Inside the Media Guide: 2011-2012 Creighton Bluejays Men’s Basketball

The madness of the opening day of men’s college basketball practice might be over, but White & Blue Review is just getting started previewing this year’s Creighton Bluejays men’s basketball team. The media guide is hot off the press, and Otter spent a few day thumbing through the online version. As always the great staff in the Creighton Sports Information Department, led by Rob Anderson, have pulled together a tremendous guide. Below are a few interesting pieces of info.

CenturyLink Center

Don’t let the shabby, undersized banner draped on the southeast side of the Qwest Cent…errr…CenturyLink Center fool you. By the time Creighton’s basketball games count, the arena will have made the complete transition from signage throughout the building featuring a bluish hue CU fans are accustomed to a greenish tint similar to that shining from TD Ameritrade Park down the street. Gone will be references to The Q, but long live The Phone Booth!

Roster Revelations

• Nine players have used redshirts so far in their college careers.
• Three countries (Venezuela, Canada, United States), six states (Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Colorado, Minnesota).
• This year’s team will field as many freshmen (7) as juniors (4) and seniors (3) combined. Alex Olsen and Mogboluwaga Oginni (call him Mo) are freshmen walk-ons, joining scholarship newcomers Austin Chatman, Avery Dingman, Geoff Groselle, and Nevin Johnson and redshirt frosh Will Artino. Of the 7 upperclassmen, 3 are walk-ons (Matthew Dorwart, Derek Sebastian, and Ross Ferrarini).

Select Company Thanks to Postseason Play

Think the list of schools Creighton joined on ESPN during college basketball’s first night of practice was heady? Only nine schools made the postseason in some way, shape, or form in each of the past 14 years: Duke, Florida, Gonzaga, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan State, Oklahoma State, Syracuse, and Creighton.

Great Crowds, CBI Be Damned

Entering the CBI, the Bluejays were 14^th in the nation in per-game attendance (15,026). The crowds were so small for the CBI home games not featuring the return of Dana Altman that the season average dropped to 13,507. But hey … postseason!

AY Leads the Way

Antoine Young led the league with 5.0 assists per game and finished 7^th in scoring (13.1 ppg). That’s the first time a player led the MVC in assists and finished in the top ten in scoring since 1992-93. Young became the first player in CU history with 500 or more points and 160 or more assists in a season. He led the Valley in assist-to-turnover ratio each of the past two seasons. And he’s an ironman, having started Creighton’s last 72 games. Combined with Doug McDermott and his 581 points, Young and the younger McDermott became the first CU teammates to each reach 500 or more points in the same season since Bob Harstad and Chad Gallagher did so in 1990-91.

McDermott Joins Select Company

Doug McDermott scored 581 points, grabbed 280 rebounds, and made 47 3-pointers. Since 1996-97, only 14 other times has a collegiate player done that in a season. Kyle Singler did it twice. Xavier Musketeers James Posey and Romain Sato did it. All-World players Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony did it. NBA vets Shane Battier, Keith Van Horn, Rasual Butler, and Matt Harpring did it. Nice company, huh?

Perspective Means Everything

Creighton’s coming off back-to-back 16-loss seasons. The last time the Jays lost 16 or more games in consecutive seasons? A streak of four seasons during with Rick Johnson’s teams lost 19, 18, and 22 games, and Altman’s first CU squad dropped 19 games.

Vanderloo Coached Who?

Creighton’s new director of basketball operations, Jeff Vanderloo, coached Sioux City East to the 2002 state championship in Iowa. His star player? Ben Jacobson, who would star for Greg McDermott at Northern Iowa.

Big Ten Tussles

Creighton hosts two teams from the Big Ten this season; Nebraska (December 4) and Northwestern (December 22). Greg McDermott is 13-12 against teams from the Big Ten during his coaching career. He has a winning record against Iowa (5-4), Nebraska (6-3), and Purdue (1-0), but has never beaten Northwestern (0-2).

Inside the Player Profiles

• Matthew Dorwart’s favorite athlete is Ed McCaffrey. No word if “McCaffrey’s Rocky Mountain Horseradish Sauces” is Dorwart’s favorite condiment.
• Derek Sebastian’s favorite sports memory doesn’t deal with hoops. Instead, it centers on the senior walk-on’s conference title in tennis in high school.
• During each of his three seasons at CU, Antoine Young has a greater per-game scoring mark during Valley games than during non-conference tilts.
• Gregory Echenique shot 61.4% from the field playing for the Venezuelan National Team this summer. That is slightly higher than his 60.9% figure that led Missouri Valley Conference players last season (he also shot 62.9% in Valley games).
• After starting the season waiting out restoration of his eligibility due to mid-season transfer the year before, Echenique came on in the last month of the season. He averaged 14.0 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 2.2 blocked shots per game in the College Basketball Invitational.
• Ross Ferrarini played AAU basketball with Antoine Young and Josh Jones for the Omaha Crusaders. Their coach was Doug Woodard, father of former Creighton women’s basketball players Kristi and Kelsey Woodard.
• It was quite the baker’s dozen for Josh Jones to end his redshirt sophomore season. In his last 13 games he scored 102 points (7.8 ppg). He shot 54% from 3-point range and 57% from the field during that span. He experienced a similar late-season spurt the previous year, when he scored 20 points in his first 20 games as a Bluejay and 90 points in his last 14 contests.
• Jahenns Manigat knocked down 47.5% of his 3-point shots in MVC games, third best in the conference.  He came to Creighton the first Canadian in the program’s history, and finished his first year earning All-Bench and All-Freshmen team honors.
• Doug McDermott was arguably the best freshman in the history of Creighton hoops. He was the first frosh to earn first-team All-MVC honors since 1952. He won the league’s Freshman and Newcomer of the Year awards, having been the league’s Newcomer of the Week seven times (including four consecutive weeks from November 15 through the first week of December).
  He capitalized on an opportunity to play for Team USA, starting nine games and finishing third on the U19 team in scoring and rebounding at the U19 FIBA World Championships in Latvia this summer. But he had a tough fall: defending world champs the San Francisco Giants — his favorite sports team — failed to return to the postseason, and Entourage — his favorite television show — ended its successful run on HBO.
  In his first season in the Valley, Doug McDermott averaged double figures in scoring against every MVC team except Wichita State (9.0 ppg). He dropped an average of 21.5 ppg last year against the Sycamores, the highest per game scoring average of any Bluejay against one of the other 9 Valley programs.
• Taylor Stormberg saw action during his redshirt freshman year at Creighton, becoming the first Creighton Prep grad to play for the bigger Bluejays since 1986-87. He led Prep to a state championship as a senior in 2008-09.
• Ethan Wragge entered last season as the Missouri Valley Conference’s active leader in 3-point percentage. He attempted just 34 long-range shots before shutting down what would become a medical hardship season due to plantar fasciitis. He hit 68 3s as a frosh the year before, the most ever by a freshman in Creighton history.
• Will Artino made the most of his trip to the Bahamas. He averaged a double-double during the team’s off-season exhibition tour. It was Artino’s first semi-official game action since 2009-10, when as a high school senior he averaged 18 points and 12.5 rebounds at Waukee High School in Iowa.
• Austin Chatman, another freshman — albeit of the first-year variety — also put up eye-popping stats during Creighton’s Bahamas action. He dished a team-high 30 assists (against just 10 turnovers) during the exhibition trip. His career ambition is simple: he wants to play in the NBA.
• Avery Dingman comes to Creighton from the backyard of the Missouri State Bears. He chose the Bluejays over the Bears when it came to college, and he’ll get a chance to show MSU fans what they missed. He averaged 9 points per game in the Bahamas, third best on the team, after averaging 23 points per game as a high school senior.
• Grant Gibbs gets lumped in with the first-year Bluejays in the media guide, but he’s a veteran when it comes to college hoops. He started his career at Gonzaga in 2008 after leaving Linn-Mar High School in Iowa as one of the region’s top high school recruits. He transferred to Creighton before last season after sitting out 2008-09 with a shoulder injury, choosing to play for Greg McDermott after turning down the former head coach at Iowa State as he recruited Gibbs to become a Cyclone out of high school.
• Geoff Groselle dropped the “rey” from his first name in the media guide, and gained an inch in the final player measurements. Geoff becomes the fifth 7-footer to don the White & Blue, the first since the “Miami Slice” Bill O’Dowd in the early 90s. He owns the Plano West High School records for most blocked shots and rebounds in a season.
• Nevin Johnson chose Creighton over fellow Valley schools Bradley and Wichita State, in addition to Pepperdine, Boston College, and South Alabama. He is one of three players hailing from Texas on Creighton’s 2011-12 roster.
• Freshmen walk-ons Mogboluwaga Oginni and Alex Olsen come to Creighton hoping to earn playing time after what likely will be redshirt seasons in 2011-12. Oginni comes to Omaha via St. Louis, where he played for Saint Louis University High School. Olsen hails from Council Bluffs, where he earned second-team all-state recognition as a senior at Abraham Lincoln High School.

Opponents Outlook

• Campbell, Creighton’s opponent over Thanksgiving Break, calls the Fighting Camels its mascot. Creighton is the only school in D-I to call a Bluejay its mascot; has to be the same for the Campbell Camels, right?
• Creighton owns four wins all time against Saint Joseph’s, while the Hawks have bested the Bluejays four times too. This season marks the deciding game in the best-of-nine series!
• The Bluejays will play old Valley foe Tulsa for just the third time since the Golden Hurricanes left the conference following the 1995-96 season. The teams split road wins in 1999-2000 and 2000-01.
• Casual fans who know Bradley’s coach by coiffure of hair only will be sure to notice Geno Ford, not Jim Les, will man the bench for the Braves. Meanwhile, the media guide photo of Drake’s Mark Phelps makes him look like the CEO of an investment firm that stole all of your money in the past few months.
• The Bluejays own better head-to-head records with every Valley school during the past decade except Southern Illinois (SIU 12-11). But CU has won the last 7 games in the rivalry after dropping 10 of the previous 12 meetings.
• Creighton has never played UAB or Campbell, two of the Jays’ non-conference opponents in 2011-12.

Stat Stuffers

• Doug McDermott made more field goals than all but two of his teammates attempted last season.
• Gregory Echenique attempted 4.9 free throws per game, more than twice as many as his fellow low post teammate Kenny Lawson (2.15).
• The Bluejays barely outscored the entirety of their opponents last season, by +3.5 points. Wichita State blew away their competition, on average; the Shockers won their 37 games by an average margin of 11.1 ppg.
• The Bluejays finished last in the Valley in turnover margin. CU committed the second highest number of turnovers (470) in the league (Indiana State coughed it up 477 times, but in five fewer games than CU).
• According to the NCAA, Creighton finished with an RPI of 116.
• Benoit Benjamin owns 9 of the 10 best blocked shot performances in Creighton history. Doug Swenson owns the other one, having swatted 8 shots at Missouri-Kansas City in 1998.
• No Creighton Bluejay has recorded a triple-double in traditional points/rebounds/assists fashion. Benjamin owns all three of CU’s triple-doubles, but did so with points/rebounds/blocked shots.
• Kenny Lawson left Creighton with the 6^th most rebounds and 16^th most points in school history.

Miscellaneous Musings

• Apparently Creighton won a basketball national championship … in 1918-1919. Don’t believe me? This is what the media guide says:

National Championship (Unofficial):

The 1918-19 Creighton men’s basketball team capped its second straight undefeated season by winning a two-game series against the U.S. Army’s Camp Grant. By winning the series, the March 20, 1919, Creighton Chronicle reported, “the Creighton team is recognized as the champions of the west, not only among the college teams, but professionals.”

Dr. Floyd Paynter took the success one step further when he wrote in the March 1934 Creighton Alumnus, “After this great season we claimed the basketball championship of the nation for Creighton University.”

• From Game 39: Defining Moment: With the score tied, Creighton turned the ball over with 17.2 seconds left after a backcourt violation. Oregon’s E.J. Singler then scored the game-winner with 2.0 seconds left. [shakes head.]
• The only players in Valley history to play in three MVC Tournament championship games are Creighton’s Nate Funk, Tyler McKinney, and Kyle Korver; and Southern Illinois’ Marcus Timmons, Chris Carr, and Paul Lusk. Lusk is the first-year head coach at Missouri State.
• Nate Funk didn’t miss a free throw in the 2005 MVC Tournament, en route to a tournament championship.
• The BracketBuster field is so large this year (record 142 teams) that it takes up an entire page in the media guide.
• My trip to Chicago on March 15, 2002, remains one of the best long weekends of my life.
• The 1941-42 media guide was called “The Creighton University Basketball Dope Book”. I’m pretty sure we should go back to calling them that.
• All time, the Bluejays are 38-38 in single-overtime games, 13-5 in double-OT, and 0-1 in triple-OT. The Jays have played back-to-back overtime games four times, with CU winning four straight such games in 1963 and 1976 and losing four straight in 1986-87 and 1994.
• The Jays are 18-117 against opponents ranked in the AP poll. Yuck.
• Five Creighton men’s basketball players have earned Academic All-American honors (Rick Apke, Paul Silas, Brody Deren, Mike Lindeman, and Anthony Tolliver).