Creighton will Win the NCAA Tournament - Reasons Why By Keith Spillett

• The most innovative offensive coach in college basketball is on their sideline.  Year in and year out, Greg McDermott comes up with new ways to torment defenses.  In December, it seemed like the book on how to stop Creighton was out and in wide circulation.  By the end of January, McDermott had reworked the scheme and they had developed all new, more effective ways to attack the basket.  I’d be more impressed if I hadn’t seen him do this every season since he took the helm of the Blue Jays.   They should call him The Chiropractor, because nobody adjusts better.

• Steven Ashworth is a stone cold killer.  He’s been a lethal shooter from anywhere inside the half court logo for half a decade, but he has become an incredible distributor this season, averaging 7 assists a game and making Greg McDermott’s thousand and one high pick and roll variations practically unstoppable.

• I believe it was the English poet William Wordsworth who once wrote “Defense wins championships”.  If Wordsworth were around today, I’m convinced he’d be writing nothing but poems about Ryan Kalkenbrenner’s defensive positioning.  Always in the right place at the right time, Kalk doesn’t just block shots, he eliminates almost any possibility of the other team scoring from within 10 feet of the basket.  And, like the rest of the Jays, he’s almost never in foul trouble.

• They play outstanding transition basketball. No one ever got Creighton confused with the Showtime Lakers, but all of a sudden teams that don’t get back quickly on defense are feeling their wrath.  Jamiya Neal has added a new dimension to the team with elite speed and a bonafide finisher’s touch.

• There’s just something about this team.  They were down 11 points in the first round of the Big East Tournament with 1:18 left to play against DePaul.  Incredibly, they found a way to tie the game and send it to overtime.  In the first overtime, they blew an 8 point lead in the last minute of the game to send it to another overtime.  With Ashworth fouled out and the team grabbing their collective shorts and wheezing, Ty Davis, a freshman who barely played in the past two months came out of nowhere to make several huge plays and hit four consecutive free throws to ice the game.  Before he knocked them down, he had only taken 15 free throws in his entire college career.  When stuff like that starts to happen, you start to think maybe, just maybe this is the year it finally happens.

Keith Spillett