Before heading to Las Vegas next week for the Players Era Championship, where they’ll face off with Baylor, Iowa State and one other major conference opponent, Creighton hosts North Dakota with another chance to work on some of the issues that have plagued them through the early portion of the schedule.
One of those issues has been sorting through the rotation and figuring out who’s quote “willing to hook it up every day,” as Greg McDermott said after last week’s loss at Gonzaga. “We have to continue to grow as a group, and push each other in practice and fight in practice and do some of the hard things that are required so that you have growth,” he added after Friday’s win over UMES.
He lamented having to spend time in practice on drills to increase their energy, because it’s taking time away from growing in other ways. Whether that was a driving force behind the stunning decision on Wednesday morning to burn Hudson Greer’s redshirt or not remains to be seen, but there’s little doubt Greer has been one of the more consistently energetic players in practice, and one that plays with an aggressive edge that other players don’t have. The talent is obvious — he’s one of the highest-rated recruits in program history and a consensus four-star player. Greer’s only obstacle to playing time was the presence of other options with more experience. With the coaching staff displeased with what they’re getting from some of those options, lack of experience was no longer enough to keep Greer on the sidelines.
Greer wore a blue jersey with the top unit at Monday’s practice, rather than the contrasting color that the scout team wears. He could be seen running drills with the starters in the background of McDermott’s press conference video after practice. Speculation at the time was that the staff was rewarding Greer for staying engaged and working hard since the redshirt decision, keeping him motivated by running with the starters. It turns out it was more than that. Greer is now on the active roster, and likely to play tonight.
Whose minutes is Greer taking? That’s the big question on everyone’s mind. And the answer seems to be Fedor Zugic.
On the “Roll Jays” podcast after the win over UMES, Director of Basketball Operations Jeff Vanderloo added some detail to things McDermott has hinted at (the quote below comes at around the 20:30 mark). Asked what’s missing from Zugic’s game right now, he replied “Physicality. Playing hard every single day. And then of course he’s got to make baskets. That’s what he’s in there for. That’s his deal. That’s what he does. He makes baskets and he needs to make them.”
“We expect things out of Fedor that we would like Nik (Graves) or Austin (Swartz) to do, but we fully expect them out of Fedor because he’s been with us for two years now, right? You know, we shouldn’t have to be just hoping that he does it,” Vanderloo continued. “We weren’t planning on Fedor to be back. And I’m not sure Fedor was planning on Fedor (being back), because when he came back he was a little chubby and uh…he’s gotten better. He’s gotten into shape. He’s a great guy. His teammates love him. The fans love him. But you’ve got to be better than the guys you’re competing against.”
As tough love goes, that’s some brutal honesty you don’t typically hear from a member of McDermott’s staff. But it does give some insight into why Zugic has not played as many minutes as projected, and perhaps why Greer is no longer redshirting.
Elsewhere on the roster, while Owen Freeman continues to play himself back into shape, freshman Kerem Konan continues to show flashes of being a viable backup, and Jasen Green is quickly becoming a player who needs to be on the floor as much as possible, regardless of what position he’s playing.
“When you put someone in the game, you want to know what’s going to happen. And when I put Jasen in the game, I know what’s going to happen. And, he’s one of the few right now, probably because he has the most experience,” McDermott said on Monday. “It’s comforting when he’s in the game. You know he’s going to do his job and he’s going to help other guys do their job. With the new guys, they’re so worried about doing their job, it’s very difficult to help someone else. So Jasen’s really valuable in that regard and frankly, I’ve got to get him on the floor a little bit more.”
As for Konan, McDermott said he’s getting better every single day, though he’s still adjusting to the difference between Europe and college basketball.
“The biggest difference is the pace of the game; it’s so different,” Konan said after Friday’s win over UMES. “In Europe teams run a lot of set plays. You are not running like crazy. Here, you have to run full of energy. And there’s some different rules, like you have 30 seconds on offense (instead of 24), and you have to be focused every moment on defense. This is the biggest difference.”
McDermott echoed those thoughts. “The speed of the game and the way we play is different than how they play over there. Martin (Krampelj) had the same adjustment period when he came here,” McDermott said. “But you see signs of what he can bring us. He can bring us some good stuff with his ability to put pressure on the rim and defensively to block some shots.”
The Jays’ opponent tonight, North Dakota, comes in with a 2-3 record that includes a 91-62 loss at Alabama, and a 74-70 home loss to KenPom #295 UC Riverside. They avenged that loss by beating UC Riverside 76-74 a week later on the road in the rare single season home-and-home series.
UND boasts five men averaging in double-figures, led by Minnetonka native Greyson Uelmen’s 13.6 points per game. In the win over UC Riverside, he scored 18 points — including 12 in the final 4:34, leading an 18-4 run to close the game. Down 70-58 before that run, they rallied to win 76-74.
Uelmen was able to go to his right repeatedly during that stretch, driving to the rim twice with his right hand. But he also rebounded his own shot after it was blocked, then drove under the rim and used it to protect his follow-up from being blocked — and banked in a one-handed layup. And after UCR tied the game at 74 with a three-pointer with 22 seconds left, Uelmen dribbled out the clock, then used his left hand to split the defense and get to the rim, where he made the game-winner.
Their second-leading scorer is 6’3” sophomore Zach Kraft, who averages 11.2 points per game and has made 16-of-33 three-point shots (.485). A year ago in a smaller role, he shot 37.7% (23-of-61).
6’6” senior Garrett Anderson averages 10.8 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, and has taken the most shots (55) on the team by a fair amount. He’s 22-of-55 (40.0%) overall and 9-of-25 from three (36.0%). Fellow senior Eli King also averages in double figures at 10.2 points per game, to go along with 4.4 rebounds. He’s a pest defensively, with 16 steals through five games including four against Alabama.
Point guard Anthony Smith III leads the team with 25 assists against just six turnovers, and has been their sixth-man, coming first off the bench in all five games. He averages 10.8 points per game, despite being just 2-of-14 from three-point range.
Turnovers, particularly on steals, are something to keep an eye on in this game. North Dakota has turned their opponents over on 24.1% of possessions, 14th most in D1, and their steal percentage of 15.3% ranks 11th best. They’ve had 10 or more steals in all five games, one of only six teams in D1 who’ve done that this year (along with Bowling Green, Iowa State, Louisville, San Diego State and Utah State).
- Tip: 7:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: ESPN+
- Announcers: Jon Schriner and Nick Bahe
- Streaming in the ESPN app (subscription required)
- Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Tyler Clement
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 85 as well as on the SiriusXM App
- Live Stats:
The Hawks rank 7th nationally in steals (13.2), 10th in turnover margin (9.0), 15th in bench points (41.20) and 15th in turnovers forced/game (19.00).
Freshman Marley Curtis had 15 points off the bench on Saturday against UC Riverside, going 5-for-9 from the field and 3-for-5 from deep. Curtis is averaging 17.0 points per game over the last two, shooting 12-for-21 from the field and 4-for-7 from deep (57.1%).
UND lost 71.3% of their minutes played, 78.9% of points scored, 67.9% of three pointers made, and 67.1% of rebounds from the 2024-25 roster. They were picked eighth in the Summit League preseason poll.
Greg McDermott’s first coaching job was at the University of North Dakota from 1989-94, where he served as an assistant coach. The 1989-90 team was inducted into the UND Hall of Fame in 2008. That club, under the direction of Rich Glas, went 28-7 and won the North Central Conference before finishing the season in the Elite Eight. One of the players on that team was current Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson, who would replace McDermott as Northern Iowa’s head coach in 2006. Another of the student-athletes on those North Dakota teams was Steve McAndrew, the father of current Creighton sophomore Jackson McAndrew.
Asked about that on Monday, McDermott said “He was nothing like his son. Let’s just go with that. Uh, he could probably defend better than Jackson. Jackson might not want to hear that, but that’s true. Jackson shoots it way better. Jackson can catch the pass and maybe dribble the ball a little bit better than Steve could. But like Jackson, they won a couple of state championships at Fargo South. His group of guys that came through UND during that 5-year period had a ton of success. So he was like Jackson, he’s been part of some really good teams.”
Wednesday will mark Greg McDermott’s 1,000th game as a head coach in 32 seasons as a head coach. McDermott brings a 632-367 mark into the contest, which includes a 116-53 record at Wayne State from 1994-2000, a 15-11 mark at North Dakota State in 2000-01, a 90-63 record from 2001-06 at Northern Iowa, a 59-68 record from 2006-10 at Iowa State and a 352-172 record from 2010-Present at Creighton. McDermott is one of 12 active Division I coaches with 600 or more victories, joining Rick Barnes, John Calipari, Bill Self, Kelvin Sampson, Dana Altman, Rick Pitino, Mark Few, Tom Izzo, Greg Kampe, Steve Alford and Lennie Acuff.
Creighton is 11-3 all-time against North Dakota, and 8-2 in Omaha. The teams have met just twice in the past 50 years, a 111-68 CU win in 2017 and a 96-61 Bluejay romp in 2022. Greg McDermott is 5-1 in his career against UND, including a 1-1 mark when he coached at North Dakota State, a 2-0 record when he coached at Iowa State and a 2-0 mark as Creighton’s coach.
McDermott has squared off against UND coach Paul Sather three times before, but the lone regular-season meeting was CU’s 96-61 victory in 2022. The first two head-to-head meetings came in exhibition games when Sather coached at Division II Northern State. McDermott’s first exhibition game as a Creighton coach came on Nov. 4, 2010 when CU defeated NSU 79-67. The coaches also met on Nov. 1, 2013 when Creighton beat Northern State 89-61.
On November 19, 2014, Creighton rallied from an 18-point deficit in the second half to defeat #18 Oklahoma 65-63. From the Morning After:
“When Oklahoma scored the first seven points of the second half in 90 seconds to push the lead to 42-24, the arena fell deathly silent. The Jays were one or two bad possessions away from being run out of their own building, something that hasn’t happened very often in the CLink Era. Coach Greg McDermott called timeout, but instead of going over X’s and O’s, he used the break as a motivational opportunity. As he looked around the huddle, “We had a defeated look on our face,” McDermott said in the media room later. “The timeout wasn’t about X’s and O’s. It was about who we want to be.”
They came out of that timeout as a different team. Hegner knocked down a three to make it 42-27, and the crowd zapped back to life. TaShawn Thomas answered with a jumper to push the lead back to 44-27, but instead of going away, the crowd stayed alive, and over the next five minutes, the sold-out crowd of nearly 18,000 fans and the Bluejay players fed off one another. Each successful shot, each defensive stop, the lead shrank, and the noise level ratcheted up. First it was Zierden with a three to make it 44-30. Then Spangler missed a three for the Sooners, and Chatman hit one for the Jays, and it was 44-33. After another stop, Zach Hanson converted an old-fashioned three-point play to make it 44-36. Two more stops, alternated with jumpers from Devin Brooks and Austin Chatman, made it 44-40. It was a 16-2 run, and it wasn’t over yet.
Buddy Hield converted a jumper to end the run temporarily and push the lead back to 46-40, but less than 20 seconds later Hegner drilled a three to make it 46-43. A defensive stop and a Hanson jumper made it 46-45. And then another defensive stop, and a three from Zierden, made the comeback complete — it was 48-46 Creighton. It was a 24-4 run. It was…unbelievable.”
I jumped to some wild conclusions after that game that proved to be WILDLY inaccurate. WILDLY. But hey, in the aftermath of that comeback, things seemed a lot more optimistic than they should have been. Almost everyone felt that way. Reality soon set in, of course, but on the morning of November 20, 2014 things looked pretty good.
Creighton is favored by 28.5 in Vegas, and by 23 on KenPom. ESPN’s BPI gives them 97.6% odds of victory.
Bluejays 94, Fighting Hawks 64