on the Hilltop.
“It’s been a while since I’ve felt this confident in my game, honestly,” Bishop said in a postgame radio interview on 1620AM. “I got it from my teammates. They build me up every single day. We all play for each other. That makes every single one of us play harder, and play so much better.”
It’s that confidence that he attributes as being the biggest factor on his dramatic improvement from the line.
“Mechanically, the only thing we changed is shooting off of two fingertips. Concentrating on shooting free throws off of my two sniping fingers has made a big difference.”
While Bishop’s improvement was impressive, the Bluejay newcomers also shined in their first time under the bright lights of CHI Health Center.
Kelvin Jones, the 6’11” grad transfer from Idaho State, had 12 points and 12 rebounds (five of them offensive), to go along with two steals and a block. The usual caveats apply here — it was against a DII opponent who wasn’t as physical as most of the teams on the regular season slate, etc. — but with his nose for rebounding the ball, his willingness to dive on the floor after loose balls, and nice midrange shooting touch, Jones showed some reasons to be excited.
Redshirt freshman walk-on Jett Canfield played 23 minutes, much to the consternation of some Jays fans online, but the shorthanded roster means he’s going to play a little. Not this many minutes, clearly, but he’s going to get on the floor. Canfield hit a pair of threes in his first action as a Bluejay, including this one:
“Every injury is an opportunity for someone else, and in this case it’s forcing us to play some walk-ons off the bench,” Greg McDermott said in his postgame radio interview. “They might have to play some when it counts, too.”
Canfield ran the point on Creighton’s scout team last year. The day before the Mizzou scrimmage, McDermott told him he needed to learn the other guard positions, too.
“Go through our sets, study them, and ask me questions,” McDermott recalled, “because I don’t want to force Shereef to have to learn another position at this stage of his career. I told him, if you get in the game, you’re going to play the ‘2’. Jett is doing a lot of the things Tyler Clement did when he played for us.”
And then there’s Shereef Mitchell. Playing 19 minutes off the bench, the electric freshman from Omaha Burke piled up highlight after highlight offensively while showing flashes of his defensive prowess as well.
“Shereef is an Omaha kid and he’s dreamed of playing here. This is his first time playing in this building wearing a Creighton uniform, so I knew he would have some jitters,” McDermott said of Mitchell’s debut. “But I think our fans were able to see just how hard he plays. He competes and competes and competes. I thought he did a really good job of setting the table, although he didn’t have the assists to show for it. He created shots for people, we just didn’t make the shots. He got into the paint and made good reads. And defensively, he’s a pest. This was a good first game for him.”
The returning Bluejays were a mixed bag. The good: Ty-Shon Alexander scored 17 points with 6 rebounds, going 5-of-8 from the floor and making both three-point shots he attempted. And Mitch Ballock scored 14 points with 4 rebounds and 2 steals, going 3-5 from three including this long-range bomb:
Less good: Marcus Zegarowski dished out six assists and got into the paint to create offense early and often, but had four turnovers and looked uncomfortable at times. After sitting out April through August while rehabbing from hip surgery, his timing is not totally back. You can see it in his shot attempts that aren’t quite right yet, and in some of his passes that are not quite where they need to be. And Damien Jefferson played eight minutes before coming out of the game for precautionary reasons, his injured ankle still bothering him. When he was in the game, his activity level was really good. He had four rebounds in those eight minutes, got the ball to Creighton’s point guards ASAP after clearing the defensive board all four times to kickstart the transition game, and could be seen communicating on both ends of the floor with teammates to help get them in position.
All in all, an uneven debut from a team whose roster is a bit in flux. They’ll be better when Zegarowski and Jefferson get past their injuries and are closer to the players we saw a year ago. They’ll be better when senior Davion Mintz returns later in November. They’ll be better, too, when Denzel Mahoney becomes eligible in mid-December. On November 2, unfortunately, that leaves them as a team with a whole bunch of question marks and very little depth.
But there’s reason for optimism, and he wears #13 on his jersey.
