Big East Basketball: Each team’s worst performance of the last decade
By Joey Loose
Creighton
March 23, 2014 (Baylor 85, Creighton 55) (GS: 8)
The Big East is a remarkably deep conference, and the 2013 addition of MVC power Creighton was a great inclusion. In recent years, Greg McDermott has built the Bluejays into a yearly contender, having some success ever since the graduation of his son Doug, who was an absolute stud. The years following Doug’s departure weren’t very pretty, but Creighton also had their fair share of struggles while he was still at the school.
Doug McDermott won the Wooden Award, the Naismith Award, three conference player of the year awards and scored 3,150 points in 145 career games for the Bluejays, an incredible career. Despite this, Creighton never made it to the second weekend of the Tournament during his time. His first two appearances ended in losses to 1-seed North Carolina and 2-seed Duke, but 2014 was going to be a special season for the Bluejays. They were a 3-seed after a great season, moving past Louisiana-Lafayette before 6-seed Baylor appeared.
It’s not just the fact that Creighton lost to the lower seed, it’s how they lost. They were never really in this game, a 19-2 Baylor run early to put it out of hand before Creighton knew what hit them. McDermott scored 15 points, but his team couldn’t handle Baylor’s offensive intensity. To only score 20 points in the first half was miserable, but to play this poorly in Doug McDermott’s final college game makes this ever the more disappointing.
Creighton’s had a few underwhelming losses to Georgetown in recent years, but the magnitude of a 30-point loss to a lower seed in McDermott’s final game makes this a slightly worse performance. That being said, McDermott’s father has proven that he can build a team in Omaha without his son and this team should continue to fit well in the competitive Big East.