Good news for everyone who has been asking how the men’s basketball team is looking this fall — there are finally some things to report! Creighton concluded offseason workouts last week and kicked off the start of preseason camp at the Championship Center on Monday afternoon. If you’ve read these practice reports before you are well aware of the drill by now — Greg McDermott ran his team through a basketball clinic. It starts with implementation of the playbook. A handful of sets on day one, then a refresher course the next day before adding in a few more to learn. They also introduced their ball screen coverages on the defensive end. Once everyone had executed those reps to the satisfaction of the coaching staff, it was time for the fundamentals.
Nothing wakes up the muscles, tendons, and joints like the verticality/loose ball/charge drill. Two vertical walls with hands to the ceiling, followed by an all-out sprint and dive after a loose ball, then getting up, getting back to the lane and getting set to absorb the full weight of a random teammate as the barrel through your chest. Anyone who thinks today’s generation is soft should have to go through this drill. After that it was a heavy dose of defensive basics laying out all the non-negotiable when it comes to gapping the ball, fronting the post, staying in front of the ball and not playing with your hands to holding blockouts without fouling. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world to hear about for most, but it’s crucial to the whole deal. After it becomes muscle memory for the players, it impacts winning as much as anything the makes the final cut of the highlight reel.
Now for some quotes and notes from day one:
Quotables…
Coach McDermott is aware of the expectations (Williams / WBR)
Head coach Greg McDermott on summer workouts vs. preseason practice: “[The players] need a routine. The summer stuff, while it’s good from a skills perspective, once you get in that practice routine and you’re doing it every day that’s where we are going to see some strides.”
Senior guard Baylor Scheierman on the team goals for preseason camp: “We’re going to put in a lot of plays and get the offensive system flowing. Just continuing to build that chemistry. I think we have a lot of guys who know how to play the right way, so if we keep building that chemistry a lot of things will take care of themselves.”
McDermott on the team’s expectations: “It is what it is. You don’t pay a lot of attention to it when you’re picked ninth [in the Big East] like we were last year. You go to work every day and try to get better every day. It’s important that we approach it the same this year. One day at a time, let’s get a little bit better today and try to stack a bunch of days on top of each other. If we do that, then we’re going to have a chance to hopefully live up to some of those.”
Junior center Ryan Kalkbrenner on what Scheierman adds to the team: “Another shooter, another passer, he can do everything on offense. He’s big and long on defense. He brings a little bit of everything, but especially spreading the floor with his ability to shoot it has been pretty big for us.”
McDermott on style of play: “We want to get back to playing a little bit faster. Last year, because of the injuries, we were really forced to slow things down and control things a little bit more because we didn’t have any depth. I think we can get back to playing the way we’ve played before, which is a little bit quicker, a little bit more free flowing. We just have to get the guys back in those habits.”
Kalkbrenner on internal conversations about the team’s potential: “We’re all just a bunch of guys who want to win. We don’t really talk about [expectations], we just understand we are here to win, and we are here to go far.”
McDermott on if this is the deepest team he’s coached: “No question. I’m really excited about that — knock on wood, we want to stay healthy. Not only are we deep, but we have some veteran depth with guys like Shereef and Farabello, who have both played a lot of college basketball. They could be huge guys off the bench if that’s how it ends up shaking out.”
Kalkbernner on getting point guard Ryan Nembhard back from injury: “He’s just motivated all the time anyway. Even before the injury last year, he was always working out and always trying to win. From that standpoint, he’s not extra motivated, but that’s because he’s already super motivated. He’s always been a hard worker.”
Notables…
Trey Alexander is ready to go for the season (Williams / WBR)
- Sophomore point guard Ryan Nembhard and sophomore combo guard Trey Alexander were out on the court going through a shooting workout more than hour before practice officially got underway. Overall, they put in close to four hours of work in on the court. Gym rats.
- McDermott says that Alexander has put on 15 pounds of muscle. According to head coach of athletic performance Jeremy Anderson, redshirt freshman forward Mason Miller has also transformed his body, adding 13 pounds of muscle over the last 15 months.
- While we’re on the physical side of things, freshman forward Jasen Green looks built to play in the Big East. The skill development will ultimately determine the level of impact, but Green undoubtedly aces the eye test.
- Senior guard Francisco Farabello is fundamentally sound defensively, especially when it comes to navigating ball screens. The transfer from TCU fits the 3-and-D prototype and mixes it with veteran savvy as an NCAA Tournament participant with the Horned Frogs last spring.
- Baylor Scheierman is lauded for his shooting, passing, and ability to rebound the basketball. One of the other facets of his game that stands out is his patience and proficiency in the mid-post and low block. He might be the answer if the coaching staff is looking for someone other than Ryan Kalkbrenner to post up and make something happen out of a timeout like Ryan Hawkins did at times last season.
- Junior guard Shereef Mitchell looks much improved as a shooter. Word is he’s worked really hard on his perimeter shot, but aside from that, his free throw shooting during Monday evening’s session was impressive. The ball didn’t make contact with the rim very often. As a reminder, Mitchell did shoot 6-for-11 (54.5%) from deep over the last seven games of the 2020-21 season. A small sample size, sure, but still a sample, nonetheless.
- Creighton ended Monday’s practice with 20 minutes of 5-on-5. At least that’s what it said on the practice sheet. They could have called “The Trey Alexander Show” and no one would have known the difference. The three-time Big East Freshman of the Week a season ago landed kill shots at all three levels with a euro step finish in the lane against a walled-up defender, a between-the-legs retreat dribble into an all-net fallaway jumper, and a pair of bombs from beyond the arc in transition.