Montana was turning up the pressure on the perimeter. He read it and reacted by cutting to the basket. Fellow freshman Samson Froling saw him and hit him in stride with a pass. He had a layup or at worst a floater in the lane. Then almost in one motion as he caught the pass, he flipped it behind him to the corner into the waiting arms of sophomore guard Mitch Ballock for a wide open, rhythm three of Montana’s bench.
“How he knew exactly where [Ballock] was I don’t know, but it was a heck of a play.”
That was what Creighton head coach Greg McDermott had to say about freshman point guard Marcus Zegarowski’s no-look flip back to Ballock in the first half of an impressive 98-72 win over the a Montana Grizzlies team that returned four of five starters and six of their top seven scorers from a squad that went to the NCAA Tournament last season.
“It was an empty side ball screen,” McDermott said as he continued to break down the read his rookie floor general made not even seven full games into his Division 1 career. “Mitch’s defender went and took him away, and he knew that Mitch was over there somewhere … he’s setting that up with his eyes and with his hesitation before it ever happens. He’s a special player and we are lucky to have him.”
Creighton was certainly lucky to have him on Wednesday night at the CHI Health Center Omaha. One game removed from committing a season-high five turnovers in an 87-82 win over then 16th-ranked Clemson, Zegarowski dished out a season-high six assists and didn’t turn the ball over one time in 24 minutes while adding 11 points and five rebounds to his official stat line.
“He had a couple goofy turnovers in the Clemson game — one where he slipped in front of their bench after a timeout and then the late one against the press — but Marcus has got a good sense of where everybody’s at,” McDermott added. “For a freshman, sometimes when there is pressure you get sped up. He doesn’t get sped up physically, but more importantly he doesn’t get sped up mentally. He just reads that when there are two guys on me, somebody’s open, it’s my job to find him, and he did a really good job of that tonight.”
For Zegarowski, it’s part of a game-to-game progression that has the Hamilton, Massachusetts native on track to be the next star playmaker to wear the white and the blue for CU.
“I’m learning every day,” Zegarowski said. “I’m learning new things. I’m trying to work at things that I need to work on every single day. Each game is a step forward for me I believe. Each game I’m becoming more aware of things, each game I’m getting smarter on the defensive and offensive end. I’m learning day in, day out, in practices and in games. It’s good to have [junior forward Martin Krampelj], who is a veteran here, and our coaches are on me, and [sophomore guard Ty-Shon Alexander] and [junior point guard Davion Mintz]. They are all teaching me every day. It’s definitely beneficial for me.”
The Jays are 6-1 through seven games and the 6-foot-2 point guard is averaging 10.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game while shooting 49.0 percent from the field and 43.5 percent from the 3-point line.
Krampelj compromises Grizzlies’ interior defense
Creighton’s junior big man took a look around the court prior to tip-off and noticed right away that Montana was going to have a tough time keeping guys away from the basket. Martin Krampelj proceeded to set the tone down low with a layup and a pair of dunks to help his team open up a 15-8 lead before the first media timeout.
“They started small, so we had some size on them,” the 6-foot-9 Slovenian said. “We were just executing the game plan and that’s what came with it.”
Krampelj finished with a season-high 17 points and six rebounds in just 21 minutes. He hit 5 of his 7 shots overall, including the only 3-pointer he attempted, and converted on 6-of-7 shots from the free throw line despite entering the game having hit just 8 of his previous 17 attempts.
“When I stepped on the court and looked around there wasn’t many tall guys, so I might as well use my strength and length and size. My teammates found me early and that’s what we wanted to do.”
Although there was a match-up advantage on Wednesday night, Clemson was a team with some size inside. That didn’t stop Krampelj or his fellow big men from having a good game that night too. Over the last two games, he and sophomore center Jacob Epperson combined are averaging 19.0 points and 8.5 rebounds in 32.0 minutes per contest while shooting 68.2 percent from the floor and 77.8 percent from the foul line. Two guys who entered the season with some uncertainty from a health standpoint are starting to put those concerns to rest for the time being.
Jefferson’s shot-making surprising everyone except himself
He led the team in scoring with 18 points. He was 4 of 6 from the field, 3 for 3 from the 3-point line, and 7 of 8 from the charity stripe. For a guy who was pegged as a shooting liability by the commentary team assigned to Jays’ games during the Cayman Islands Classic last week, sophomore forward Damien Jefferson sure looked like a shooter against Montana. And Georgia State. And Boise State. And East Tennessee State.
In fact, small sample size notwithstanding, the 6-foot-5, 195-pound transfer from New Mexico is 30-for-45 from the field (66.7 percent), 9-of-12 from the 3-point line (75 percent), and 14-of-19 from the free throw line (73.7 percent) so far this season.
“I’m really feeling good,” Jefferson said. “Coming into this year I knew that I was going to shoot the ball really good, because I put a lot of hours in during the offseason working on my jump shot with the mechanics and everything. I’m not surprised. I’m still kind of mad at people talking crazy on me and saying I’m not a shooter. I have fun with it.”
Over the summer, Jefferson made 500 jump shots every day between 3-pointers and shots off the dribble. That number is still at 250 during the season. The statistics are reflecting that work. According to KenPom, Jefferson is currently 16th in the country in effective field goal percentage and 12th in true shooting percentage.
Ball security a priority with top-ranked Gonzaga coming to town on Saturday
Creighton turned the ball over 12 times on Wednesday, which is a manageable number for a team like the Jays that plays a fast-pace, high-possession game on most nights. The problem lies in the pro-longed stretches of carelessness. Creighton only turned it over twice after halftime. However, they had nine giveaways in the first 17 minutes of the ballgame, which up to that point had produced just a four-point edge on the scoreboard.
“I’d prefer six and six, I’d prefer two and two actually,” Greg McDermott said of the disparity between the first and second half. “A lot of them are still foolish turnovers; one dribble too deep, trying to throw a pass where if it gets through one out of five times it looks great but the other four times it’s going to end up as a turnover. We just have to learn from those. It’s been a reoccurring theme with some of our guys and we have to try to fix that as quickly as we can.”
Top-ranked Gonzaga averages 18.9 points off turnovers per game. Nearly a fifth of their total scoring average — which currently stands at a modest 97.7 points per game through seven games this season — comes off of miscues by the opposition. That’s going to be a point of emphasis for Creighton in preparation for Saturday. The Bulldogs present enough challenges when all things are equal, the Jays can’t be chasing their own mistakes for prolonged stretches.
“We’re not going to beat Gonzaga if we make more mistakes than Gonzaga,” McDermott said. “That’s the reality. We have to play as mistake-proof as we possibly can against a team like that, because they are going to take away some stuff that we like to do because of their length and athleticism, so we can’t hand it to them. That’ll obviously be a big focus in practice the next couple days.”