We are profiling each member of the 2011-12 Creighton men’s basketball team. Join us weekdays from now until the men’s exhibition opener against Rockhurst for an introduction to this year’s Bluejays, from freshmen to seniors.
See all of our 2011-12 Creighton men’s basketball profiles
McDermott made a positive impression during his freshman debut (Adam Streur/WBR)
Remember this time last season, when Creighton fans wondered aloud if Doug McDermott might redshirt in his first season in Omaha? Instead of sitting out a season and getting stronger physically, McDermott completed a whirlwind 10 months that saw him go from Northern Iowa recruit to the first freshman in more than 50 years to earn a spot on the all-Valley first team — as a Bluejay, not a Panther.
Add a summer spent training and playing with the USA Under-19 team in the FIBA World Championships and a trip to the Bahamas, and McDermott’s made the most of his year-plus in Omaha. Get tired reading that sentence? It was a lot for a true freshman to fit into a calendar year, basketball-wise. Still, McDermott isn’t any worse for wear.
“My body feels fine,” the preseason All-MVC pick told WBR. “We are all a little tired, the practices are tough, but we are doing what we love to do. I love playing basketball and have been playing it my whole life, so the bumps and bruises are something that comes with the territory. It is something that you deal with, because we get to play basketball.”
As his sophomore season approaches, McDermott is the fancy among hoops speculators everywhere. The MVC Freshman and Newcomer of the Year last season also earned first-team All-Valley honors and made the Academic Honor Roll. His stats as a freshman detail one of the most impressive seasons for an underclassman in Creighton hoops history.
- Scored 581 points, most by a freshman in league history and most by a newcomer in CU history
- Sixth player in the Valley to sweep Freshman and Newcomer of the Year awards
- Led the Valley in double-doubles (9) and games of 7-plus rebounds (14)
- 280 caroms were most by a Bluejay since 1990-91
Couple this performance with his international experience this summer (he was third in scoring and rebounding for the USA U19 team) and improved strength, and it is not surprising that many preseason publications and websites regard McDermott as the Next Big Thing in mid-major hoops.
“I was surprised by a lot of them, but it felt good,” McDermott said when asked what it was like as a freshman to start receiving the kinds of honors and awards he did last year. “I was honored to be recognized, but those are individual things and we need to focus on team goals.”
OK, then. Let’s focus for a second on what last season’s CU squad would have looked like had #3 redshirted and not burst on the college basketball scene. We documented during the season McDermott’s comparisons as a first-year player at Creighton relative to scoring and rebounding (here and here). But he scored nearly 22% of the team’s points last season and grabbed nearly 21% of the squad’s rebounds. He led the team in scoring 17 times and in rebounding 19 times. And he was on the court 29 minutes a game, the second most on the team (Antoine Young played 36 mpg).
So, what does a sophomore who just logged a historic first season work on ahead of his second year of college hoops?
“My defense and my patience in the post,” McDermott said. “Those are the two areas that I really needed to work on from last season.
I needed to work on my strength, and Dan [Bailey, Creighton’s Strength and Conditioning guru] and his team are awesome and have really helped me improve.
Defensively, though, there were too many times last year that I was beat down in the post because I was out of position or not strong enough.”
Those are improvements that are difficult to measure using a box score, but that McDermott and his teammates hope will translate to an improved team outlook.
“As a team we really want to improve and make a run at the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “We want to win the league and the [MVC] tournament.”