65 College Basketball Teams In 65 Days: Creighton Bluejays

This is a little something I like to call preview season, which by my watch starts on September 1. From that date until the start of the season we have 65 days. In those 65 days I’ll give a team preview each day. There’s going to be no rhyme or reason for the order we go in these 65 days. It will just be 65 teams I think are worthy of a detailed preview. We’ll have other previews throughout the time leading up to the season as well – conference breakdowns, player rankings, team rankings, etc. But, these will just be team previews.

Creighton Bluejays

2017-18 Record: 21-12, 10-8 in Big East, 4th in Big East, Lost to Kansas State Round of 64
Top Returning Scorers: Martin Krampelj (11.9), Mitch Ballock (7.3), Davion Mintz (6.1)
Notable Losses: Khyri Thomas (NBA), Marcus Foster, Toby Hegner (graduation), Ronnie Harrell (transfer)
Newcomers: Connor Cashaw (Rice transfer), Damien Jefferson (New Mexico transfer), Marcus Zegarowski (4-star), Sam Froling (3-star), Christian Bishop (3-star), No. 42 recruiting class
Head Coach: Greg McDermott, 9th season, 187-94

2018-19 Outlook

I know people seem to be down on Creighton because they lose Khyri Thomas and Marcus Foster in the backcourt and not to mention some key role players in Hegner and Harrell. But, I do think people are really sleeping on the current backcourt of Ballock, Mintz and Alexander. This core is going to be good for the next two-three years with Mintz being a junior and the other two being sophomores. Throw in the fact that McDermott is a great offensive coach and they won’t take too much of a step back.

Creighton will continue to run the pick and roll. It’s what McDermott prefers on the offensive side of the ball. What Greg McDermott loves to do is set a bunch of screens all over the floor to get the set going. He’ll run guys off of down screens and curl screens. But, the set that I absolutely love that he does is this double high delayed ball screen. Here’s a set that they ran quite a bit when they had Doug McDermott. They still do run this set obviously, but, when you’re talking about a ton of success with it, it was when they had two shooters. The premise was McDermott would often pop for the three and the opposing big would slip to the post.

This play was such a beautiful design, they ran it four consecutive plays against Xavier. They scored all four times. The reason why is because you had to pay so much attention to what McDermott was doing that it often led to defenses getting out of position. Watch two of the possessions below. One leads to a layup. One leads to a McDermott three.

Now obviously you don’t have McDermott here, but the sets have stayed the same. This year look for the elder McDermott to run this with Krampelj (returning from an ACL injury) and then get unique because he’s running a smaller lineup. He’s going to have two 6’5″ guys in Mitch Ballock and Connor Cashaw at the 3/4 spots. So look for Ballock to be the one to come up set the screen and flare because he’s such a good three point shooter. But, this is what I really love about this team. McDermott is going to get so creative with his offensive sets.

Along with that, this team is going to play fast. They were 10th in the country last year in average offensive possession length. That’s not going to change. In fact they may play even faster since they are going a bit smaller. Look for them to run, get 4 out on the wings and spread the floor. They can do this with pretty much any lineup that McDermott throws out there.

If you’re looking for a break out guy, outside of the three in the backcourt, Jacob Epperson is who to watch. At 6’11” he has great size and with not a lot of depth in the frontcourt – Krampelj may not play in the nonconference, he’s going to get minutes. He has a pretty soft touch from the outside and can step out and shoot the ball. If he can adapt to the new role and play more minutes consistently, you can see all 5 out and running a whole new offense, leaving the lane open for someone like Alexander and Mintz to drive.

This team is again, right in the mix of the 2-9 in the Big East. I think they are going to be probably 7th or so in the conference, but they are going to sit right on the bubble. I like this team to score with anyone in the country and think the fact that they have so many options on that end of the floor makes them a dangerous matchup game-in and game-out. They become a bit difficult to gameplan against because if you take Ballock away you can turn to Alexander, etc.