The Creighton men’s basketball team already knew they were going dancing when they gathered together with hundreds of Bluejays fans at D.J. Sokol Arena on Sunday. The team’s body of work this season had assured that. All that was left to be determined was their partner and the dance floor.
The team and fans filled the arena, and everyone turned their eyes toward the screen as the 2014 NCAA Tournament Selection Show began. The brackets began filling up, until finally Creighton’s name popped up on screen and the celebration began.
The Bluejays are headed to San Antonio as the No. 3 seed in the West Region to take on the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.
“I think from the previous years, having a three seed is certainly an upgrade,” senior guard Jahenns Manigat said. “It’s just nice to see that they looked at our body of work throughout the year even though we weren’t able to win the conference tournament [Saturday night], they still felt that we were a pretty solid team all-around, that we deserved a top seed, and they were nice enough to give us some pretty good weather at that. We’re going to enjoy it.”
Head coach Greg McDermott said the team’s high seed is a sign of the respect the selection committee had for what Creighton accomplished both in the Big East and in the nonconference portion of the schedule.
“It’s really incredible,” McDermott said. “It’s tough to get those top four seeds. You have to be consistent, you have to play a good schedule, and we’ve done that. When you’re playing in November and December, sometimes you don’t maybe give those games enough credit as to what they mean when March comes around … When you consider the win over Nebraska and Tulsa and Arizona State, teams that are in the NCAA Tournament, those loom pretty large on selection Sunday.”
Creighton went 9-5 against teams in this year’s field, with wins against St. Joseph’s, Tulsa, Arizona State, Nebraska, Xavier, Providence and Villanova.
“I thought we’d be a four, coming into today, personally,” senior forward Doug McDermott said. “So a three is just showing the respect that they have for us, what we did throughout the whole season. I don’t think we had any bad losses. I think all the teams we lost to are pretty good teams. I think we had eight or nine wins against tournament teams. It’s pretty impressive. We’re looking forward to kind of building off of what we did in the regular season, to show what we’re made of in the tournament.”
The Jays were given a No. 8 seed and a No. 7 seed the last two years despite a similar record. The difference this year, however, is that the Jays are no longer in the MVC.
“I remember two years ago thinking we were a 5, 6 and we were an 8, 9,” senior guard Grant Gibbs said. “I think the Big East schedule and everything like that really helped what our resume looked like to the committee. We saw some of their early 4, 5s and kind of thought we were right along that line. We’re happy with where we were placed but now there’s a lot of work to be done.”
In addition to the high seed, the Jays were also given another gift: an extra day of recovery and preparation. The Jays will play on Friday rather than on Thursday. With Creighton playing three games in three nights in the Big East Tournament, the extra day is a welcome reprieve.
“It’s huge. Our bodies are getting a little older. We can’t recover as well as we could our freshman year. I can’t even imagine what Gibbs is feeling like,” Doug McDermott said, only half-jokingly. “It’s huge, that extra day. It will give us an extra day to prepare as well, and kind of take care of our bodies [and get] ready to go.”
The Ragin’ Cajuns made the tournament after knocking off the Sun Belt’s top seed in Georgia State in the conference title game, and feature one of the most explosive offenses in the country. Louisiana averages 81.4 points per game, good for 13th in the nation, and is led by junior guard Elfrid Payton.
Payton, a 6-foot-3-inch junior guard, averages 19.1 points, 6.0 assists and 5.9 rebounds was named to the All-Sun Belt First Team in addition to being honored as the conference’s defensive player of the year.
“He’s a great athlete,” Doug McDermott said. “He averaged around 20 points per game. He’s played on the USA basketball team last summer I think. He’s obviously got some experience against some great players, so they’re not going to be scared, they’re not going to back down, so it’s going to be a tough matchup. I know one of these guys, Jahenns or Austin, are going to do a great job on him.”
Greg McDermott compared Payton to one of the Big East’s best players in Xavier guard Semaj Christon.
“He reminds me of Semaj Christon in a lot of ways,” Greg McDermott said. “A little bit better passer and maybe not quite as good of a shooter but has the flair of hitting big shots much like Semaj does. He finds his teammates, he creates a lot of things for that team.”
The Ragin’ Cajuns aren’t a one-man team, however. Payton was joined on the All-Sun Belt First Team by teammate Shawn Long. Long, a 6-foot-9-inch sophomore forward, averages 18.7 points, 10.4 rebounds and 2.7 blocks and can score inside and out.
“We played them our freshman year,” All-American senior forward Doug McDermott said. “They’re a really well-coached team. They kind of run that Princeton-style offense with a lot of athletes, so that’s tough to guard. Georgetown runs some of that too. We’re going to have our work cut out for us and we’re going to have to have a great week of practice in order to get it done.”
Though the two schools did face each other during the 2010-11 season – a 63-58 Creighton win – only three players who played in that game will suit up on Friday: McDermott, Manigat and Louisiana guard Bryant Mbamalu. Both teams have taken major strides since then, and this game promises to – at the very least – include a lot more points.
The Bluejays have one of the best offenses in the country as well, averaging 79.5 points per game, and are led by the soon-to-be-named Player of the Year in college basketball in McDermott.
McDermott is putting up 26.9 points per game and the Jays surround him with shooters, as the entire starting five shoots 39.5 percent or better from 3-point range. The Jays can score with anybody in the country.
The Bluejays aren’t the only team from this state heading down to San Antonio, however. The Nebraska Cornhuskers made the Tournament as a No. 11 seed on the other side of the bracket from Creighton. The Huskers will be playing No. 6 seed Baylor, and the winner moves on to face the winner of Creighton and Louisiana in the third round.
A rematch of the in-state rivals would be a great storyline, but there is still plenty of work to be done before that becomes a reality.
“I think it’s just neat for Nebraska basketball overall and Nebraska overall,” Manigat said. “In the past years that we’ve been here we’ve kind of turned the corner a little bit, and brought our team back to the tournament two years in a row, three years in a row now, and Nebraska’s up the road doing the same thing with Coach Miles, who’s done a terrific job with those guys that he has over there. It’s exciting, just to have that potential match-up is an exciting thing for the state, but we can’t look past our match-up and they can’t look past theirs. As exciting as it would be to see them in the third round, we’ve both got tough match-ups ahead of us that we have to prepare for and I’m sure that’s going to be their number one focus and it’s ours as well.”
Nebraska versus Baylor tips off at 11:40 a.m., and Creighton and Louisiana will follow 30 minutes after the first game ends. Both games can be seen on TruTV, and Marv Albert, Steve Kerr and Craig Sager will be on the call.