College basketball officially begins Friday, October 12. In the days surrounding Creighton’s Bluejay Madness event, we’ll try to pose (and answer) some of the most pressing questions surrounding the 2012-2013 Creighton men’s basketball team.
#10: How well will Austin Chatman replace Antoine Young?
#9: Can Creighton handle being the hunted?
#8: How will the minutes shake out?
#7: What will the newcomers bring to this team?
#6: What will Doug McDermott do for an encore?
#5: Will Creighton’s non-conference schedule be a liability come March?
#4: Are the Jays poised to put the best offensive team in program history on the court?
#3: Can Creighton improve its defense from a year ago?
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Creighton’s defense in 2011-2012 was weak. Like, worst one-third of all Division I college basketball weak. They couldn’t or wouldn’t get stops, so they had to outscore opponents by relying on an outstanding offense. Terrible defensive team.
Forget for a second that the point of basketball — sports, really — is to outscore the opponent. It doesn’t really matter how, does it? At the end of the clock, at the end of an inning or a half or whatever period of time the game uses, be the team with more points or more runs or more goals. That’s it.
But did the Bluejays give up a lot of points last season? Yes. They allowed 69.7 points per game, 8th worst in the Missouri Valley Conference and 242nd in the nation. Did opponents convert shots at an absurd clip? Yes. The Jays gave up 44.1% field goal shooting, 7th worst in the Valley and 222nd in the country. Did they give up a lot of three-point makes? Yep, their 36.1% opponent three-point percentage was 7th worst in the league and 264th worst in the nation. And they didn’t steal the ball, plain and simple: they averaged 4.8 steals per game, 9th out of 10 MVC teams and 313th in the country.
Josh Jones has proven a capable defender in spurts (Spomer/Streur/WBR)
So, their porous defense is the albatross the Bluejays will carry until they correct it. But on a team that gains an infusion of only four new scholarship players (two coming off redshirts and two true freshmen), how will a returning group that didn’t play much consistent defense last season turn things around? Obviously, it wasn’t as if the coaching staff last season told the team to forget entirely about playing defense. This isn’t the NBA. But how does Greg McDermott and his staff, knowing that the local and national media think of “Doug McDermott” and “no defense” when considering Creighton, turn around after last season and improve the Jays defensively?
Certainly, people will tell you “defense is a mentality.” They will say “defense wins championships.” These adages sound great, but they don’t make a forward stop an opponent from knocking down a three-pointer from the wing. Physical training does. Preparation does. Game plans do. Just as the Jays returners have another season of experience in McDermott’s offense, they should in year three know what’s expected of them defensively. And this is also the third year for the key returners working with Dan Bailey, Creighton’s head Strength and Conditioning coach. Want to force miscues against teams like Wichita State, Wisconsin, Alabama, and North Carolina? Get stronger. Get quicker. Build endurance.
The Bluejays were too good a team last season to have media discount their abilities just because their defensive statistics were poor. Jays fans listened as CU got two stops in the final seconds during an important road win at Missouri State. They watched the Jays get a stop late in a one-point win against Indiana State. They watched Josh Jones play solid defense during critical stretches of Creighton’s NCAA Tournament win against the Crimson Tide. They saw Gregory Echenique win the Valley’s Defensive Player of the Year award and send a few messages to some Tar Heel Lottery picks in Greensboro.
Creighton’s capable of playing solid defense. If they can couple consistently good defense with anything close to last year’s offensive prowess, the possibilities for the 2012-2013 are measured in numbers like 68, 32, 16, 8, and 4.