I’m trying not to get too excited. But it is hard not to. In watching Creighton men’s basketball just dominate their two opponents to start the regular season, North Carolina A&T and Chicago State, this weekend, there is a whole lot to get excited about. I’m just hoping there won’t be a big let down.
However, there shouldn’t be. Expectations are high heading into this season for the Bluejays. There has been a lot of hype. What is nice is that the first set of questions have been answered–the Bluejays can beat the teams they are supposed to and by a large margin.
In past seasons, the Bluejays have struggled to start the season against inferior opponents. They would let teams hang around for a while and eventually get around to a 20 point win by the end of the game. But this year seems different. Creighton has never scored 95 points or more in consecutive games to start the season. They won by 32 and 34 points respectfully. It could have been by 50. It has the early feeling of the 2002-03 season when Kyle Korver was a senior.
I commented to my wife yesterday that I don’t remember a time when the end of the bench got to play around 4 minutes of more in consecutive games. If they have, it has been a long time and not one I remember. Ross Ferarrini, Derek Sebastian, Taylor Stormberg and Matt Dorwart likely had more time on the court these first two games than the rest of their careers combined.
There is a lot of good to see over these first two games and the first has to be the unselfish play of the players. 56 assists on 66 baskets is amazing. The ball movement was just great and finding a better shot kept paying off for the Bluejays. Antoine Young (11 assists), Austin Chatman (10 assists), Jahenns Manigat (7 assists) and Grant Gibbs (7 assists) got the ball to players so they could score. And hold the phone, but Josh Jones also dumped off 8 assists of his own. So they are getting the ball either into the post or to an open player, one weakness this team had last season.
With the faster pace on offense this season you would expect that there would be more turnovers. While it was a little tough in the first few minute of game one, the Bluejays settled down to average just over 10 turnovers through the first two games. I’ll take a 2.66/1 assist to turnover ratio.
Manigat's shooting from the outside has been a nice surprise (Spomer/WBR)
Scoring was spread out amongst the team. Surprising is Jahenns Manigat with a scoring explosion these first two games. He really came on strong at the end of last season, but he has had the opportunity to fly under the radar with all the talk focused on Doug McDermott, Gregory Echenique and Antoine Young. Manigat has managed to drain 10-of-17 three pointers so far and second in scoring at 16.5. He picked up the slack Friday when McDermott was saddled with early foul trouble. McDermott came back on Sunday with a game high 21 points against Chicago State. What is obvious is that there could be a lot of scoring options for Creighton this season. We just got a sampling of it this weekend with Will Artino, Gibbs, Chatman, McDermott, Manigat, Young and Avery Dingman scoring in double-figures. Ethan Wragge was close behind averaging 9 points in both games.
But again with all this good, the excitement could all come crashing down with games yet at UAB, vs. Iowa in Des Moines, at Tulsa, at St. Joseph’s and home contests against Nebraska and Northwestern. The season has just started, but there is definitely a lot to be excited about. We will continue to learn more on Wednesday night when Creighton travels to Birmingham, Alabama to take on UAB in the Blazer’s season opening game.
From here on out it is one game at a time, but it could be something building up to something big 30 games from now.