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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 96, Kansas City 70

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[Box Score]

Key Stats: Creighton outrebounds UMKC (oops, sorry, Kansas City) 51-35. KC shoots just nine free throws after attempting 53 in their season opener.

Favorite Moment: With under a minute to play in the first half, Will Artino had the ball on the block and flipped a pass to the wing where Doug McDermott was open. He launched a three, and collided in mid-air with UMKC’s Trinity Hall. The shot went in (because of course it did, Doug shot it) and he went careening into the bench, clearing out several chairs in his path. Hall was furious with himself for committing the cardinal sin of fouling a three-point shooter, McDermott made the free throw to convert the four-point play, and the Jays went up 44-29. It was the perfect microcosm of the night — unselfish passing and Doug McDermott making a wild shot.

500-ish Word Recap: Doug McDermott scored 37 points on Monday night, and he wasn’t even named Player Of The Game inside the arena; as fans filed out, P.A. announcer Jake Ryan proclaimed that Austin Chatman took those honors. Certainly, Chatman’s near triple-double (12 points, 9 assists, 7 rebounds) was worthy of praise, but it’s indicative of how commonplace an offensive explosion from McDermott is that scoring 37 points barely registers.

In March of 2008, Cavel Witter scored 42 in a game against Bradley, and people freaked out — it had been ten years since a Bluejay had scored 40 or more in a game (Rodney Buford, 12/30/1998), eight years had come between Buford’s big night and the previous 40+ game (Chad Gallagher, 2/7/1990), and it had only happened eight other times TOTAL in the entire history of Creighton basketball. It was a rare occurrence. Then Doug McDermott came along and did it twice in two years, with a 39-point game thrown in for good measure, and suddenly it wasn’t such a big deal anymore. At the postgame press conference, McDermott wasn’t even asked about his big offensive night until the second-to-the-last question — he almost left the dais without being asked about it. 37 points on a frigid Monday in November?

Eh. It was only the fourth highest-scoring game in his career, so where’s the excitement in that?

He does this so often, fans and media are almost used to it at this point. I’m as guilty of it as anyone, but we need to take time to appreciate what’s happening here before he’s off in the NBA. This kind of player doesn’t come along very often, and may not come along in a Creighton uniform again for a long time. As someone on the Bluejay Underground wrote after the game, “Man, are we spoiled…enjoy Doug everyone. He is just on another planet at times.” Indeed.

Though clearly overmatched, Kansas City competed and did two things that will help Creighton going forward — they played zone for a good chunk of the game, and they employed a press. CU had no trouble with the latter, with primary ball-handlers Austin Chatman, Devin Brooks and Grant Gibbs breaking the press with relative ease. However, they struggled with the former, especially early in the game, and had little offensive flow for the first 12 minutes of action. McDermott carried them through that stretch, scoring the game’s first nine points and 25 in the first half alone, while his teammates figured out a scheme to succeed against the zone.

Down 23-21 with 7:35 to play, the Jays finally found an offensive rhythm, and scored on 11 of their final 13 possessions to end the half — including five three-pointers — to go up 48-31 at the break. One of those was a three at the buzzer by Chatman, who had been dribbling out the clock while looking for an open look for a teammate, but ultimately decided the best look was his own. It was the perfect cap to an amazing first half for the Jays’ point guard, who had seven assists, five rebounds and no turnovers in 14 minutes of opening stanza action — and a resounding answer to people who thought the flashy, productive play of newcomer Devin Brooks meant Chatman’s starting job was in jeopardy. Turns out, he’s still pretty damn good, thank you very much.

Quotables:

“It’s more or less second nature to try and get the ball to Doug, but Grant, Austin and myself kind of look at each other on nights like tonight where he gets in a zone early and say, ‘Let’s see how many he can get tonight!’ At Missouri State last year, at Bradley two years ago…whenever he’s in sync like that, you just have to get him the ball and get out of his way. We got him some easy ones early in transition that got him going, and then once we got set up in our half-court offense, Doug did his thing. I’m very happy to have him on our side.” -Jahenns Manigat on 1620AM postgame

“Rebounding is something we practice on every day. Coach Mac always has a section of practice where we do box-out drills and fundamental drills, not necessarily ‘live’ all the time, but drills to practice getting our feet set, boxing out to go after the basketball. We all realize that without Gregory (Echenique) in the mix, we’re going to have to get inside and grab more rebounds than we did before. I know, myself, last year when a shot went up I would kind of look around to see if Gregory was going to get it, and if he was, I’d pretty much run the other way (laughs). Now, it’s a collective effort to see who we can box out so we can grab the rebound. Myself, Isaiah, Grant, Doug, Austin and Devin — any of us can get the rebound and get into our transition offense.” -Jahenns Manigat on 1620AM postgame

“I kind of had it going. I missed a couple of shots that I would normally make, which was kind of disappointing but I’m not going to complain about 37 points. But you know, I was just in a nice little rhythm, wasn’t trying to get sped up too much, and I got off to a good start.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“Tonight was my night, and I think my teammates recognized that. There’s going to be nights where it’s not going to be my night, and I’ll help get the ball to the guys who are feeling it that night. All of us have a great connection out there, they notice it when I’m ‘on’, and when they see it, they help keep it going. Playing with all these unselfish guys just makes it so much easier.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM postgame

(On whether this year’s team feels different) “Yeah, it does a little bit. Just losing Gregory (Echenique) obviously is huge, but I think Will (Artino) is doing a great job these first two games of being active. We’re going to need him to do some different things defensively. But we’ve got the core guys returning, so the locker room feels the same, and basically on the floor it feels the same too.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“It wasn’t always pretty. I told the team, and I mentioned it in the media room, we’ve got a little bit of a dilemma. Our guys don’t understand how much teeth your defense has to have and the line that you can go to without falling down. It’s in our mind, and there’s a tentative approach to how we’re playing defense compared to how we played it in the past. And understandably, we’ve been harping on it in practice — every time there’s a hand check, the whistle blows. We’re trying to get our guys to understand how you have to do it. Now we’ve got to try and raise our level just slightly. Get to spots quicker, be a little more aggressive, and do that without fouling. That’s our challenge this week, because our defense has to get a little bit better.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“I felt like today was more physical, especially off the ball. They started in a zone, and then it took us a while to get our bearings and figure out what to do against that zone. I would say it was a little more physical today, but I think teams are going to adjust a little bit every game. I was concerned this team would shoot — they attempted 93 free throws between their exhibition and their opener — so I was concerned about trying to keep them out of the paint without fouling. I thought our guys did a good job of that, of getting their hands back and making them score over top of you.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“I have to come to grips, too, that there’s going to be some times where your team gives up some things that were unacceptable in the past. You have to understand, OK, I can’t ask them to do this and take away that. They can’t do both. I mean, they can’t be unaggressive and keep their hands back and get to that spot, and do what you’re supposed to do. That’s our challenge as a coaching staff, just to find that…where is that line that you can go to and still play, without going over the line. We’re missing that, and we’ve got to get it. We’ve had chances against Alcorn and UMKC seven or eight minutes into the game to blow it open and both times we’ve let them back in it. So I’ve got to look at our substitution pattern, do we need to go with somebody earlier so we don’t end up with a second group of guys that are all playing together?” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“Austin doesn’t have a turnover in two games, so his decision-making is certainly really good. And I’m hopeful that as Devin continues to develop and get better that we can find a way to…it’s like in baseball where you start a guy that throws fastballs, and now you bring in a guy that throws knuckleballs and changeups, and it’s a totally different look. Devin is doing some good things off the bench for us, nine rebounds in 16 minutes is really good, and he had the five assists. We just have to clean up a couple of his decisions, and he’s working every day to get better defensively.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

(On a coaching moment with Devin Brooks) “Well, Ethan was on the floor. He had Ethan on the left wing, and my question was ‘Where was Ethan?’ He said, well, I’m not sure. I said, if you’re on the floor with Ethan, or if you’re on the floor with Doug, when you’re in transition you’ve got to know where they are. And if you find them, and they’re locked off, then go to the basket. Go by your defender, there’s no help there. And if you think you got their defender looking, then attack that elbow on that side and get it to them. I’m just trying to get him to understand the guys he’s playing with and what their strengths are. This is all new to him, it’s going to take some time, but he’ll get there.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“I didn’t feel like Doug was in one of those zones that we’ve seen him in before, but he was really, really efficient. They were switching defenses, we had a hard time getting to where we needed to be, and he missed some shots he normally makes. But he’s so good at understanding angles and reading the defense and slipping into a spot that he’s hard to guard. Often times, you don’t have to run an offense, you just get him in space and let him move and he’s got teammates that understand, ‘Hey, let’s watch what Doug does, and if he makes the right read, let’s get him the basketball.’ That first half…25 points, in 18, 19 minutes, whatever he played, was really efficient.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“When Doug is really cooking, it allows you to be creative as a coach because he’s versatile. You can run something to get him into the block, you can run something to get an isolation, you can run something to get him a three-point shot. There aren’t many guys that fit into that box, where you can do all of those. You’ve got guys that can run off and shoot it, you got guys that can drive it, and guys that are good in the post, but not often do you have guys where you get to be creative enough to come up with all three. There’s a lot of ways that we can work to get him open.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“50 percent of what Doug gets, he gets on his own. He breaks out of the offense, he makes a read, and because him and Grant are on the same page, Grant flips it to him and Doug makes an easy layup. That’s just how they play. Perfect example, the first play of the second half was a designed back-door, and Grant read it, Doug popped, and — it’s not part of the play — Doug immediately slashes forward, Grant hits him, and Doug scores. I’m saying I think the defense will chase this, they’ll be aggressive, so look for the back-door, but both of them noticed they did something different. So Grant busted out of the play, Doug read what Grant was thinking, slashed forward, and got a good shot.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

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