Friday night, the general public gets their first (and only) look at the 2019-20 Creighton Bluejays before the regular season commences next week. The Jays did take the court last weekend against Mizzou, but as is customary under the Tigers’ secretive coach Cuonzo Martin, very few details were shared. No stats, no score, no game recap. We were able to glean some general ideas of how the scrimmage (such as it was) went; Greg McDermott said earlier this week that the Jays did a good job with their shot selection and sharing the ball, that they didn’t shoot it particularly well, that they turned it over a bunch early in the game but did a good job adjusting, and that it was roughly an 80 possession game indicating it was played at Creighton’s preferred pace.
Like I said, general ideas. Not details. And so as Friday night’s exhibition against the McKendree Bearcats approaches there’s a bit more mystery than usual. Where exactly does Creighton sit heading into this one?
They were picked seventh in the Big East preseason poll, and received enough votes in the preseason AP poll to rank 40th. But that was before the injury bug — as it always seems to — bit the Bluejays’ starting five in a big way. First, starting center Jacob Epperson suffered a gruesome broken leg in practice that probably ended his season before it even began. Then, starting guard Davion Mintz suffered a high ankle sprain that will leave him in a hard cast until November 6th. As reported by WBR’s Matt DeMarinis, if all goes well, he could be back on the court in 2-3 weeks. If not, the timetable for his return could be closer to 5-6 weeks.
Add in a lower leg injury to key reserve Damien Jefferson that kept him out of practice last week, and you’ve got a severely short handed roster. Jefferson did return to practice on Monday, but he’s not 100% and his minutes are likely to be limited in the short-term.
For better or worse, that means there’s a lot of minutes available for young players and newcomers in Friday’s exhibition. In the frontcourt, sophomore Christian Bishop will almost certainly get the start, although that could well have been true even on a healthy roster. After a true freshman campaign that saw him average just under four points and two boards a game through 30 contests, he used the NIT as a springboard to what Creighton hopes is a giant second season. He had eight points and four boards in the win over Loyola-Chicago, eight points and 10 rebounds (along with a block and a steal) in the win over Memphis, and 10 points with 6 rebounds in the loss at TCU.
Bishop played well in the team’s summer trip to Australia, averaging 15.7 points and 5.0 rebounds while starting all three games. Foul trouble was an issue, though, and in one game he was allowed an unlimited number of fouls because of his status as the only scholarship big man available on the trip. It goes without saying that this is not a luxury the Jays will be afforded during real games.
Backing him up, or perhaps playing along side of him, is graduate transfer Kelvin Jones. A 6’11”, 230-pound center who comes to Omaha by way of Idaho State, Jones started 28 games for the Bengals and had solid per-game averages of 9.9 points and 5.6 rebounds — albeit against a Big Sky Conference slate. It’s concerning that he fouled out of 13 games, then, as the opposing big men he will face as a Bluejay are a world away from those he saw a year ago.
For those of you scoring at home, that leaves CU with two primary big men, both of whom are foul prone.
If there’s a bright side to this, it’s that Creighton’s strength in 2019-20 was always going to be their backcourt — and that it’s a pretty strong, um, strength. Marcus Zegarowski is still piloting the ship at the point guard position, and is primed to make a giant leap forward after a stellar freshman season. Mitch Ballock and Ty-Shon Alexander are entering their junior seasons poised to be the team’s top two scorers, and are one of just two returning duos in D1 hoops to have both made 95+ three-pointers a year ago. Davion Mintz, when he returns sometime in November, has the experience of a senior who’s played a significant role in all three prior seasons and was their top defender a year ago. Jefferson adds length and size that the other guards don’t bring. Denzel Mahoney, eligible at the end of the first semester, gives them similar length and size with better athleticism.
Freshmen Shereef Mitchell figures to carve out a role immediately as a tenacious defender, and also has shown a knack for getting to the rim off the dribble that some of the older Jays’ guards don’t possess. Fellow freshman Jalen Windham needs to get stronger to excel in the Big East, and was potentially headed for a redshirt year to accomplish that. Given what’s happened to the roster in October, that’s probably not happening now. He comes to Omaha with a reputation as a tremendous three-point shooter, and has torched the nets at the Championship Center enough this fall to prove that reputation is well deserved. The rest of his game needs seasoning, but if you believe you can never have too many shooters, Windham can help you win right away.
Even with Epperson in the lineup, Creighton was a team that was going to succeed or fail based on the play of their guards. His loss changes the lineups they’ll play, certainly; we’re likely to see a lot of four-guard sets, and lots of small lineups predicated on creating matchup problems for opponents with speed instead of size. And if Bishop and Jones are routinely in foul trouble, it leaves them with few options to stop opposing big men from terrorizing them in the paint. But if the Jays’ guards carry the team as they’re expected to, their postseason goals might not be out of reach, even without Epperson.
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: None
- Webcast: A free video webcast of the game will be available courtesy of GoCreighton.com
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- McKendree, a DII school located in Lebanon, Illinois (roughly 30-40 minutes east of St. Louis), is the oldest college or university in the state of Illinois — founded in 1828. Their basketball program competes in the Great Lakes Conference, and was picked to finish 9th (out of 16) in the preseason poll.
- McKendree played three games last season against Division I squads, falling to Northwestern (83-44), Indiana State (80-63) and Drake (98-70). The Bearcats last beat a Division I team in 2016 when it won 91-84 at SIU Edwardsville.
- The Bearcats return three starters and seven letter winners from a 2018-19 team that finished 9-18. A big reason why: they averaged 72.4 points a game, and gave up an average of 79.6. Their top two scorers are senior guard Logan Kohrmann (12.6 ppg.) and Alijah Thomas (9.8 ppg.)
- As usual with exhibition games, there’s a connection to McKendree — CU didn’t just pull their name out of a directory of possible opponents from a lower division. In this case, their coach is Chris Foster, who played for Greg McDermott at UNI from 2001-05 and served as his grad assistant in 2005-06. Foster brought his Truman State team to Omaha in 2017 for a January game that CU won 101-69. It’s best remembered, if at all, as the final time Maurice Watson suited up at home for the Bluejays as he’d suffer a college-career ending injury two days later at Xavier.
- Greg McDermott is 27-0 in fall exhibition games as a Division I head coach, including a 10-0 mark at UNI, a 7-0 record at Iowa State, and a 10-0 mark at Creighton, with all but one of the wins coming by double-digits.
- CU’s 2019-20 roster contains players who made 136 starts a year ago (35 by Davion Mintz, 35 by Mitch Ballock, 34 by Ty-Shon Alexander, 16 by Damien Jefferson and 16 by Marcus Zegarowski). That is the most since 2013-14, and trails only 2002-03 (159), 2013-14 (144) and 2012-13 (140) as the program’s highest in the last 40 seasons.
- Creighton received four votes in the Associated Press preseason poll, good for 40th place. It’s the fifth time that Creighton has picked up votes in the preseason poll under Greg McDermott. Each of the first four times that’s happened, the Bluejays would finish top three in the league, reach the finals of the conference tournament, and play in the NCAA Tournament.
On November 1, 2013 a historic season on the Hilltop began with a 89-61 exhibition win over Northern State. From WBR’s Morning After:
“Two players that CU fans didn’t expect to see in a Jays uniform again combined for the first seven points of the game — Grant Gibbs and Doug McDermott. It looked like Creighton was off and running with a 9-3 lead at the under-16 timeout, but then the Wolves ran off a 12-6 run to tie the game at 15. They were launching threes from all corners of the arena, including a couple from 35-feet out, and connecting. And when Spencer Pankonin nailed one from ten feet past the stripe with 3:42 to play in the half, it cut the Jays lead to 33-32 and there were some uneasy groans in the arena.
Coming out of the under-four timeout, Austin Chatman hit one of two free throws, and then the Jays hit three pointers on three of their next four possessions as part of a 10-0 run that put the Wolves away for good.
The flurry continued in the second half, as a 10-2 Creighton run out of the gate grew a 45-35 halftime lead into a 55-37 advantage. Doug McDermott scored eight of the ten points in that surge on an array of layups and jumpers, and even added two free throws for good measure. His night would soon be over, ceding the stage to CU’s newcomers.”
This 2019-20 debut edition of the Primer is publishing on Halloween, which can only mean two things. One, the festive Halloween caramel apple that was enjoyed while finishing up the article was partially coated in Stay-Puft Marshmallows. And two, Ray Parker Jr. is about to ask you a question.
The Bottom Line:
Much like that 2013 exhibition, Creighton starts off slow but eventually rolls.
Bluejays 88, Bengals 60
