[dropcap]It’s[/dropcap] been nearly eight months since we last saw the Bluejays in action, and in the absence of “Bluejay Madness” in October to quench fans’ thirst for basketball, the anticipation before Friday night’s opener is several magnitudes higher than usual. The die-hards who attend summer league games have seen the newcomers in person, but for the fanbase at large, Friday night offers the first glimpses of Marcus Foster, Davion Mintz, and Kobe Paras (as well as walk-on Jordan Scurry) on the court — and the first opportunity to see Justin Patton play since last November’s exhibition win over Upper Iowa.
Wayne State, a DII school located 100 miles from Omaha that Creighton has somewhat surprisingly never played in an exhibition game before, comes into Friday night’s action with one game under their belt, having defeated Midland University 70-66 on Tuesday night.
They return four starters from a year ago, but they were an abysmal 5-24 with that team so it’s not necessarily a good thing to return so many pieces. Picked 15th out of 16 teams in the preseason Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference poll, first-year coach Jeff Kaminsky likely has a long year ahead of him.
Greg McDermott’s first head coaching job was at Wayne State 22 years ago, and in six years he built a bad program into one that went to two straight NCAA DII Tournaments. In the 16 years prior to his hiring (1978-1994) WSU won just 38% of their games; in the 16 years since his departure (2000-2016) they’ve won just 41%. With Coach Mac at the helm, they went 116-53 (68.6%), had four straight 20-win seasons, and advanced to the DII Sweet 16 in his last season at the helm. They haven’t won more than 17 games in any season, or advanced to the NCAA Tournament, since he left.
As with most exhibitions, though, it’s less about the opponent and more about getting the newcomers’ feet wet before the season opener — playing in front of 15,000+ fans at the CenturyLink Center, going through the routine of gameday, and for the fans, getting a chance to see those newcomers in action. And never moreso than this year, when the scholarship newcomers are all expected to be key contributors.
Foster averaged 15.5 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists and shot 39.5 percent from three-point range as a freshman at Kansas State, and was an all-Big 12 preseason pick as a sophomore. Then he was benched and later suspended by Bruce Weber, and ultimately parted ways with the Wildcats. During the mandatory redshirt year off following his transfer to CU, Foster worked hard to improve his game and his repair his reputation. As a junior, Foster takes the court as a proven, versatile scorer at the power conference level, and will be counted on to ease some of the scoring burden from Mo Watson.
Greg McDermott said this week that he’s been trying to get Foster to stay aggressive and not settle for jump shots, despite his ability to hit them at a high clip. “He loves that step-back jumper, and he can make it, but I’ve pulled out a lot of the step-back jumpers in practice and shared some of those shooting percentages with him. He’s just so powerful at getting to the basket that it has to be part of who he is, and if it will be I think that will set up the rest of his game.”
Mintz and Paras are a pair of true freshmen who have steadily earned the trust of coaches and teammates during fall camp. McDermott said this week that he doesn’t anticipate redshirting either player, though their roles are still being defined.
Mintz, a 6’3” guard from Huntersville, North Carolina, is slated to be the primary backup at point guard. He told WBR’s Matt DeMarinis earlier this fall that Watson has taken him under his wing, grooming his successor at point guard for the Bluejays. “I’ve learned from playing with Wop that you have to take every rep seriously,” Mintz told us. “He has a passion for the game and he always wants to win whether it’s one-on-one drills or five-on-five, it doesn’t matter. Playing with him I’ve learned to take it serious, and he’s a big film guy, so I try to get in there and watch film with him. I know that when I’m behind him, or taking a rep with him, it’s going to be a serious rep and I’m going to have to go hard.”
Paras seemingly has a tougher road to getting significant minutes, because the Jays’ depth on the wing leaves precious few minutes available. “Obviously there is some experience in front of him with Marcus and Tazz and Z,” McDermott noted, “but he would be the next guy right now, because we’ve kind of made the commitment to slide Ronnie over to power forward, although he could play some small forward if he needed to.”
His offensive skills have been on display during fall camp, as this explosive dunk in traffic shows:
But as with all freshmen, how much he plays will likely be dictated by how quickly he picks up defensive schemes. “Kobe has done some good things,” McDermott said. “He can score in a lot of ways, but just like with any freshmen it’s the consistency on the defensive end, and understanding what we’re trying to do on offense that just takes a little time.”
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Friday night may be the first time fans can see the Jays in action this fall, but it’s not the team’s first game action, as they took on Mizzou last weekend at the CenturyLink Center in a “closed door” scrimmage. And thanks to relaxed NCAA rules on those scrimmages, we know much more (on the record) about it than any previous season’s scrimmage, details of which usually leaked out if you knew who to ask (off the record, of course).
The game, such as it was, consisted of two halves. CU jumped out to an early 20-10 lead in the first, then substituted liberally as the coaching staff experimented with lineups and matchups. Mizzou took the lead, 33-28, with just over four minutes to go, and then a 5-0 CU run knotted the score at 33. The teams traded points down the stretch — Mo Watson going 6-6 from the line, Mizzou scoring on three straight possessions — and after the Jays got a defensive stop on the final possession, ended the half tied 41-all.
Foster hit three 3-pointers early in the second half as part of an 11-3 opening salvo; the Jays did not trail in the period, and won 45-31. Once again, they experimented heavily, playing all 14 eligible players and getting points from 10 of them. Mizzou’s recap noted that there was a huge discrepancy in fouls, 21-10 in Creighton’s favor, leading to a 29-12 edge in free throw attempts for CU. Foster led the team in scoring with 23, while Watson had six assists.
There was some gnashing of teeth over the perceived closeness of the score — Mizzou is widely expected to be among the SEC’s worst teams this year, and thus many CU fans apparently expected a blowout — but it’s important to remember these scrimmages are not a straight 40-minute game, and should not be judged as such. There’s a lot of situational experimentation, and it can often times look more like a joint practice/scrimmage than a game.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well against Missouri — I think we were 37% for the scrimmage,” McDermott said this week. “Having said that we still scored nearly 90 points, so this team has the capability of scoring in different ways. We got to the free throw line a lot, and I think trying to guard Maurice and Marcus, with the new rules, is very challenging for a defense. We want to put those guys in some isolation situations where we can make some things happen.”
While they were impressive offensively, the Jays also gave up 72 points to Mizzou, so there’s plenty of room for improvement on that end of the floor, as McDermott noted. “We fouled a little bit too much, and I wasn’t really pleased with our defensive rebounding. I think we have to make some strides there, and those are things we’ll be looking for Friday night.”
Much like the Mizzou scrimmage, the Bluejays figure to utilize their entire roster, experimenting with different rotations and combinations of players on the floor. We probably won’t see much of Watson, Foster, and other starters after halftime, as the emphasis shifts to getting the newcomers’ feet wet in a real game situation, and giving the coaches actual game film to study on those players.
To that end, their entire roster will be in uniform, including Zach Hanson, who returned sooner than expected from the knee injury that sidelined him most of the fall. Hanson and Cole Huff both played ten minutes in the scrimmage against Mizzou, and while their stamina isn’t quite up to regular season level yet, just being on the court is a big step — though the uncertainty about how much they’ll be able to contribute early on means that the rotation inside is unsettled.
“Part of it will depend on when we can get guys healthy,” McDermott told us this week, “and how quickly can we get Cole back to performing at the level that he’s capable of performing at? How far away is Zach from playing extended minutes? And can Martin get that ankle healthy enough where he can play more than a couple minutes at a time? The reality of it is Ronnie, Toby, and Justin are the only three guys that haven’t missed a practice on the front line, so that’s probably going to be a work in progress even early in the season.”
Quick Notes on the Wildcats:
- Kendall Jacks led Wayne State with 20 points in Tuesday’s win over Midland, while Vance Janssen (10 pts., 4 ast.) and Jordan Cornelius (10 pts., 8 reb.) also scored in double-figures
- Cornelius led the Wildcats with 141 rebounds last season
- Matt Thomas led WSC with 16.5 points and 3.0 assists per game last season, sinking a team-best 47 three-pointers.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Wayne State averaged 693 fans per home game last season, and played before a grand total of 17,342 total fans in 15 road games last year, going 0-15 in those games. For comparison, Creighton’s largest exhibition attendance in school history was 16,317 on November 7, 2014 vs. Sioux Falls, and last year’s exhibition win vs. Upper Iowa attracted 15,015 fans
- Creighton is ranked No. 22 in the preseason Associated Press poll and No. 23 in the preseason USA Today Coaches poll. It’s just the third time in program history the AP has voted CU to the top-25 in the preseason, joining 2006-07 (No. 19) and 2012-13 (No. 16).
The Series / The Last Time They Played:
Creighton and Wayne State have never met, exhibition or otherwise. The Bluejays have won 15 straight exhibition games, and have lost just three times in the last 20 years — all three to Global Sports (1999, 2000, 2003).
Greg McDermott is 23-0 in exhibition games as a Division I head coach, including a 10-0 mark at UNI, a 7-0 record at Iowa State, and a 6-0 mark at Creighton. All but one of his triumphs has been by double-digits.
Gratuitous Linkage:
“Beyond McBuckets: Creighton, Greg McDermott Continue to Work Out of Doug’s Shadow”
NBC Sports’ Travis Hines wrote an in-depth preview of the Jays last week after spending a couple of days at practice, and it’s one of the best season preview articles you’ll read on them anywhere.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On November 4, 2010, the Greg McDermott Era unofficially tipped off with an 79-67 exhibition win over Northern State. Re-reading the postgame column from Ott is fascinating, given what we know now about the career of Doug McDermott:
“And it was a newcomer, a fresh faced coach’s son, who left an impression on Creighton fans during the team’s only exhibition game of the fall. Doug McDermott, a recruit the Bluejays initially missed on and one who seemed destined to destroy CU while playing for Northern Iowa, made his Creighton debut 90 seconds into the game. Twenty minutes of playing time later, D-Mac had scored 18 points, grabbed 7 rebounds, blocked a shot, and looked as smooth around the rim as some of his fellow teammates looked rigid.
My mom, thrown a bit by the lack of last names on the backs of the Bluejays’ jerseys, kept referring to him as the “young kid.” But I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that McDermott played more like an experienced upperclassman, at least offensively. The box score doesn’t show just how collected McDermott’s motions and actions were on offense, especially in the paint. He’s not the strongest guy in the league (but don’t worry, Creighton fans, the Jays will be able to suit that guy up in about a month or so), but what he lacks in muscle he makes up for with his mind. McDermott knew where to be and how to finish.
But I’ll try to reign in my excitement, considering the exhibition status of last night’s 12-point win against Northern State. Who knows exactly how well the freshman will play as the season progresses? I’ll tell you one thing: if Ethan Wragge continues to set what has to be a record pace for fouls-per-minutes-played, McDermott will definitely get his fair share of playing time early in games. Wragge started at one forward spot last night and promptly fouled twice during the first 90 seconds of the game. He ended the night with 5 points in 12 minutes, including hitting his only 3-point attempt of the evening, but he committed twice as many turnovers as D-Mac in half as much playing time.”
Probably a good thing that D-Mac nickname never stuck, though.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
In a nod to the lifelong Cubs fandom of two of WBR’s founders, Otter and Panon, we’ll do something a little different here.
You don’t need to be a Cubs fan to get a little emotional watching this — I’m a lifelong Twins guy, but as a huge baseball fan I watched a helluva lot of Cubs games in the 80s and 90s on WGN while I was growing up, more than enough to appreciate the genius of Harry Caray (and to understand, at least at a distance, the agony their fans suffered though year after year). Through the magic of modern digital filmmaking here’s Harry Caray calling the final out, interspersed with the pure joy of their fans in Wrigleyville and elsewhere. It’s a commercial for Budweiser, and holy cow (pun intended) is it a well-executed spot. Really, really good.
https://youtu.be/nApTGkLd2hs
The Bottom Line:
It’ll be a short night Watson, Foster, and the rest of the starters — Wayne State probably keeps things close for awhile, but expect to see a lot of minutes from the end of the bench, especially after halftime.
Creighton 93, Wayne State 68