We are profiling each member of the 2012-13 Creighton Bluejays men’s basketball team. Check in weekdays leading up to Creighton’s regular season opener against North Texas (November 9) for an introduction to this season’s Bluejays, from freshmen to seniors.
Jahenns Manigat (#12 / G / 6-1 / 175 lbs. / Jr.)
Check out our photo gallery of Jahenns Manigat (courtesy Adam Streur and Mike Spomer for WBR)
Creighton junior Jahenns Manigat gives the Bluejays so many things on the basketball court. He’s experienced (a captain as a sophomore, he has 51 starts in 74 career games, including starts in all of the Jays’ 35 games last season). He’s a deadly perimeter shooter (43.3% career three-point shooting percentage, good for sixth best all-time at CU; he shot 46.8% from three last season, when he was third in the MVC). And he’s energetic (see: photo gallery above or the court before, during, and after games). One of his nicknames is Canadian Red Bull, after all.
A year after earning MVC All-Freshman Team and All-Bench Team honors, Manigat played nearly 23 minutes a game for the Jays as a sophomore and averaged 6.6 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. He picked up where he left off as a freshman; he scored 8.1 ppg during the team’s last 14 games in 2011, nearly doubling his season average of 5.4 ppg. As a sophomore Manigat was third on the team with 26 steals and posted a 1.83 assist-to-turnover ratio.
He’s one of four returning starters from a team that went 29-6 and won a game in the NCAA Tournament. Through two seasons there aren’t many game situations Manigat hasn’t experienced, and his familiarity with Greg McDermott’s offensive and defensive strategies is crucial to the team’s fortunes this season.
We caught up with Manigat at Creighton’s Media Day: