Entering the night, Greg McDermott and Dana Altman — the only two men tasked with leading the Creighton men’s basketball program over the past 30 years — had combined for 654 wins on the sideline in Omaha. 327 for Altman and 327 for Mac. Each one almost doubling the 165 victories that the previous all-time program wins leader, Arthur A. Schabinger, amassed just before World War II.
Two hours and one 35-point drubbing of a brave but undersized Houston Christian team later, McDermott had the top spot all to himself.
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As he sat on the dais, dusting off stray pieces of the white and blue confetti that senior center Ryan Kalkbrenner and freshman guard Sterlin Knox shot all over him as they departed the press conference, and reminisced over the journey to win No. 328, the man responsible for hiring both him and his predecessor sat in the back of the room looking on with an unfathomable amount of pride.
“I’m so proud of him because he does it the right way,” former Creighton Athletic Director Bruce Rasmussen said long after McDermott’s post-game press conference had concluded. “It isn’t a four-year process with these kids, it’s a lifetime. They are family. And I know that’s overused, but he really cares for them, and they get better. It isn’t just that he makes them better basketball players, individually and as part of a team, but he makes them better leaders. Better leaders in their family, better leaders in whatever business they’re in, better leaders in the communities, and you see the product and what they’re doing. That doesn’t just happen. It takes effort. As great of a coach as he is, he is a better person.”
McDermott’s first win on the CHI Health Center Omaha sidelines came against Alabama State on November 12, 2010. Those were still the Qwest Center sidelines at the time. 14 years and one day later, he surpassed his predecessor with a resounding 78-43 victory over Houston Christian to become the all-time wins leader in the history of a program that has justifiably become the pride of the city in the time that Altman and McDermott have been in charge.
The Bluejays trailed at the first media timeout in their first two games of the season against UTRGV and Fairleigh Dickinson, and they followed that script for a third time in Wednesday night’s contest against the Huskies. But they eventually turned the game on its head before too long with a rock-solid defensive effort that fueled a 34-2 onslaught that lasted for nearly 14 minutes of game time and turned a 7-3 deficit into a 37-9 lead with under a minute remaining in the first half. Houston Christian missed 20 of the 21 shots they attempted in that stretch, while Creighton scored 18 of their 34 points at the rim.
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“I think it just started on the defensive end,” Kalkbrenner said of the game-changing run. “We were making them take tough shots, and once we got the rebound, we were out playing offense like we wanted to. Like Mac said, we weren’t making shots early on, but it didn’t change the way we played on defense. So, we stuck with that. Once the shots started falling, obviously we were able to go on that run.”
The Jays led 39-12 at the break. That output Houston Christian was able to muster over the first 20 minutes was tied for the fewest points scored by any team in any half of basketball in McDermott’s now 15 seasons in Omaha. Creighton added to it with an 8-2 run to begin the second half — two of which came on a Ryan Kalkbrenner dunk that came 12 seconds after he erased one at the rim one the other end of the floor.
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Two pick-six layups by seniors Jamiya Neal and Steven Ashworth followed shortly after that sequence to open up a 50-14 lead and make the final 16 minutes and change academic. Kalkbrenner led all players in scoring with 16 points in 22 minutes. He went 4-for-5 at the free throw line and was perfect 6-for-6 from the floor to actually improve his already absurd field goal percentage to 92.1% for the season.
Ashworth was the only other starter in double figures for Creighton. He rounded out his 25 minutes of action with 13 points, seven rebounds, and six assists. The Bluejays got 28 points off the bench with junior center Fredrick King leading the charge in that department with 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting to go along with two rebounds and two blocked shots in 15 minutes of action.
D’Aundre Samuels led the Huskies in scoring with 8 points on 3-of-9 shooting. As a team, Houston Christian misfired on 30 of the 35 3-pointers they attempted on the evening. They weren’t much better inside the arc, either, as they shot just 13-of-36 on twos.
“We’re trying to grow defensively,” McDermott said. “That’s been a big focus of ours since our first game, and I think we took a step in the right direction tonight. I like the fact that we didn’t make shots early, and we didn’t let that impact our ability to defend. Sometimes you can get deflated because shots aren’t going in and not do the other things, and then you can dig yourself a pretty good hole. We played defense and we rebounded and really stuck to what we needed to do until some shots started falling. Then we were able to loosen it up in transition and get it to Kalk and establish that inside game. We turned it over early, but we cleaned those up as the game went on.”
Shortly after the game clock hit zero, the night morphed from Creighton’s defensive performance to a celebration of the man who has guided the greatest era in the history of the program. Before anyone — including players, staff members, and McDermott himself — left the arena or the court, a congratulatory video was shown on the overhead scoreboard. It was just over three and half minutes long and featured 47 people that included 29 former players, four former assistant coaches that are now leading their own programs at the D-1 level, and the man he just passed, Dana Altman.
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“I was running from the posse at Iowa State and the gentlemen in the back of the room here saved me,” McDermott said. “They hadn’t caught me yet, but they were getting close. And he offered me an unbelievable opportunity to come to this great place in this great town. The support from the administration from Father Schlegel to Father Lannon to Father Hendrickson, and then Bruce and Marcus, the way they’ve supported our program and given us an opportunity to have the things that we need to be successful. It’s amazing that there have been two coaches here in 31 years, and Bruce hired both of us. He saw something in a couple small town kids that nobody else saw, and it was a great fit when Dana was here, and it’s been a great fit from my perspective.
“And then I think about the people that have worked for me. [Steve Merfeld] and [Len] Gordy, Ben McNair, and Rob Anderson have been here from the start. [Jeff] Vanderloo and John McKew have basically been here the whole time. They don’t work for me, they work with me. And it’s been very enjoyable to have those guys as part of my life. And then you saw some of the coaches up on the on the video board, like — I’ve had some really good coaches that have worked for me. Besides [Darian DeVries] and [Steve] Lutz and [Alan] Huss and [Patrick] Sellers. Guys that are doing great things as head coaches. Paul Lusk was in the Final Four last year at Purdue and Preston Murphy was in the Final Four with Alabama. Two high level assistant coaches that are going to be head coaches again at some point. And then Jalen Courtney-Williams did a great job while he was here before LSU snagged him away from us. And then my current staff has been terrific. And then the players. Those guys mean the world to me. We fought together, we laughed together. At times we cried together. That’s what this journey is all about is just the people that you’re surrounded with and the people that are part of it. It’s as much about them as it is about me.”
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