Creighton Basketball: Projecting the starting lineup

C: Toby Hegner, Senior

While Jacob Epperson is Creighton’s long-term solution at center, Toby Hegner should hold down the position at the start of the season. As mentioned earlier, Hegner is a 6’10 senior who averaged 5ppg and 3.4rpg while shooting 44% from deep (32 makes). He provides experience and should be a great stopgap until Epperson is ready to produce.

Hegner is not much of a physical presence, but his deep shooting range should make a potent Creighton offense even more dangerous. He will pull opposing big men away from the basket which opens up driving lanes for the Creighton guards.

Creighton played a similar lineup, with Ethan Wragge at the five, a few seasons ago. This team won’t have the same prolific offense as the 13-14 team since they do not have Doug McDermott, but they could still make opposing defenses uncomfortable.

The wildcard in the center rotation is Manny Suarez, the Division III transfer. Suarez has good size at 6’10’’ and is a pretty skilled offensive player, but it remains to be seen if he can adjust to the massive step up in competition. Expect Suarez to play 10-15 minutes per game and bring additional size off the bench.

Martin Krampelj will provide frontcourt depth as a sophomore. The 6’9 big man played sporadically last year but was a defensive liability when he did play. He shouldn’t factor into the rotation given the veteran players in front of him.

Creighton should also feed minutes to Epperson even if he is not strong enough to compete with Big East centers in the paint. The 6’11 center is only listed at 205 pounds. He will play as many minutes as he can handle, but in the early part of the season expect 8-10 minutes a game for the promising freshman.

Creighton could struggle to rebound with Hegner at the five, but they will differentiate themselves with this lineup and make opposing teams adjust to them. They won’t be able to compete with bigger interior players like Omari Spellman, Sean O’Mara, and Angel Delgado, but maybe they can pull them away from the basket or even force them off the court entirely.