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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He’s 6’7 and can shoot from almost anywhere. So, you know, he must be like Kyle Korver.
As the 2009-2010 season wore on, Creighton basketball fans kept clinging to fleeting glimmers of silver lining to an otherwise frustrating year. One such continual highlight was the emergence of freshman Ethan Wragge as a 3-point threat at the forward position. You know, like that Korver kid.
Steve Pivovar at the Omaha World-Herald made the comparison, 25 games into his first season at CU. I wrote about it when Creighton exited the CIT last March. When Piv asked Dana Altman, then Wragge’s coach at Creighton, about comparisons to Korver, Altman said:
“There’s not much wrong with his stroke … It’s pretty good looking, and it’s squared up. His elbow is in, he extends well and he gets it up high. Other than Kyle, he’s probably got as good a stroke as we’ve had around here in a long time.”
And when comparing figures, not shooting form, here’s what I wrote:
“Ethan Wragge has a chance to embrace the comparisons to Kyle Korver and exceed expectations, or buckle under the weight of those resemblances. Statistically, Wragge is as accurate a shooter his freshman season as Korver was during the 1999-2000 season. While Kyle attempted more 2-point field goals his freshman season and had a better overall field goal percentage (47.5% to 44.1%) than Wragge, the two share almost identical 43% 3-point shooting percentages from their freshman seasons. Korver holds the all-time Creighton record for made 3-pointers in a career, but Wragge hit more triples (68) this year than Korver did as a frosh (63). And according to Statsheet.com’s formulas, both 6’7 forwards posted True Shooting Percentages of 65.5% their first seasons at CU.”
But his outside shooting is about the only area to which Wragge compared similarly to Korver as a frosh. Korver posted better per-game averages in rebounds, assists, and steals than Wragge in their first seasons. That’s not to say Wragge was completely one-dimensional in 09-10, but he wasn’t the type of all-everything player Creighton fans associate with Korver.
And that’s OK. He wasn’t asked to be. Wragge came off the bench for the first 27 games of the season before starting the last 7 for the Bluejays. He averaged just 16 minutes per game for the year, averaging just shy of 7 points per contest. But more often than not, those 7 points usually came from long range.
He made 68 3-point field goals, most for a freshman in CU history (yes, ahead of Korver), at a 43.3% clip (second in the Missouri Valley Conference last season). Beginning with one made 3-pointer at Evansville on January 3, Wragge made a long-range shot in each of his last 21 games of the season. Sure, he spent most of his time beyond the arc; 67 of his last 69 shot attempts were from 3-point range. But it was effective, earning him All-Freshman Team honors in the Valley.
Other parts of his game were not as punishing as his shooting touch, however, and that’s something the sophomore from Eden Prairie worked on this summer. “I have continued to work on my ball-handling and post moves all summer, because I want to be able to play more in the post this year,” Wragge told WBR. “I also spent a lot of time this summer in the weight room, trying put on some weight.”
That’s where the story reverts back to Korver and Altman. As a sophomore, Korver made a tremendous leap in production. He played almost 10 minutes per game more than he did as a frosh, and he almost doubled his points, rebounding, and assists averages as a sophomore. Altman often talked about the hard work and dedication Korver applied to get stronger physically and as a basketball player between years one and two.
Obviously, comparisons to Korver are difficult to live up to among Creighton fans. But whether Wragge realizes a similar level of improvement in his second year at CU is a key factor in whether the Bluejays can recover from one of the poorer seasons in recent program history.
“Last season was very tough, because losing really tests people,” Wragge said. “Everyone reacts differently to it, but I learned a lot from losing. I learned that it is important to bring a great attitude to the court every day.”
It doesn’t hurt to bring a great shooting touch to the court every game, either. And after his promising freshman season, that’s what Creighton fans no doubt expect of the sharp-shooting sophomore this year.