Friday was a crazy evening at Sokol Arena. The Creighton Bluejay Volleyball team got a win against Bradley to start the evening, but the fun was just beginning. After the match, it was time for the second annual Bluejay Madness.
The evening started off with baseball head coach Ed Servais talking to the fans and getting them pumped up. Then men’s soccer coach Elmar Bolowich talked to the fans and got them even more excited. As the fans counted down to 0:00 the evening was underway with player introductions.
With a pitch black Sokol Arena, the players started coming down the stairs at the top of the arena with smoke machines going as they were being introduced to the court. The cheers got louder as each player came down. As Gregory Echenique was announced the crowd roared a little more. As Doug McDermott came down, the crowd went nuts. Antoine Young rounded things out and the place was rocking.
As things moved to the three-point shootout, the first round consisted of the two-player teams just trying to make the most three’s to move on to the next round. Each player had 30 seconds to hit as many three pointers as they could. To finish the first round, it took an eternity to decide between the pair of Jasmine Corbin/Avery Dingman or DaNae Moore / Josh Jones. After several missed shots, Corbin drained a sudden death three to move on. Another highlight of the first round was freshman Women’s basketball player Sammy Jensen hitting 10 out of 11 three’s she put up.
In the end, Ross Ferrarini and Sammy Jensen just came up short against Grant Gibbs and Jordan Garrison for the three-point contest. Women’s coach Jim Flanery had praise for Garrison and Jensen. ”
The women then played a 12 minute scrimmage where both teams struggled to score. Sarah Nelson scored five points to lead the way in a 9-8 game. “That performance–nervous,” said Flanery. “Taylor Johnson a freshman who was throwing up airballs, she shot it really well in practice. I ran into her mom before tonight and she goes ‘I just hope I don’t suck.’ So there were a lot of nerves.
Flanery is optimistic about his group of young players. “We’re young and we are not going to be as good early as maybe some other teams we have had, but they are working hard, are coachable and will get better. We just don’t have the experience we had. Not having Carli (Tritz) is a bit of a factor there.”
Then it was time for the dunk contest involving Avery Dingman, Austin Chatman, Will Artino, Nevin Johnson and Antoine Young. Dingman struggled to put down a dunk and wasn’t able to put one down between the legs. Nevin Johnson had a dunk after trying a few different things.
Will Artino took the stage did a unique dunk with freshman Alex Olson throwing up a second ball and Artino dunked them both.
Artino dunks two balls (Marshall/WBR)
This dunk advanced him to the finals.
Austin Chatman rose to the challenge and had seven footer Geoffrey Groselle stand under the basket while Alex Olson threw the ball up to a rising Chatman over Groselle and put it down the first time. “That’s a pretty good dunk for a little guy to jump over a 7-footer even though he used a little boost on the way up,” said head coach Greg McDermott. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know what he was going to do or it probably wouldn’t have happened.”
Chatman rises over Groselle (Marshall/WBR)
Antoine Young, the co-defending Madness dunk champion from last season didn’t have enough to get him to the finals. Chatman walked away with the win and Artino didn’t have an answer. He tried to have Matt Dorwart throw a ball from the stands, but it wouldn’t hit in the right spot.
The final part of the night was the scrimmage with the players. Doug McDermott, Gregory Echenique and Antoine Young all shined during this 12 minute scrimmage and did not disappoint on the expectations for them heading into this season. All three are potential preseason All-Valley players. McDermott led the way with 10 points while Antoine Young had 8 points. Echenique only had four points, but they were scored on some nifty moves.
At the end of the night, the players spent the next hour signing autographs. Former Creighton star Kyle Korver was also signing autographs and taking in many photo opportunities. All in all, Friday night was for the fans. “The fans tuned out in full force and this is why we are doing this,” said McDermott. “We are doing this for our fans to get a sneak peak at our team and I think our guys had some fun with it and entertained our fans. Most importantly no one got hurt.”
With fall break starting this weekend, McDermott is excited to have the extra time:
“We really have nine to ten days to really focus on our basketball team 24-hours a day. There will be a lot of film watching–defensivelyis probably where we will be spending most of our time at least for the next five to six days. If we want to be a team that competes for a championship, we really need to make some strides on the defensive end of the floor.”
The Creighton men will get another scrimmage opportunity on October 30th when they take on Colorado behind closed doors. However they open the season on Sunday, November 6th with an exhibition game against Rockhurst. The women’s basketball team open their season on Wednesday, November 2nd also against Rockhurst.
See our photo gallery from the event.