Creighton has benefited from balanced scoring to win two of its first three games of the season.
With six players averaging at least nine points per game, the Bluejays set out to continue their strong play on Wednesday when they host North Dakota (2-3) in Omaha, Neb.
Jasen Green and Blake Harper scored 14 points apiece in then-No. 23 Creighton’s 84-45 victory over Maryland Eastern Shore on Friday. The Bluejays, however, fell out of the AP Top 25 rankings on Monday.
Green, who sat out the season opener against South Dakota with a concussion, scored 12 of his points in the second half to help his team outscore the Hawks by a 47-22 margin. He is averaging a team-best 11.5 points this season, followed by Nik Graves (11.3) and Harper (11.0).
While pleased with the depth of his team, Creighton head coach Greg McDermott has made it no secret that he’s looking for players who will “hook it up” on an everyday basis.
“I’d love to have a deep team, I’d love to play a lot of guys,” he said. “But a lot of guys have to be doing what they’re supposed to do. And if they can’t do that, then we have to shorten it.
“And I think they can. I think they could work at it and they can work through some of that, but they’ve got to hold themselves to a pretty high standard of accountability.”
Transfer Owen Freeman (10.0 ppg), former Iowa teammate Josh Dix (9.3) and Jackson McAndrew (9.0) also are contributing for the Bluejays.
Creighton will put its depth up against a North Dakota team that answered a three-game season-opening skid by erupting for a program-record 128 points in a 70-point rout of Mayville State last Tuesday.
Greyson Uelman scored 14 points in that game and capped an 18-point performance on Saturday by making the go-ahead layup with 6.3 seconds remaining to give the Fighting Hawks a 76-74 victory over UC Riverside.
Uelmen and Anthony Smith III have impressed North Dakota head coach Paul Sather.
“From a team and a leadership role and … having that voice and consistency, we have to keep grinding on (them),” Sather said recently. “But overall, they’ve really done a nice job for us.”
Marley Curtis drained a career-best three 3-pointers to finish with 15 points on Saturday and Zach Kraft made four from beyond the arc to end up with 14 points for the Fighting Hawks.
–Field Level Media
