The No. 15 Creighton men’s basketball team suited up and hit the CenturyLink Center court for the first time this season to play an exhibition game against the University of Mary Marauders. The Jays came out of the gate on fire and never looked back in an 89-51 victory that wasn’t even as close as the final score indicates.
Creighton got off to a bit of a slow start and found themselves in a 10-10 tie four minutes into the game before a mid-range jumper from preseason All-American junior forward Doug McDermott spurred a 17-0 Bluejay run. Sophomore guard Avery Dingman hit his first four 3-point attempts and had 13 of his 18 points during the run.
In all, the Jays shot a blistering 10-15 from beyond the arc during the first half and led the Marauders 61-21 at halftime. The first half showed just how deadly Creighton’s inside-outside offense can be. Head coach Greg McDermott credited senior center Gregory Echenique’s hard work underneath for the open looks the Jays got from the perimeter.
“I think we got 14 touches in [the paint] in the first half,” McDermott said. “Probably not enough to Gregory, but I think that was partly by design. Mary’s defense was going to sag, and that’s why we got 15 pretty much wide open 3-point shots and we made 10 of them. As I told Gregory at halftime, his effort to want to catch the ball in there is why we’re getting those 3-point shots. So teams have to make a decision: either play him one-on-one and stay to our shooters, or provide some help from somewhere and our guys are going to let it fly.”
Leading by 40 at the break, the Jays cruised in the second half. Senior guard Josh Jones — who started in place of injured junior guard Jahenns Manigat — was the only one of the first five to play more than five minutes in the second half. All 15 healthy players, including the four walk-ons, got in the game and played at least four minutes. After an explosive first half, the Jays were outscored 30-28 in the final 20 minutes.
“Obviously I liked the way we played the first half,” McDermott said. “I thought we moved the ball extremely well and defensively did what I wanted to have done. I wasn’t as pleased with the second half. I thought we lacked focus to start the second half defensively, turned the basketball over too much, fouled too much, and that’s stuff that we have to clean up. Rather than let them play through it, I decided to make sure we didn’t risk anybody getting hurt, so we didn’t go with the starters much in the second half. There will be some good teaching tools on the video and that’s what we do this for.”
Dingman echoed McDermott’s thoughts, saying they played well in the first half but played the score more than the game in the second.
“We obviously shot it pretty well throughout the whole game, we were making the extra pass,” Dingman said. “It seemed like maybe we got tired in the second half, a little lackadaisical on defense, maybe watching the score a little too much.”
Dingman’s 18 points were tied with Doug McDermott for the game-high, and included a couple of drives to the basket in addition to his four made 3-pointers. The sharp-shooter worked hard in the offseason on improving his all-around game, but said it was his defense that was going to get him on the court more.
“Last year I realized that my defense kept me off the floor at times, and so this year I’ve been really working on whenever I get tired, keeping my mind right to try to be in the right spot,” Dingman said. “So that’s one thing that I’m trying to improve on a lot from last year is my defense.”
The Jays open the regular season on Friday against the University of North Texas, who feature the preseason Sun Belt Player of the Year and projected NBA Draft lottery pick forward Tony Mitchell, who averaged 14.7 points and 10.3 rebounds a year ago as a freshman.
“Rebounding is going to be huge, making sure we take care of the basketball is going to be huge, because the little bit I’ve seen of North Texas, they are very, very talented, very athletic, and they are going to pose some problems that I don’t think we have seen [yet], and some of those are hard to simulate in practice because we don’t have a guy that is 6-9 and has a 40-inch vertical like Tony Mitchell,” Greg McDermott said. “It’s going to be a challenge, and North Texas very well could be one of the more talented teams we play in nonconference play.”
The game is set to tip off at 7:05 at CenturyLink Center Omaha. The game can be heard on the radio on AM 590.