Entering his 14th season at Creighton, Greg McDermott approached this preseason the same way he always has, with one closed-door scrimmage and one public exhibition. The former came on October 21, when his Bluejays beat Iowa State by three in Omaha. The latter comes on Friday, when they host Wayne State in a dress rehearsal under the lights of CHI Health Center Omaha for next week’s season opener.
“It ended up being a close game,” McDermott said this week of the closed scrimmage. “We didn’t shoot it particularly well, but Iowa State’s defense was little bit of a shock to us because of the way we defend. It’s very different compared to what they see in practice every day.”
The Cyclones’ defense has ranked 5th and 8th in adjusted defensive efficiency the last two years, per KenPom’s data. It’s not the prettiest style to watch — their 59-41 loss to Pitt in last year’s NCAA Tournament was a 62-possession grind — but it’s effective. They’re projected to have the 3rd best defense in that category this year in KenPom’s preseason rankings, at 86.2 points per 100 possessions. Right behind them? UConn, at 4th in the preseason defensive rankings. Creighton’s no slouch, predicted to have the 18th best defense, but Iowa State’s hyper-aggressive style is very different — and one that should help prepare CU for the Big East battles to come.
In other words? Don’t get too worried about the Jays’ top offensive weapons struggling in that scrimmage.
“Trey (Alexander) and Baylor (Scheierman) didn’t shoot it great that game, but they did a lot of other things to impact the game and impact winning,” McDermott said.
Among those things? Making plays for their teammates and taking turns creating shots for themselves and others. He noted that throughout fall practices, Alexander, Scheierman and newcomer Steven Ashworth have developed great chemistry in that regard.
“It seems like it’s a different guy every day,” McDermott gushed. “You know, one of those guys gets nine or 10 assists in practice and the other two guys make a bunch of shots, and then the roles reverse the next day. It’s been it’s been fun to see it develop.”
Friday night will be Creighton fans’ first look in-person at Ashworth, the transfer who joined the program after Ryan Nembhard’s departure. He’s excited to experience CHI Health Center on gameday, and said this week that he can’t imagine what the environment and atmosphere will be like when the arena is full of fans.
“Personally I think that I’m looking forward to just playing with with the guys and seeing how we react when the popcorn’s popping and the lights are on,” Ashworth said. “And as a team I think we’re just, you know, looking forward to competing against somebody else.”
That somebody else is Wayne State. After winning the South Division of the DII Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference last year, their top four scorers departed, including all-time program scoring (2,104) and rebounding (1,146) leader Jordan Janssen. Tasked with replacing 70% of their points, they were picked 11th of 14 teams in the NSIC preseason poll.
They seem unlikely to present the kind of defensive challenges that Iowa State gave CU; Wayne State is scrappy but short on height, with their tallest player standing just 6’8″. That player is junior Cody McCullough, who averaged 8.2 points and 7.8 rebounds a year ago to go along with 1.2 blocks per game.
Their second leading returning scorer is junior Jay Saunders, a 5’11” guard from Omaha South High School who averaged 6.3 points and 2.2 assists per game a year ago. And they welcome back sophomore Alec Millender, who was a medical redshirt last season after averaging 10 points and 2.7 assists per game the year before.
The rest of the roster is young and untested; Eight of the 16 players on this year’s team have never played in an NCAA collegiate game (two redshirt freshmen, five true freshmen and a junior college transfer.) Among them is JUCO All-American Trey Deveaux (who hails from Lincoln’s Norris HS). Playing at Central Community College last season, he averaged 18.9 points per game while helping the Raiders advance to the national tournament with a 22-11 record.
The Jays’ trip to the Bahamas in August gave fans a glimpse at the 2023-24 roster, and Friday’s exhibition will offer a chance to see how they’ve progressed since then. If McDermott’s assessment is accurate, their fans are likely to enjoy what they see.
“We’ve had some practices that are better than others, but through 24 practices we really haven’t had a bad one. I don’t know that I have ever been able to say that in my 30 plus years as a coach,” McDermott said. “That’s attributed to the leadership on our team. Kalk and Trey and Baylor and Steven, in large part they’re going to determine how the practice is going to go. They’re going to get it back on the rails if it starts to go off to rails, and they’ve been able to do that. Their collective leadership has been outstanding.”
- Tip: 7:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: None
- Streaming on FloSports
- Announcers: Simulcast of the radio broadcast
- Radio: 1620AM and 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
Wayne State captured a third NSIC South Division title in the last five seasons under coach Jeff Kamisky in 2022-23, recording an 18-11 overall record and 13-9 mark in the NSIC South Division. The Wildcats set a new school record shooting 80.1 percent (370-462) from the free throw line, which ranked third-best in NCAA Division II
Creighton’s Greg McDermott got his head coaching start at Wayne State, where he inherited a team coming off back-to-back 7-20 seasons and led the Wildcats to a 116-53 record in six campaigns from 1994-2000. That run included back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances in 1999 and 2000, and four straight 20-win seasons. Since McDermott’s departure, Wayne State has won more than 18 games just once (2018-19), and reached the NCAA Tournament just once (2020-21).
Greg McDermott is 30-0 in fall exhibition games as a Division I head coach, including an 10-0 mark at UNI, a 7-0 record at Iowa State, and a 13-0 mark at Creighton. All but one of his triumphs have been by double-digits. At Creighton the Bluejays have outscored foes by an average of 92.7 – 60.8 in fall exhibition games.
Creighton is 54-6 since 1981 in fall exhibition games thanks to 22 straight victories. The only team since 1994 to beat Creighton in an exhibition setting has been Global Sports (who did it three times: in 1999, 2000, and 2003).
Creighton and Wayne State have played just once before, a 93-46 Bluejay win in a 2016 exhibition game in Omaha. CU out-rebounded Wayne State 52-23 that night, including 15-4 on the offensive glass overall and 9-0 in the first half. CU outscored WSU 44-12 on points in the paint, 12-2 on points on turnovers, 19-2 on second-chance points, 21-0 on fastbreak points, and 44-25 on bench points. The Bluejays held Wayne State scoreless for nearly six minutes to open the night, and took a 13-0 lead right off the bat, which ballooned to 36-12 after a dozen minutes of action as they completely controlled the game.
Friday’s game might have a similar result, but it will still be a special one for McDermott.
“Generally I like to play somebody that I have a connection to, whether it’s a former player, former assistant, or (in this case) Wayne State where I coached,” McDermott said this week. “I’m happy to help them, and still have a lot of really good friends in Wayne. Though many of them will be here cheering against me on Friday night.”
On November 3, 2017, Creighton beat UNC Pembroke 93-70 in the second of two exhibitions before the season, having dispatched with Nebraska-Omaha 96-67 a week before. In a sign of things to come, the Jays were led by Marcus Foster and Khyri Thomas; Foster scored 19 points in 23 minutes, and Thomas added 22 points with a pair of steals and three assists.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton won 93-46 the only other time these two schools met, and a similar result seems likely on Friday.
Creighton 95, Wayne State 48