#23 Creighton Men's Basketball Tops South Dakota
OMAHA, Neb. – The No.23 Creighton men's basketball team started the regular season with a 92-76 victory over South Dakota on Wednesday night at CHI Health Center Omaha to deliver head coach Greg McDermott his 500th career Division I victory.
Iowa transfer Owen Freeman led the way in scoring for the Bluejays with 19 in his Creighton debut as he made 9-of-11 shots from the field. He was followed by four other Bluejays in double figures as Nik Graves had 15, Jackson McAndrew 13, Josh Dix 11 and Isaac Traudt scored 10 points.
South Dakota was led by Isaac Bruns with 16 points and Vince Buzelis with 12 points to lead the Coyotes in scoring. Creighton goes to 1-0 on the season while South Dakota falls to 0-2 on the season.
Howard transfer, Blake Harper put up the first two buckets of the season, and a McAndrew jumper, and Graves layup and free throws put the Jays up 10-4 going into the first media timeout.
The Coyotes came storming back on a 10-0 run before a 7-0 Jays run featuring a Fedor Zugic putback, Traudt free throws, and a McAndrew three put the Bluejays back up 17-14. Going back and forth, the Coyotes were leading 21-19 with under 10 minutes left until the Jays went on another 7-0 run by Dix's jumper, Traudt's putback, and Graves' three-pointer to push the lead back up to 26-21 with nine minutes left in the first half
Creighton continued to pick up the pace in the game after the Coyotes pushed it back down to a 29-25 lead for the Jays. Creighton compiled a 15-6 run featuring six points from Freeman and three-pointers by Miami transfer Austin Swartz and Dix, and a dunk by Graves to force a USD timeout with 2:17 left on the clock in the first half for Creighton to lead 44-31. Creighton closed out the first half leading 48-35 at halftime. Graves leads the Jays in scoring with 11 points, and eight of the 10 players for the Bluejays dented the scoring chart.
Creighton continued how it ended in the first half by starting on a 14-6 run with an eight-point stretch by Freeman, and buckets by Dix, Graves, to push the lead to 21 points with 16:50 remaining in the second half.
The Bluejays put on a dunk contest, including a 8-2 run with back-to-back dunks by Josh Townley Thomas and a slam by Zugic pushed the Creighton lead to 73-50 at the under-12-minute timeout. CU had eight dunks in total throughout the whole game, including four by Freeman.
The Coyotes cut the Bluejays' lead to 16, but that was as close as they would get in the end, as Creighton's firepower was too much for South Dakota to get back into the game.
Creighton ended the game shooting 50 percent from the field, with 11 of 12 Bluejays to play ended the game with points on the board. CU dished 20 assists on 37 field goals.
The Bluejays head to the west coast to face No. 21 Gonzaga on Tuesday, November 11th at 9 p.m. on ESPN.