Men's Basketball Seeks Las Vegas Classic Title Saturday vs. Sun Devils
11/24/2012 4:39:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Updated Creighton Notes
Saturday, November 24, 2012 – 10:00 pm Central
#14 Creighton (5-0) vs. Arizona State (4-0)
Las Vegas, Nev. – Orleans Arena
Media Options
Television: ESPNU (Kanoa
Leahey, Miles Simon)
Video Webcast: http://es.pn/mbb-CREIGHTONvsASU (where available)
Radio: KXSP 590 AM (Omaha) with T. Scott
Marr and Nick Bahe
Live Stats: http://www.gocreighton.com.
Last Night's Recap
Creighton improved to 5-0 with an 84-74 win over Wisconsin on Friday night
at Orleans Arena in a game that featured 18 lead changes and 10 ties. Creighton
trailed 60-58 before an 18-4 run gave them a double-digit lead and sealed the
victory. Doug McDermott scored 30 points for Creighton, while Ethan Wragge (17) and Austin Chatman (14) also scored in
double-figures. Jared Berggren
scored a career-high 27 for the Badgers.
Series History With ASU
Arizona State has won four of six previous meetings with Creighton, though
all those meetings took place form 1963-74. The teams have never met on a
neutral site. Creighton's Greg McDermott
has never coached against Arizona State nor Herb Sendek.
High Five!
Creighton is 5-0 for the second straight year and third time in six seasons
with Friday night's win over Wisconsin. Creighton started last season 7-0.
Creighton is now 15-2 under Greg
McDermott in games played in the month of November.
Double-Digit Demons
Creighton's 5-0 start includes all five
wins by double-figures, something the team also accomplished last season. Creighton
has opened with six double-digit wins three times previously, but not since
1928-29.
Entering Saturday, the only
teams nationally with five or more wins, all by double-figures, this season,
are Creighton, Indiana, Northwestern, Mississippi and Florida.
Deficits Don't Matter
Creighton won Friday's game despite trailing 39-38 at half. Creighton is now
15-12 under Greg McDermott when
trailing at halftime, including a 2-0 mark this winter (also UAB).
Put It In Neutral
Creighton's win on Friday vs. Wisconsin improved the Bluejays to 6-1 in the
past two seasons on neutral floors, including wins over BCS schools such as
Alabama, Wisconsin and Iowa, and three MVC Tournament triumphs last March. The
Jays are now an impressive 16-4 away from home since the start of last season.
How Many Points Against Wisconsin?
Creighton torched Wisconsin's vaunted defense for 84 points on Friday. The
Badgers hadn't allowed more than 80 points in any game since March 6, 2011
(Ohio State, 93), a span of 44 games.
Creighton head coach Greg McDermott improved to 27-1 at
Creighton and 69-4 as a Division I head coach when his teams score 80+ points.
3 Games, 3 Career Highs, 3 Categories
Creighton's Austin Chatman is
quickly proving his point since taking over for Antoine Young this season as the lead guard. Chatman had a
career-high 14 points in Friday's win vs. Wisconsin, which came on the heels of
a career-high 7 rebounds on Tuesday vs. Longwood. In the game before Longwood
last Sunday vs. Presbyterian, Chatman had a career-high 11 assists.
Free Throws = Free Points
Creighton made 22 of its first 23 free throw attempts on Friday vs. Wisconsin
before missing its final two tries. On the season, the Jays have outscored the
opposition 92-40 at the stripe, and are shooting 78.6 percent from there.
The Rifleman
Ethan Wragge continues to shoot the
heck out of the ball in November, as he finished Friday's win with 17 points in
19 minutes thanks to 5-of-8 shooting from the floor (4-7 from '3') and 3-of-3
marksmanship at the line. Wragge is now the team's second-leading scorer (12.8
ppg.) despite playing 16.8 minutes per game. Wragge is 18-of-29 from downtown
this year, a healthy 62.1 percent.
Not Half Bad
Doug McDermott scored 17 of his game-high 30 points in the second half on
Friday vs. Wisconsin. It's the second time this season he's had 15 points or
more in a half. Last year he had a 15-point half on 17 different occasions. Creighton
hasn't lost any of those games in either of the past two seasons.
Look Who's Turning 30!
Doug McDermott's 30 points marked the eighth time in his 79 career games
that he's scored 30 points or more. He's scored 20 or more in 33 of those
contests, and in double-figures for 71 of them as well. McDermott's career-high
is 44 points, done last year at Bradley.
BCS Caliber
In six games against BCS schools in the past two seasons (wins vs. Nebraska,
Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin and Alabama, as well as a loss to North
Carolina), Doug McDermott is now
averaging 23.7 points and 8.8 rebounds per contest against the nation's 'major'
schools.
Deep Bench
Creighton's deep bench continues to pay dividends, as it helped wear down
Wisconsin in Friday's win. Creighton outscored the Badger reserves 25-13 for
the game, including 15-0 after intermission. Ethan Wragge has scored 64 points off the bench this year compared
to 56 points from the opponents' bench total points.
Arizona State has six men all
season who have played 46 minutes or more, while Creighton has eight men with
64 minutes or more and two others with 39 or 40 minutes.
Seeking 1,500
Creighton's Doug McDermott enters
Saturday's game with 1,479 points in his career. He's just 22 points from
moving into 12th place on the all-time chart, passing Kevin McKenna (1,500 points from
1977-81). McKenna, a former NBA veteran and Creighton assistant coach, is
currently in Las Vegas while serving as an assistant coach for Oregon. McKenna
played in 113 career games, while Saturday is the 80th of
McDermott's career.
Program Connections
There are three connections between the Arizona State and Creighton programs.
Gregory Echenique has been the starting center on the Venezuelan National Team each of the past two summers, where the team narrowly missed qualifying for the 2012 London Olympics. Echenique's head coach on those teams was Eric Musselman, who is currently an assistant with Arizona State.
Doug McDermott
spent two months in the summer of 2011 as a teammate of Jahii Carson on the US Men's U-19 National Team that traveled to
Lithuania and Latvia. McDermott averaged 11.3 points and 6.1 rebounds per game,
while Carson averaged 2.1 points and 2.4 assists per game. Other players on
that team include the NBA's Jeremy Lamb
and Meyers Leonard, as well as
current college standouts Tim Hardaway
Jr., Keith Appling, Tony Mitchell, Patric Young and Joe Jackson.
ASU guard Chris Colvin played the 2009-10 season at Iowa State for
then-Cyclone head coach Greg McDermott,
averaging 3.0 points and 1.0 assists per game as a true freshman before
transferring out of the program.
Inside Dish
Creighton's Grant Gibbs dished seven
assists without a turnover in Friday's win over Wisconsin, taking over the team
(and MVC) lead with 27 assists. Last
year Gibbs led the MVC with 176 assists.
Gibbs' seven assists on Friday went to six different players, and he now
owns an unreal 27/4 assist/turnover ratio.
