The newcomers provided a lot of dunks in their Creighton regular season debut (Streur/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
Most knew that Creighton’s newcomers brought a talent upgrade with them when they started practicing on campus as a team back in mid-July. The question was how quickly could they be ready to help a team that needed to replace eight players from a 14-19 club last season. Late Saturday night in front of 16,538 fans at the CenturyLink Center those newcomers made a good first impression.
True freshman guard, and Omaha product, Khyri Thomas headlined the debut for the new Bluejays with a team-high 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting. He also led Creighton with two steals, and did not turn the ball over at all in 26 minutes of action as the Bluejays ran away from Texas Southern, 93-70. They won their home opener for a school-record tying 21st consecutive season.
“It felt pretty good,” Thomas said of his official Creighton debut. “I really didn’t try to think about it a whole lot. Just stayed in my zone that I’m comfortable with. I didn’t want to do anything I’ve never done. I just stayed aggressive and that’s really about it.”
All together, five new faces saw meaningful action for head coach Greg McDermott. Along with Thomas, freshman forward Martin Krampelj, junior point guards Maurice Watson Jr. and Malik Albert, and junior forward Cole Huff combined to score 53 of the team’s 93 points. They grabbed 17 of the team’s 39 rebounds, and dished out 14 assists while only turning the ball over three times between the five of them.
The Bluejays relied on them to help build a 16-point lead at halftime. With 9:19 remaining in the opening period, and Texas Southern trailing 19-16, Huff hit a 3-pointer, then Khyri Thomas knocked down triples of his own from each corner on consecutive possessions to push the Bluejays out to a 28-18 lead with 7:15 to go. With more confidence in his ability to slash and score than shoot from the perimeter, the 19-year-old from Omaha had to do some mental deliberation before letting it fly from the corner.
“On the first one I really, really hesitated a lot,” Thomas said. “I was like I don’t know if this is a good idea, but I shot it. All I kept remembering was Coach saying, ‘arch, arch,’ so I just tried to get as much arch as I could, and it went in. On the second one I just said go for it, and I shot it, and the same thing.”
Over the final 9:19, Creighton newcomers scored 20 of the team’s 27 points to end the half. The stretch was capped off when Malik Albert dropped off a pass to Martin Krampelj near the rim and the native Slovenian slammed it home with one hand just before the buzzer to give the Bluejays a 46-30 lead at the break.
Creighton wore down Texas Southern in the second half. They outscored the Tigers — who were playing for the second night in a row after losing at New Mexico on Friday night — 27-9 in the first 9:29 of the half to take their largest lead of the night at 73-39, effectively ending any concern that might have been lingering in the crowd after the first ten minutes of the game were tightly contested.
The Bluejays forced 12 turnovers in the final 20 minutes, most of which contributed to 21 fast break points and the Bluejays kept looking for quick and easy offense. For the game, they outscored Texas Southern, 30-4, in fast break points, bringing their total to 55 in that category over the last two games if you include the exhibition against Upper Iowa. That coming after last season in which the most fast break points they produced in any game was 11.
“That’s our main goal is to keep the tempo going,” said junior guard Isaiah Zierden, who finished with 15 points, four rebounds, and four assists, and made his first start since January 7th against DePaul.
“Make or miss we want to get the ball out and we want to run, and run them into the ground by the end of the game so that we can get open looks by running,” Zierden said. “For the most part I thought we did a pretty good job the last two games. We’re still getting better, but we’re looking to do that all year.”
It helped having the services of Watson as the main distributor after the Boston University standout had to watch from the sidelines last season per NCAA transfer rules. The new Bluejay floor general dished out seven assists and hit 4-of-5 shots from the field in directing the Creighton running game over the course of his 24 minutes of action.
“[Maurice] is great. Everybody loves playing with him, because if you’re open he’ll find you,” Zierden said. “He does a great job of pushing it, and he finds ways to get to the rim that I don’t even see while I’m on the court with him. It’s great playing with him, because he’s a true point guard and he’s a great teammate.”
More than Watson’s distribution or the faster tempo, Greg McDermott singled out the balanced scoring as the key not only up to this point, but as something the Bluejays will need going forward if they want to have a successful season.
“We want to play with pace, and part of those fast break points is we forced some turnovers, so that’s the easiest way to get those,” McDermott said. “But I liked the balance. Again, this is the third game (including the scrimmage against Missouri and exhibition game against Upper Iowa), and all three now we’ve had five guys in double figures, and three guys around that seven, eight, nine mark.
“And they’ve been different guys in double figures. That needs to continue. That has to be a staple of our team, and our shot distribution — Cole takes 11, Khyri takes 11, Isaiah takes 10, Martin takes 10, and we had a couple guys with seven shots. That’s what it’s going to be for us. It’s kind of who’s got it going that particular night, and let’s get them the ball and see what they can do. We’ve got a lot of different weapons, and I think we’ll continue to grow offensively.”
Listen to postgame press conference with head coach Greg McDermott, Isaiah Zierden, and Khyri Thomas
McDermott, teammates see something special in Khyri Thomas
Khyri Thomas stole the show on Saturday night (Streur/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
Fans and media members weren’t the only fawning over the debut of Omaha Benson standout Khyri Thomas on Saturday night. Thomas led the Bluejays in scoring with 18 points against Texas Southern, and provided the team with energy by making plays that didn’t necessarily show up in the box score at the end of night.
Though it was his official collegiate debut, to some of his older teammates, the 19-year-old Nebraska native didn’t play like a rookie against the Tigers.
“The kid doesn’t look like a freshman at all,” Cole Huff said. “He says he’s nervous and he’s worried about that, but I don’t see it. The kid is fearless. He looks like a veteran out here. He looks like he’s a third or fourth year [player]. He just gives it his all every possession. He knows what he’s out there for. At first he was just out there for defense, but when you play that kind of defense you earn a couple shots and you get that confidence going. He’s already putting it together, and hopefully he can keep it up.”
When asked after the game to grade his performance, the 6-foot-3 guard was critical rather than complimentary.
“One thing I know I absolutely have to fix is being more active in the gaps,” Thomas said. “Coaches stress to me that I’m too glued to my man, so that’s what I really try to work on, just staying in the gap.”
According to his head coach, the newcomer has a mentality of never being satisfied. Where that might be a confidence killer for some players, it’s a motivator for Khyri Thomas.
“He’s so humble,” Greg McDermott said. “I think if you’d ask him he’d tell you he doesn’t think he’s really that good. He has no idea how good he can become, and it’s what makes him good. It’s what keeps him hungry and keeps him working. But he doesn’t care who gets the credit, he doesn’t care if he scores or doesn’t score, and he’s got a lot of natural, God-given ability, and obviously his length speaks for itself. The exciting thing is he’s so far away from his ceiling that it’s going to be fun for our fans to watch him grow up in front of their eyes, because I think he’s going to be a very special player.”
Cole Huff shakes off the rust
Cole Huff got into rhythm in the second half. (Streur/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
After struggling in Creighton’s lone exhibition game against Upper Iowa eight days ago, junior forward Cole Huff got off to a slow start again tonight before getting back on track in the second half. He finished his official Creighton debut with 12 points, six rebounds, two assists, and a steal in 23 minutes, with most of that production coming after halftime.
“Shots weren’t really falling in the first half,” Huff said. “I was trying to let them come to me, but at the same time I was little too tight. Same way defensively in the first half, I know I got switched onto a few guards and they drove past me, but I think I was being a little too hard on myself in the beginning. I came out in the second half a lot more relaxed and I played a lot better.”
Given the small sample size of his struggles, Greg McDermott never got close to hitting the panic button on the transfer from Nevada. Instead, he called his number early on in both halves on Saturday night to try to send a subtle message that although Huff was fighting it now, he’s still a key cog in the Bluejay offense.
Huff eventually got the message.
“The second half is I think a little more typical of what we can expect from Cole,” McDermott said. “He’s been pressing a little, hasn’t shot it as well in practice as he’d like to shoot it. We went to him to start the second half, went to him to start the game just to try to inject a little confidence in him that we still believe in him regardless of how he’s shooting it. He can score in bunches like that, and he was active on the defensive glass. Cole is fine.”
Always one to study his teammates’ tendencies as much as his future opponents, starting point guard Maurice Watson Jr. knows how important Huff is to the success of the team, and if he has to improvise on the fly to get the versatile 6-foot-8 forward in a rhythm, then he has no problem doing so.
“For Cole it’s not even that he needs to shoot every time, it’s just that he needs to touch the ball in a position to score,” Watson said. “He’s one of our best scorers, and we’re going to need him. If every three or four possessions I gotta call off what Coach Mac does and get Cole in a two-man game for him to post up, that’s what we’re going to have to do, because we’re going to need Cole. He’s so valuable to us, and we’re going to need his mind in it defensively as well.
“I think as a player you want to contribute to your team offensively. When you’re just not getting it that way you kind of get down and it affects other parts of your game. We need Cole on his ‘A’ game every time. I just tell Cole to trust me as his [point guard]. To come to me and tell me, ‘I haven’t touched the ball in four possessions, give me the rock,’ and I’ll get him the rock. But we can’t shy away from Cole just because the game is going too fast. We gotta find him. We can’t shut him out, because he’s a very important piece to this team.”
Listen to the full postgame interview with Cole Huff
Family and friends on hand for Watson’s long-awaited debut
Mo Watson had 10 points and 7 assists in his Bluejay debut (Streur/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
March 19, 2014. That’s the last time Maurice Watson Jr. played in a basketball game that meant anything.
November 14, 2015. That was the first time since then that the junior point guard officially returned to the court. He scored 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting, and dished out a game-high seven assists in 24 minutes in front of a crowd of 16,538 fans at the CenturyLink Center, but all that mattered to him on Saturday night were the 11 or 12 people, family and friends, who came up from all corners to see the 5-foot-10 floor general return to the court.
“There were six who made the 18-hour drive,” Watson said, dropping his game face for the first time all night and cracking a smile. “My cousin drove down ten hours from Tennessee. A couple of my friends flew down. I have friend in junior college in Kansas, so him and his friend drove down. And then my brother goes to UNO, so we’ve got a full house. I’m just excited to spend some time with them, and they’re staying until Tuesday also.”
Though he’s been playing the game a long time, having those closest to him there to support him on Saturday brought his life back to normal after a year of watching from the sidelines where his only playing time came inside the confines of the Championship Center where the Bluejays hold most of their practices.
“I think it’s good to finally get some jitters out,” Watson said. “It was really emotional to have my whole family here after them not seeing me play for a year, and I just wanted to make the proud tonight, and every time that I step on the court.”
Listen to the full postgame interview with Maurice Watson, Jr.
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