OK -- getting back to checking out BU's future opponents, today I will mention a few things about Creighton.
I am picking Creighton since I have been contacted by a Creighton fan who readily admits to poring over every single blog entry on this site, scouring every word for the tiniest of errors to refute, and then he has started his own sparsely used blog site dedicated ONLY to trying to debunk what he seems to think are gross errors made here on BUBravesBlogger. I won't give the link to this guy's blog, because it would surely multiply his traffic 100-fold - as his blog is so obscure and unvisited with so few readable entries except a couple aimed directly at me or someone he things is me, he must have to dust off cobwebs each time he posts a new entry.
One of his recent issues was to drag up Daniel Ruffin's arrest and completely mischaracterize it claiming things like choking and felony...so the guy had to be corrected that it was a simple misdemeanor and DRuff completed the deferred prosecution and charges were dropped. Not even on his record any more...and surely the guy has to know that Greg McDermott is by no means a stranger to player issues with drugs, arrests, and players kicked off the team -- in fact - over the past 5 seaosns (4 of which were at Iowa State) McDermott surely had to be the NATION's LEADR among D-I head coaches with players misbehaving and getting booted elsewhere - but that's not my point.
Which brings me to the main point of even mentioning him, that he started his blog six months ago and has only like four actual entries that challenge anything.... and all of his arguments are simple differences of opinion with zero references of any kind, and not any real issue with a single fact!
In other words - the guy claims to scour every word on this blog and over the past six months he hasn't found a single thing to bit*h about except 3 or 4 things I have posted such as that I said ISU would be better off without Justin Clark (a career 18% 3-pt shooter) on the roster or that their team are the "Bluejays" and not the "Blue Jays" - even tho I have never said they were ....NEVER!
So - I fully expect said obscure blogger will really go after me on this one - but here goes...
If you want to swallow a couple of the preseason magazines and previews hook, line, and sinker - then we might just as well cancel the 2011-2012 Missouri Valley Conference season and just go ahead and hand the trophy now to Creighton.
BUT I am not willing to do that just yet. Sure, Creighton has a good shot at being the best team in the Valley - but all TEN Valley teams are still undefeated in Valley Conference play so I would say just that about all TEN teams.
And I will agree that Doug McDermott is a fine player - and likely to get a lot of attention as preseason Player of the Year in the Valley (if, for some reason, anyone who votes happens to forget that Kyle Weems has not graduated nor transferred and will still be playing this year for Missouri State).
BUT here is my summary of Creighton for 2011-2012.
They had Doug McDermott last year and he was teamed with the 2010 MVC Preseason Player of the Year Kenny Lawson and other fine players, and yet Creighton did NOT win the Valley.
They finished 10-8 - middle-of-the-pack in the MVC, the exact same finish & record or within ONE GAME of what Bradley had in 2007, 2008, 2009, AND 2010 -- all four years of which the BU fans booed and hissed and said we need to do better or FIRE THE COACH!!
So if Creighton did no better than Bradley did in any of those four seasons that a segment of the self-proclaimed "best" BU fans were moaning and griping about mediocrity - then are now going to apply a totally different standard to a 10-8 record?
Hey - and Creighton did NOT have injuries to use as an excuse! NINE of their top ten players in playing time played EVERY single game that they were eligible for!
PLUS - the only player with an injury was a non-starter who averaged 5 ppg on 37% shooting.
PLUS - right at the end of the year when BU was wearing down, had lost three starters - with Jordan Prosser carried to the locker room, and were playing on fumes, yet we still played as many games into the MVC Tourney as Creighton did - losing to WSU - as they lost to Missouri State, and our best players did NOT get shut down like McDermott did (only 9 pts vs. MSU) - as Dyricus shined with a 26 pt/9 reb game and Andrew was steady and at least hit his scoring average.
BUT I do not deny that Creighton returns several good players and will be one of the teams to beat - and I am not simply here to trash any team - let alone Creighton - like the Bluejay blogger seems to do...
BUT -- let's see who do they have??
Greg McDermott's son, Doug, coming off a freshman season of 14.9 ppg, 7.2 rpg.
When translated to per-40-minute averages that's...
20.5 pts per 40 minutes and 9.9 rebs per 40 minutes.
Kenny Lawson - who didn't play anywhere near as much time on the court as McDermott - and who was barely mentioned by anyone as having a good season - his numbers work out to....
19.0 pts per 40 minutes & 11.34 rebs per 40 minutes -
so arguably Lawson did everything McDermott did but wasn't given the chance to run up his numbers by playing 35 minutes per game!
A couple more comparisons... here are the averages per 40 minutes for ...
- Missouri State's Kyle Weems - 20.64 pts per 40 minutes & 8.83 rebs per 40 minutes
(almost identical to Dougie's)
- ISU's Jackie Carmichael - 16.8 pts per 40 minutes & 9.3 rebs per 40 minutes - hmmmm not a whole lot different!
- SIU's Mamadou Seck nabs 11.03 rebs per 40 minutes!
BUT - don't get me wrong -- I really like Doug McDermott -- I see him as sort of a great athletic scorer/rebounder like Taylor Brown on his best days like this game when he had 27 pts and 8 rebs against - of all teams - Creighton - LINK
But also a heady kid whose hard work & attitude makes the most of his God-given talent -- like this kid -
The other players that will round out Creighton's starting lineup are..
-Antoine Young - one of the best point guards in the Valley
-Greg Echenique - 105ppg/5.8 rpg last year
-Jahenns Manigat started 16 games last year but he may be replaced as starter by one of the newcomers - maybe Gonzaga transfer Grant Gibbs or one of the freshmen.
-Then if they want to go really big they can use a true center like Will Artino or go with small forward Ethan Wragge if he's made his comeback from injury.
Echenique played this summer with his National Team from Venezuela, and in their 8 games this summer (4-4 in FIBA Americas) he averaged 6.1 ppg (7th best on the team) and 5.3 rpg (2nd best)...maybe a little of a surprise given the weakness of some of the opponents like Panama, Cuba,...and that his playing time was among the top 5 guys on the squad.
Creighton as a team, also went to the Bahamas on a summer exhibition tour and whalloped four pretty overmatched Bahamian club-team opponents by an average margin of victory of 27 points per game.
They played everyone a bunch and the best players on the tour were:
-McD 24 ppg, 9.8 rpg
-Artino 10 ppg, 10.5 rpg
-Gibbs 8 ppg, 3 rpg
-Young 8.5 ppg, 1 rpg
-Wragge 7 ppg, 1.8 rpg
So anyone can see, if you figure some way to stop Doug McDermott then you will have discovered something none of those short and slow Bahamian squads figured out.
Creighton's schedule this year has a lot of creampuffs like Chicago State, North Carolina A&T, Campbell (yup they're a D-I school) and Houston Baptist, but the Bluejays also have Nebraska (Big Ten now but still ordinary in basketball), Northwestern, Tulsa, St. Joe's, San Diego State, UAB, and Iowa.
Thus their overall schedule still ranks as one of the best among Valley members.
So I predict Creighton will be among the top three in the Valley - but injuries and other factors are going to play a part this year, as the two most valuable players they have - Young and McDermott - are among the returning player with the MOST minutes played per game.
Antoine Young's 36.2 minutes per game are 4 MORE per game than the NEXT closest player returning in Valley play!
Coach Mac has a long history of playing his main guys a ton and exhausting them, and it was why so many of his strong UNI teams tuckered out at the end of the season and failed to make a peep in the Valley tourney or post-season.
Time will tell - but I would be very surprised if they finished below 3rd - and so should Bluejay fans.
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