If there was not an official fan club for Doug McDermott, then there could possibly be one started Monday night after Creighton’s 83-64 win over Tulsa. The President of that fan club might just be Tulsa head coach Doug Wojcik.
“I tell you what, that was one impressive performance by Doug McDermott. I thought the guy single-handedly broke the spirit of my team. In particular, my three seniors and sophomore post players. He was terrific. We really wanted to defend the three-point line against them. They make 10 three’s a game. We did a really good job on (Jahenns) Manigat. He gets one shot, no three’s. We did a really good job on Ethan Wragge. He’s an excellent three-point shooter. My goodness, it really surprised us how good McDermott was, particularly in the post against size, how good his strength is, how good his stamina is, how good his feet are, and how good of hands he has. He was very impressive to me, tonight.”
Doug McDermott only went out and scored a career high 35 points on 16-of-23 shooting, in the process showing off moves that everyone has been watching all season — spinning left, spinning right, hook shot, jump shot. Tulsa did not have an answer for him. On a play in the second half as the shot clock was running out, McDermott nailed a long three pointer with a hand in his face that basically epitomized the night he was having. He then connected on another three pointer 30 seconds later, upping his three-point shooting percentage to 57.5%. Remarkably, he now has nine straight games scoring more than 24 points.
However, the thing that opened everything up for Doug was the play of his teammates, who never get enough credit. Antoine Young got things started for the Bluejays against Tulsa, scoring the first four points of the game. He ran the offense just great and knew when to make plays, and had a career high five steals to go along with his 14 points and four assists.
Then you have Grant Gibbs. He quietly built up numbers through the evening to get ever so close to a triple-double; a majority of his 10 assists helped McDermott get the 16 baskets he made on the night, and he also had 9 points and 7 rebounds. His vision on the court, along with Young and Austin Chatman, opens up so many other options.
Even Gregory Echenique, who suffered from foul trouble all evening (starting with a foul just 10 seconds into the game), got involved in the game right away in the second half, similar to how he did at St. Joseph’s. He scored 7 of his 9 points within the first two minutes of the second half, showing that the interior defense of Tulsa could not stop anyone wearing a blue jersey.
Ethan Wragge, Josh Jones and Will Artino provided solid minutes in this game, scoring when they had to and getting big rebounds when that was needed. Jahenns Manigat struggled offensively, but played some tough defense. There will be times this season that each of these players will likely step up as teams try to contain McDermott because of the unselfish play this team embodies, but on a night when McDermott scored 35, they played complimentary roles and excelled at them.
People are coming out of the woodwork now to sing the praises of Doug McDermott, but Creighton has a lot of weapons in their arsenal. In all the games I have watched this season, I have rarely seen McDermott force a shot. While there will be some that will start comparing him to last season’s media darling Jimmer Fredette, his game comes completely within the offense and not on one-on-one plays. Others may see this differently, but Fredette was forced to make plays because he didn’t have the solid core of teammates that would be able to make plays. I am tending to believe at this point that Creighton has a few more weapons and other options with Young, Echenique, Gibbs and the rest of the crew.
While some Creighton teams of the past would rely on the three, they were able to recognize against Tulsa that they could keep feeding the post and have success. Creighton only shot six three pointers all night, and I can’t remember the last time they took so few shots from behind the arc. The best part was that they didn’t need them!
Creighton now returns home with their rankings intact and will play host a BCS school in Northwestern on Thursday night to finish out the non-conference season. The Wildcats are 10-1, but have only played one true road game. On the radio last night, Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said he hopes the home crowd will be loud and rowdy to create a great home environment, saying: “Calling all Bluejays, I need you there Thursday night!” With Creighton students on break, it will be up to the rest of the Bluejay fans in Omaha to show up and make a statement.