We are barely a week into college football season and the NFL football season is just kicking off, but basketball is on the minds of many Creighton fans — including all of us at White & Blue Review. So we were pretty excited to devour The Sporting News’ preseason magazine, as it was the first to hit the stores this year.
One of the more anticipated things in regards to this release was Creighton’s Doug McDermott being placed on the Preseason All-American third team. Although the news leaked a little over a week ago, it’s still exciting to actually see it in print. And sure enough, there it was on page 9: Doug McDermott, 6-7 sophomore forward, Creighton.
Let’s put this in perspective for a minute. The Sporting News’ staff of knowledgeable basketball writers selected McDermott as one of the top 15 players in the nation heading into 2011-12. If that doesn’t get you excited for basketball season to start for the Bluejays, we’re frankly not sure what you’re waiting for.
McDermott received a lot of accolades last season as he became only the second freshman in MVC history to earn first-team All-MVC honors. He scored in double-figures in 32 of 39 games and pulled down 7.2 rebounds a game, which is second best among the MVC returnees. That places him on the same level as Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant with a freshman season of over 525 points, 270 rebounds and 40 three-pointers, so the pressure will be on Doug this season and teams will key against him. But after his experience on the U-19 team this summer, I’m sure he is up for the challenge.
McDermott named to Sporting News 3rd team All-American team (Streur/WBR)
I will have to say I was a bit disappointed that McDermott didn’t make the front cover for this region, as instead the publication had Kansas’ Tyshawn Taylor on the front. Taylor wasn’t named to the preseason All-American teams, and in fact, he wasn’t even mentioned until the Kansas section in the Big 12 preview of the magazine. But of course I may be a bit biased!
As for the rest of the Sporting News preseason magazine, there is a lot of Creighton-related information in the issue. One of the great things about the Sporting News previews is that they do their best to not have any sense of bias towards the previews. In the past, some of the other preseason magazines have featured write-ups from Steve Pivovar of the Omaha World Herald or Paul Suellentrop from the Wichita Eagle on the MVC previews. I don’t know about you, but it’s nice to get an outside view sometimes. For the Sporting News MVC preview, Tony Jiminez of the Topeka Capital-Journal offered his view of the Valley, and Will Long of the Sporting News provided recruiting notes.
With all that said about the value of outside viewpoints, though, you have to wonder a bit how much Jiminez knows about the league. Though he gushes about McDermott and Gregory Echenique, brings up the four freshman and sprinkles in some Antoine Young and Jahenns Manigat, there was no mention of guys who might make an impact this season like Josh Jones, Will Artino, Grant Gibbs and Ethan Wragge. For Creighton to be successful this season, these four guys might be the key ingredients.
Austin Chatman is listed as the impact newcomer and that could very well be the case. After hearing about Young and Chatman on the floor at the same time during the Bahamas trip, there could be some pretty fast lineups games at the CLink this season.
The Conference predictions went like this:
- Creighton
- Wichita State
- Indiana State
- Northern Iowa
- Evansville
- Missouri State
- Drake
- Illinois State
- Southern Illinois
- Bradley
As for the rest of the magazine, of interest to me was where the opponents in the non-conference stacked up. We can always go on last season’s RPI to get somewhat of an idea of level of competition, but it is also good to see the predictions for the upcoming season to account for the graduated and new players coming into the different programs. Here is how the Sporting News ranked the Bluejays opponents for this upcoming season:
- North Carolina A&T — 8th out of 13 teams in the MEAC
- Chicago State — 6th out of 6 teams in the Great West
- UAB — 5th out of 12 teams in Conference USA
- Iowa — 10th out of 12 teams in the Big 10
- Campbell — 9th out of 11 teams in the Big South
- San Diego State — 3rd out of 8 teams in the Mountain West
- Nebraska — 11th out of 12 teams in the Big 10
- St. Joseph’s — 8th out of 14 teams in the A-10
- Tulsa — 4th out of 12 teams in Conference USA
- Northwestern — 7th out of 12 teams in the Big 10
Based on last season’s results, St. Joseph’s and Northwestern have moved up compared to last season’s finish, while UAB, Tulsa, and San Diego State are picked a little lower. Iowa and Nebraska stayed right where they were from last season, and the lower conference teams like Chicago State, North Carolina A&T and Campbell stayed relatively the same as well. One or more of these opponents could surprise people. Overall it is a solid schedule and one that could help Creighton look pretty good going into conference season.
Preparing for basketball season is always fun when checking out the previews, but once the season starts, all bets are off. Often times, the preseason magazines make for great fire place burning material during those cold Nebraska winters. But let’s hope we can keep this one away from the fire and their predictions come true.
The Sporting News 2011 College Basketball Preseason Magazine is available at most major booksellers and newstands, or from their website.