Marcus Zegarowski drives to the basket against Butler (Williams / WBR)
Sometime after Marcus Zegarowski signed his letter of intent to play at Creighton, Greg McDermott decided to make a trip out to Rhode Island to check in on his future floor general. That nearly turned into nothing more than wasted jet fuel, however, as Zegarowski was so angry that his team had lost that he almost didn’t even come out to shake hands and shoot the breeze. He eventually got over it enough to greet the head ball coach of the Bluejays, and it’s a moment that still makes McDermott laugh even today. It’s just one of a growing list of examples of the competitive edge observers have seen from the 21-year-old throughout his career.
McDermott noticed it during the recruiting process, he saw it again that day in Rhode Island, and he’s witnessed it up close on a daily basis it ever since Zegarowski arrived in Omaha.
“He was always a winner,” McDermott said. “You can just tell by his demeanor that he hates to lose. That’s the way he’s wired, and that’s why he’s worked so hard to get where he is today.”
The path Zegarowski is currently on is admittedly not the one he would have laid out for himself as a youngster. Omaha, Nebraska is 1,460 miles from where he grew up in Hamilton, Massachusetts. His older brother, Michael Carter-Williams, played five hours away from home at Syracuse before moving on to the NBA. His older sister, Masey, a senior guard at Bryant, and his twin brother Max, a sophomore forward at Franklin Pierce, are both lacing up their sneakers within 100 miles from Hamilton.
The lack of interest from east coast schools out of high school ate away at Creighton’s sophomore point guard. He had spent a lot of time on the game in the hopes of earning the opportunities that his peer were getting offered. Instead, all he had to show for his efforts at the end of each day were frustration, tears, and sleepless nights.
Marcus Zegarowski was 7-of-7 from three point range last Sunday. (Juszyk / WBR)
“My parents can abide by it — there would be nights where I would be crying because I wasn’t getting recruited,” Zegarowski said. “I had worked so hard. There were so many nights going to prep school and not getting recruited. I used to wake up every morning at 5am and go to the gym or go run on the football field. It was all worth it. I took the long route. I grinded and I went through all the ups and downs. I went through every emotion. I went through every single emotion, but it was all worth it because now I’m prepared for everything that’s going to fly at me. In order to learn you have to go through those tough times, and I did.”
Creighton first came on Zegarowski’s radar on New Year’s Eve of the 2016-17 season. The Bluejays were undefeated, ranked 10th in the country, hosting top-ranked and reigning national champion Villanova, and Marcus’ dad sat him down in the living room and made him watch the game. He felt like the system and the style of play were perfect fits for his game. The most ideal fit they didn’t consider was that Creighton’s foundation was laid by players with a built-in chip on their shoulder. Guys who were thought to be too small or too slow or not good enough to succeed at this level. From Ryan Sears to Kyle Korver to Nate Funk to Doug McDermott, Zegarowski is the latest in a long line of players to put on a Creighton uniform and set out to prove people wrong.
“I know I don’t look the part,” Zegarowski said. “I’m undersized, I’m freckled, I’m 75% white. My dad would always tell me I’m not gifted physically. He knows I work hard, but I don’t look the part. You can tell I don’t look the part, so I’ve always had an edge. That’s just how I am.”
Zegarowski says that cold, hard truth whether it comes from his dad, his mom, or his older brother isn’t meant to be mean-spirited, but instead delivered with the intention of keeping him balanced.
“They’ve always been 100 with me,” he said. “I’m not going to call any parents out, but a lot of parents in the world of college basketball will try and tell their kids ‘oh, you’re so good,’ ‘oh, you’re going to the NBA,’ this and that. [My parents] have always instilled confidence in me, but they’ve also always been honest with me. They know I work really hard, so when I do play bad they are always going to be there for me no matter what. They’ll obviously tell me the truth, but they’ll also say what I did well. And even when I play well, my dad will call me and he’ll say some good stuff, but he’ll also get on me a little bit. He’ll humble me. I’ve never really gotten caught up in success because that’s how I’ve been brought up.
Marcus Zegarowski has an edge to him that keeps defenders guessing what he will do next (Juszyk / WBR)
“When stuff is not going good, they find a way of giving me what happened but also not letting my confidence waver. And when things are going well, they’re not going to let me act like I’m on top of the world, because in that moment it’s where things get harder. It’s a never-ending thing, and that’s why I’ve always had an edge. That’s why I have so much passion. There is no end for me. No matter what. It’s never going to stop.”
That “edge” is why no one will ever be able to tell if Creighton is winning or losing by the look on Marcus Zegarowski’s face, because that look is usually intense. Even in the midst of a season where Creighton is 22-6 and firmly in the hunt for their first conference title since moving to the Big East seven years ago. He hears it from people all the time, too. You need to smile more they tell him. You always look so angry they say. He always tells those people that he’s working on it, but he’s really not. That look in his eyes every minute of every game isn’t manufactured intensity designed to intimidate the opponent, it’s a genuine laser focus, a next play is all that matters mentality.
Butler’s Aaron Thompson was recently named a semifinalist for National Defensive Player of the Year. Zegarowski, while being guarded by him for most of the afternoon last Sunday, scored 25 points in 25 minutes and went a perfect 7-for-7 from 3-point range, but the look in his eyes was the same on the first made 3-pointer as it was on the seventh.
Zegarowski can hit from anywhere on the floor. (Juszyk / WBR)
“People say I look mad all the time, but I’m really not mad, I’m just competitive,” Zegarowski says. “Once we win, I’m cool, but I don’t like getting caught up in the moment … it makes me focus. I don’t want to use my emotion on every little thing. I’m trying to feel everything that’s going on out there with how the game is going. What’s going on? What do I need to do to help this team win? And it’s different every game, so I’m thinking. You don’t smile while you’re thinking. A lot of players get caught up in dumb things that just happened, but I’m onto the next play. People always say ‘next play, next play.’ That’s what I’m thinking about.”
That performance against Thompson and the Bulldogs capped off a week for Zegarowski where he averaged 21 points a game on 69.6% shooting in two wins over top 25 teams. It not only earned him the nod for Big East Player of the Week, but it also made him Creighton’s first recipient of the USBWA Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week award since 2014 when Doug McDermott won it twice during his historic senior season.
In terms of individual accolades, that represented the highest of the high points in his two years in Omaha. But just three weeks prior it was an entirely different story. Zegarowski went 1-for-10 from the floor, tied his career-low with three points, and watched helplessly as Providence — an east coast team that didn’t recruit him — buried three after three in a 73-56 rout of the Bluejays, who were coming off their best win of the season at the time on the road against then 8th-ranked Villanova. Statistically, that stands as the worst game of Zegarowski’s Creighton career. To make matters even worse it came in a loss, in the state of Rhode Island, with family and friends in the arena.
“That was rock bottom for me,” Zegarowski said. “I don’t try to go into that game to show out or be a hero. I tried to just play and be who I am, but things didn’t go well for our team and things didn’t go well for me. I didn’t want to go out and see anybody [after the game]. I was pissed off. But I did, and my parents were good about it. They told me that this is what it’s about. You’re at one of the highest levels, you’re at a top 25 program, this is the process. I’m just constantly learning that even as bad as things can get you have to find those bad moments and you have to let it eat you, and then as soon as you let it eat you, you get better from that.
“J. Cole says it in one of his songs: there is beauty in the struggle and ugliness in the success. I try and live by that. There is always beauty in failing and struggling. That Providence game hurt me. I got emotional and I was pissed off, but it also made me go harder. It made me take a step back and look at where I’m at in life and where I’m at in this basketball career.”
Zegarowski continues to drive himself to be even better (Williams / WBR)
When the team got back to Omaha late that night, Zegarowski went straight to the Championship Center to work out against his parent’s wishes. They told him after the game just to go to bed when he got back, but the flight home didn’t do enough to take the edge off, so he had to get in the gym and “get his mind right.”
Since then, Zegarowski and the Bluejays have been right in ways even the most optimistic of supporters couldn’t have imagined. They have won five games in a row and are ranked in the top 10 of the AP Poll for the first time since 2017. Their offense has erupted for 85.6 points per game over that stretch, and as a result they are currently sitting one game behind first-place Seton Hall in the Big East standings with three games left to play.
For his part, Zegarowski is averaging 18.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1.4 steals per game while shooting 62.1% from the floor, 63.6% from 3-point range, and 88.9% from the free throw line since “hitting rock bottom” against the Friars.
He is the reigning national player of the week. He’s playing the best basketball of his young career. His team is ranked in the top 10 and currently in prime position to earn a favorable seed in next month’s NCAA Tournament, and the local and national media has been fawning all over him and his teammates this week. Yet he’s still showing up to practice with that same look in his eye. That same edge. So when will he be satisfied?
“When we win everything,” he said.
What is everything?
“[When we] win it all. Everything.”