A new Bluejay made his debut, a sophomore went off and the team overcame another cold shooting night as Creighton men’s basketball topped North Dakota 75-60 Wednesday night at CHI Health Center Omaha.
Twelve Bluejays played, nine scored and three finished in double figures as Creighton shot 41.3% from the field, 21.1% from 3 and 60% from the foul line.
“Fortunately, it’s not a beauty contest, because that wasn’t a work of art without a doubt,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “Defensively, I thought we were better the second half. I challenged the guys at halftime to have a little bit more teeth and grit on that end of the floor, and fortunately, frankly, we did, because we shot it so poorly the second half from the 3-point line that our defense was what won the game for us.”
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Harper’s Hot Hand
Sophomore Blake Harper, the transfer from Howard, is quickly emerging as Creighton’s most consistent offensive player. The 6-foot-7 wing has seen his point total increase in each of his first four games as a Bluejay, culminating in his first double-double in Omaha.
Harper finished with a game-high 19 points, 12 rebounds and three assists in 26 minutes.
“He played with a lot of confidence, a lot of swagger, got to the right spots and was active on the offensive glass again and got us some extra possessions,” McDermott said. “He can score in a lot of different ways, and the three assists as well where a couple of those were at critical moments where he found a teammate for an easy basket.”
He’s up to 13.0 points and 7.5 rebounds per game, both team highs, and is second on the team with 10 assists through four games.
Harper has spoken on multiple occasions how much of a struggle the initial transition to Creighton’s system was, but he said he’s really found his feet recently.
“It’s been just staying patient, knowing my time is going to come, and kind of listening to my coaches,” Harper said. “My coaches and teammates have really helped me, throughout this transition, make it a lot easier. It’s a long season, and I’m going to keep doing that.”
While Harper has been productive, he hadn’t looked for his shot from the perimeter very often, going 2-for-4 in the first three games. However, on a day where everyone else was struggling, Harper let it fly against the Fighting Hawks, shooting 4-of-8 from the arc.
“I was kind of feeding off the team’s energy,” Harper said. “They were kind of finding me. Luckily, I was in the right spots, and I was able to knock them down.”
Burn, Baby, Burn
After originally planning to redshirt, freshman Hudson Greer and the Creighton staff changed course. The 6-foot-7 wing went from the scout team to the blue group in practice to start the week and was among the first subs against North Dakota, checking in before the first media timeout.
Greer made an immediate impact, grabbing a couple of rebounds and dishing out a pair of assists, the second to Jasen Green for a two-handed slam.
His first stint was with a smaller, switchable lineup featuring Greer, Harper and Green in the frontcourt. Later, he played with a bigger lineup, featuring either he or Harper at the two alongside Jackson McAndrew and Kerem Konan at the four and five. Greer’s athleticism and rebounding ability gives McDermott even more lineup flexibility.
The freshman went 0-for-3 from deep and only scored one point, splitting a pair of free throws, but he corralled seven rebounds, recorded four assists and blocked a shot in his 13 minutes.
“It was awesome,” Greer said of his debut. “Obviously I didn’t shoot the ball [well], like all of us did today, but other than that, I feel like my calling card is just playing extremely hard. I feel like I just try to do that every day.”
After the loss to Gonzaga, McDermott said he felt the team lacked grit and that the freshman probably plays with the best edge on the roster. McDermott said the plan was to sit him for the Maryland Eastern Shore game and give him three more practices with the top units before making a decision, but an illness interrupted that plan.
“Following Gonzaga, Coach Mac kind of came up to me and was like, ‘What do you think about this season? What do you really want to plan on?’” Greer said. “He put me on the blue squad a lot, I got to play with those guys, and then went down with a stomach bug for a while, which wasn’t very fun. Coming back after that, just playing with those guys, and ultimately, I felt yesterday it was the right thing to do for my process to get better and better.”
McDermott said he heard from their compliance office that an upcoming court case on Dec. 15 could result in the five-year eligibility rule going into effect, in which case a redshirt wouldn’t save any eligibility. More importantly, however, McDermott believes Greer can provide something the team isn’t getting from the rest of the lineup currently.
“The reality of it is we’ve had almost 40 practices, we’ve played two exhibition games, we played three real games going into tonight, and I’m just done asking guys to do what I want done, and if they they’re not able to do it, then we’re going to have to play somebody else,” McDermott said. “When Hudson goes in the game, I know he’s going to give me everything that he has, and he’s going to fight, and he’s arguably our best athlete.
“He gets seven rebounds tonight in 13 minutes, gets four assists in 13 minutes, so he’s playing the right way, and he’ll get better with each passing game. I probably felt like our best chance to have a good team in January — and there’s going to be some bumps in the road between now and then as he gets his feet under him — was going to include Hudson in the rotation.”
Shooting Woes Continue
Creighton entered Wednesday’s game shooting 29.8% from 3, good for 279th in the country, and exited the contest outside the top 300 thanks largely to a 1-for-17 performance in the second half — despite getting plenty of good looks.
“The second half was ridiculous how open those 3s were,” McDermott said. “Isaac [Traudt] hasn’t missed [in practice] since June, and he had four really good looks, and Josh [Dix] had some wide open looks. Jasen’s were pretty much all wide open. The way North Dakota is going to play, where you’re going to trap and rotate and trap the post, if you make that extra pass, you’re going to get a wide open 3, and you have to make them pay.”
North Dakota double-teamed every post touched and trapped every ball screen. The Fighting Hawks sent two to the ball most of the night and were in constant rotation. Outside of a handful of rough possessions, the Bluejays consistently found the open man, which often resulted in a shooter all alone at the 3-point line.
Because of the chaotic defense, Creighton only attempted 25 shots inside the arc, making 18 of them. Despite shooting 72% on 2-pointers (including 15-of-17 on layups and dunks), Creighton only outscored North Dakota by four in the paint, 36-32. The Fighting Hawks knew they didn’t stand a chance defending straight up and were willing to give up 3s and hope Creighton didn’t make them. Even an average shooting day turns the game into a complete rout, but the Bluejays just couldn’t get the shots to fall.
Take away the 5-for-10 performance from Harper and Ty Davis (who had only attempted a combined six 3s heading into the game) and the rest of the team combined to go 3-for-28. The includes a 0-for-1 outing from McAndrew, who only played eight minutes because of a lingering foot injury that flared up on him during Wednesday’s shoot-around. McDermott said the sophomore wanted to give it a go in the game but was having a hard time pushing off without too much pain, so he sat out the second half. McAndrew missed the Iowa State exhibition on Oct. 17 with the same ailment, and his status will be worth monitoring moving forward.
McDermott knows his team is better than what it’s shown thus far.
“It’s how we built this team,” McDermott said. “Isaac Traudt has been a great shooter. Jackson is a great shooter. Josh Dix is a career 40%-plus 3-point shooter. Blake was around high 30s, low 40s last year. Nik [Graves] was mid-30s; he had some good looks tonight. Jasen’s really worked on it. Hudson’s a good shooter. Right down the line, we’ve got some guys who can shoot the basketball. They have to believe in themselves. They’ve got to trust their work, and you have to put the work in, and I feel like, for the most part, we’ve done that.”
For Creighton to make some noise in Las Vegas at the players Era Men’s Championship next week, the Bluejays will have to find their collective shooting stroke — which Harper isn’t worried about.
“I feel like the 3-pointer is going to go down,” he said. “This is the best 3-point team I’ve ever came across, and especially not having Jack fully healthy and him sitting out and IT, I feel like just those two alone are the best shooters I’ve ever played with. The shot’s going to fall.”
