Scoring points is what the Creighton men’s basketball team did best last season. Led by the player of the year and the nation’s leading scorer Doug McDermott, the Bluejays boasted one of the top offenses in the country. Creighton finished the season first in offensive rating, 3-point percentage and 3-pointers made, fourth in assists and field goal percentage and 26th in points per game.
Coach Greg McDermott’s inversion offense often featured five players capable of shooting from 3-point range to space the floor and give McDermott room to work, and the result was 26.7 points for McDermott individually and 27 wins as a team. McDermott was a mismatch for anyone in the country and Ethan Wragge, a 47 percent 3-point shooter with a lightning quick release and deep range, lit up opposing big men who struggled to defend on the perimeter. Grant Gibbs and Jahenns Manigat were both 40-plus percent 3-point shooters as well and were excellent passers.
Those four are gone, however, and they took 63.6 percent of the team’s scoring, 80.1 percent of the team’s 3-pointers and 55.1 percent of the team’s free throws with them.
Senior point guard Austin Chatman is the only returning starter and is the team’s leading returning scorer at 8.1 points per game. Outside of Chatman, there are a lot of question marks.
“It’s open for everybody,” sophomore center Zach Hanson said. “I think there are four starting sports open and I think everybody’s been working hard.
Regardless of who earns those spots, the likelihood of any of them being able to approach what McDermott brought to the team is minuscule. By necessity, the scoring will be more balanced.
“I think it’s more collective,” Greg McDermott said. “We’ve become so accustomed to Doug getting 20 points a game over the course of three years. I’m not sure we have a guy that can give us 20 points a game night in and night out. I think we have several guys that can score 20 in a particular game.
“It’s just a matter of trying to develop some consistency throughout our line-up to figure out who’s going to be the most consistent group together … Last year we pretty much knew who we were going to have on the floor in every situation, and we’re just sorting through those situations now.”
For the most part, this is an almost entirely new roster, with new players stepping into the rotation and returning players taking on new roles. However, McDermott said his team’s identity will not change. The Bluejays will continue to let it fly from the perimeter.
“We’re different in some ways than the teams of the past and that’s OK,” McDermott said. “But our attacking style in transition and our eagerness, our freedom to shoot 3-point shots – that will not change.”
Doug McDermott was a sensational individual talent, but what made the Creighton offense elite was the ball movement and selflessness that created open looks and the shooters to capitalize on them. Chatman and the other returning rotation players all were a part of that system a year ago, and the newcomers also shows signs of having the requisite willingness and ability to hit the open man that it takes to play for Creighton.
The Jays have a lot of shooting to replace in order for their system to continue to put up points, but Greg McDermott is confident that his team will be able to pick up the slack.
“There are still a lot of guys that can shoot it,” McDermott said. “Devin [Brooks] has really improved his shooting. Austin has been a good shooter throughout his career. Isaiah [Zierden] is a great shooter, [James] Milliken has always shot it well. Avery [Dingman] has shot it much better in practice than he did a year ago. Ricky Kreklow has been a good shooter and Toby Hegner can shoot it. There’s six or seven guys that have the ability to be 40 percent 3-point shooters for us, which may be more than we had on our roster last year.”
Hegner and Kreklow will play most of the minutes at the four to maintain spacing, but unlike last year there are no centers that feel comfortable on the perimeter.
“I think we’ll still have a guy in that frontline that is going to be a threat from that 3-point line,” McDermott said. “We just don’t have a five-man like Ethan that is going to be able to shoot it from anywhere in the gym. But we also have a few five-men that can defend a little bit, which is different than Ethan as well.”
Playing a more traditional center in place of the 6-foot-7-inch Wragge is a downgrade offensively, but as McDermott said the tradeoff is more rim protection and rebounding. Without Doug McDermott on the block getting post touches, Will Artino, Zach Hanson and Geoffrey Groselle will also be asked to provide more interior scoring to balance out a perimeter attack that projects to be the strength of the team.
“I think it’s going to be more of a guard-oriented system,” Chatman said. “I think we’re going to use a lot more ball screens than we have in the past and try to get up and down in transition.”
Milliken, a redshirt junior guard, echoed Chatman’s thoughts and said he is excited for the opportunity to play in the team’s system after sitting out last season.
“It feels good,” Milliken said. “It’s a guard-oriented team. We’re just going to get out and push the ball in transition and play.”
The early returns show the team’s words ringing true. In Creighton’s 91-72 exhibition win against Sioux Falls, the Jays shot 14 of 31 from 3-point range, including 11 of 20 in the first half, and had 21 assists on 28 made baskets.
The top four scorers were all guards, with Chatman and Brooks leading the way with 18 points apiece and Milliken and Zierden each chipping in 11 off the bench, while Hegner started at power forward and hit three triples.
Team chemistry was a key part of last year’s success. If the team can maintain that togetherness fans should expect a similar style of play from this year’s squad.
“Everybody just has to understand their roles,” Chatman said. “I think that’s big for us. Understand their roles. If we all put the team first I think we’ll be fine.”