Under Coach Greg McDermott, the Creighton men’s basketball team has followed more or less the same preseason schedule every year: one closed scrimmage against another D-I team and one exhibition against a D-II squad in front of the fans at CHI Health Center Omaha. This year is no different with a scrimmage already in the books against Iowa State and an exhibition set for Friday night to tip off the 2023-24 home schedule.
“There are a lot of different ways you can go about this preseason,” McDermott said. “Some teams play two exhibitions against a non-D-I, some teams go the route of playing a couple of closed scrimmages. We’ve always decided to do one of each. I think they are both valuable. I think it certainly was valuable for us and Iowa State to see a different style and a different system, and I think it’s also important and valuable to put the uniform on with the lights on before you really start the season for real.
“Especially for the new guys, it’s a good opportunity to get out there in front of the crowd and play one time in the building before it starts.”
Creighton didn’t release any official information from its scrimmage with the Cyclones, but McDermott said he was happy with how the game went.
“It ended up being a close game,” McDermott said. “We didn’t shoot really well, but Iowa State’s defense, it was a little bit of a shock to us because of the way we defend; it’s very different. And it was a shock to them because what they saw from our end as well, compared to what they see in practice every day. There were some late-game situations that were really, really good for us that it’s hard to simulate in practice. So those those times are really valuable.”
In addition to the situational work and the opportunity to play against a different style of basketball than they see every day in practice, McDermott said the scrimmage also provided them with an opportunity to face adversity, and he was pleased with the team’s response.
“I felt like we still defended at a high level even when we weren’t making shots,” McDermott said. “As you guys know, you’ve heard it over and over for me: I’m into getting a good shot. You can’t always control whether they go in, but you also watch the guys grow and mature. How do they react to a missed shot? Are they able to kind of get over that play and get on with the rest of the game? This group’s mature enough to do that, and in particular Trey [Alexander] and Baylor [Scheierman] didn’t shoot it great that game, but they did a lot of other things to impact the game and impact winning, which from our perspective, we’re really looking for.”
Utah State transfer Steven Ashworth has no doubts about the team’s ability to put up points and knock down shots on the offense. The team’s performance on defense against Iowa State was an encouraging sign regarding their growth on the other end of the court.
“It’s going to be clear that we have a lot of offensive firepower, but the question is going to come down to can we guard and how well can we guard and can we guard at the elite level that we need to?” Ashworth said. “We have specific individual players who are very elite at defense and so can we use them to our best abilities to also help everybody else? I think that that’s coming along really well and it’s been a lot of fun to see how we’re competing on both ends more consistently every single day in practice, and I think that’s just going to pay huge dividends when the season comes around.”
From a practice perspective, McDermott said some days have been better than others throughout the preseason, but he doesn’t think they’ve had a bad day, which isn’t something he can recall during his 30-year coaching tenure. He credit the team’s leadership for setting the tone every day, specifically Ashworth, Alexander, Scheierman and Ryan Kalkbrenner. Now they’ll get a chance to show the fans what they’ve been working on.
“It’s more exciting for them than it is for me,” McDermott said. “I think as coaches you always want more time and you always want more repetition. But especially with our returners — Kalk and Baylor and Trey — they’re ready to play. They’ve had enough of me, they’ve had enough of practice, they’re ready to play games and to be evaluated against somebody else. So it’ll be exciting to get the lights on Friday night and get to get a crowd out here.”
The Bluejays will welcome Division-II Wayne State to the CHI Health Center Friday. McDermott begin his head coaching career in Wayne, guiding the Wildcats to a .686 winning percentage during his six seasons at the helm, from 1994 to 2000.
“This is, I think, maybe the third time we’ve played them since I’ve been here,” McDermott said. “We’re going to play Division-II team and generally I’d like to play somebody that I have a connection to, whether it’s a former player, a former assistant or Wayne State where I coached. So I’m happy to help them. I still have a lot of really good friends in Wayne and many of them will be here cheering against me on Friday.”
Wayne Sate went 18-11 last season and returns two starters in forward Cody McCullough and guard Jay Saunders, an Omaha South grad. In total, Coach Jeff Kaminsky has eight Nebraska natives on his roster. That includes Millard North products Noah Erickson and David Harmon, high school teammates of Creighton redshirt freshman Jasen Green, and Evan Inselman, who played with true freshman Josiah Dotzler at Bellevue West.
For the Jays, McDermott said everyone besides Green and senior walk-on Sami Osmani should be available for the game. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and a stream will be available for those with a FloHoops subscription.
“It feels great coming out here in the CHI,” Ashworth said. “Getting the first few practices under our belts was super fun and I can already imagine the environment, the atmosphere that’s going to be in here. The mentality is to play the way we’ve been playing in practice — very unselfish, very opportunistic and very disciplined on defense. So that’s kind of the mentality is making sure that all these things we’ve been practicing now for about 30 different days, putting it out into the product of the court.”
