We continue our brief profiles of each member of the 2010-11 Creighton men’s basketball team. Join us each weekday from now until the men’s exhibition game against Northern State for an introduction to this year’s Bluejays, from freshmen to seniors.
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In 2008, the Creighton basketball team arrived at the Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln for a matchup with rival Nebraska. Then-graduate assistant coach Nick Bahe and senior point guard Josh Dotzler got off the bus. They spent the next 30 minutes or so following around Josh Jones, who was sitting out his first year on the team as a redshirt. When Jones finally asked what they were doing, they responded that they were following Jones around because he obviously knew what he was doing.
Jones had won the last three Nebraska State Championships, essentially owning the Devaney Center. Bahe and Dotzler, themselves successful Nebraska high school players, were trying to learn from the master.
The former Central High School star, who set a school record by scoring more than 1,500 points for the Eagles, finally got on the court in 2009-10, but it wasn’t exactly a quick start. It was tough for a Bluejay freshman to get playing time under former head coach Dana Altman. But don’t provide that reasoning to Jones as explanation for his slow start – he doesn’t like excuses.
“Being a freshman doesn’t have anything to do with it,” he said. “I feel like if you’re good enough, you’re going to play, and for whatever reason, I wasn’t good enough for coach Altman (at the beginning) of last year.”
Jones scored 20 points in the Jays’ first 20 games. Then, in the team’s next game against Bradley on Jan. 27, he played 21 minutes and broke out with 13 points. Less than a month later, and after the suspension of guard P’Allen Stinnett, he was in the starting lineup, where he remained for the final seven games of the season. He scored 90 points over the final 14 games.
But all the trust Jones earned with Altman has been erased with the hiring of new head coach Greg McDermott.
“Now with coach McDermott, it’s a new beginning, so I’ve got to prove that I’m good enough,” continued Jones, “and if I’m back in the position that I was in last year, it’s my fault. Whatever I didn’t do last year, I need to do better this year.
“Like I said, I don’t believe in the word ‘freshman.’ I think if you’re good enough, you’re going to play.”
“New beginning” and “fresh start” are common phrases on the Hilltop nowadays. For some, it could be a daunting prospect to seemingly have to start over. Not for Jones. He feels better than ever.
“I feel like I’m new again,” he said. “In a sense, I feel like coach McDermott is going to play toward my talents. I’ve got a lot more confidence because of the way he uses me in the practices.”
At times last year, he showed that those talents are almost endless. But at other times, he looked lost, especially on the defensive end. With McDermott’s stringent defense-first philosophy – reports suggest that upwards of 80 percent of practice time over the first week was spent on defense – Jones will be forced to speed up his learning curve on that end of the floor. In fact, with a lack of depth at the guard position a primary concern for this year’s Jays, the same will be true of all of Jones’ peers – there simply isn’t the option of coming along slowly.
“I feel like the way we practice and the way things are getting put together, it’s going to come easy for us in the games,” said Jones. “Right now it’s just a learning process for us to come together as a team before we get out there on the court, and I think we’re doing a great job.
“It’s a different approach. It’s a learning process.”
A quick learning process, though.