PHILADELPHIA—Duke has faced a bevy of talented scorers this year, notably Ohio State’s Deshaun Thomas and Virginia Tech’s Erick Green. But standing in between the second-seeded Blue Devils and a spot in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament is arguably the most skilled offensive player that Duke will see all year: Creighton’s Doug McDermott.
“McDermott is such a beautiful player,” Blue Devil head coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “McDermott is really one of the best offensive players I've seen in the past decade in college basketball.”
Krzyzewski knows McDermott and his game very well. He saw him play numerous times while the Duke coaching staff was aggressively recruiting McDermott’s high school teammate, Harrison Barnes, for three years at Ames High School in Ames, Iowa. What Krzyzewski did not know then was that McDermott would become one of the best players in college basketball—and a player that nobody really knows how to slow down, which is senior forward Ryan Kelly’s duty Sunday night.
“I will be matched up with him,” Kelly said. “I am approaching it like the many different scorers I’ve had to guard this year. Obviously, he’s one of the best in country.”
The winner of the Kelly-McDermott matchup promises to be a crucial decider in whether Creighton—a Cinderella team by college basketball standards—advances or if Duke, a blue blood program, can reach the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011.
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The Duke and Creighton programs differ vastly, but Kelly and McDermott have quite a bit in common. Both are savvy stretch forwards with a splash of European flavor to their games. Both come from basketball families. McDermott is the son of Creighton head coach Greg McDermott, while Kelly’s father, Chris, played basketball at Yale.
Both opted to attend schools close to home. Kelly, a Raleigh native, picked the local Blue Devils, while McDermott opted for his father’s nearby program in Omaha. The two also roomed together this past summer at the Amare Stoudemire skills camp.
“Ryan was a great roommate,” McDermott said. “Got a chance to pick his brain a little bit because we kind of play similar. He's a little bigger than I am. I'm taller. When we got to the gym I saw some of the moves he would do and he kind of taught me some of them, so he's a good player, and it'll be cool playing against them. I never thought I would have played against him this summer, so it's pretty cool.”
McDermott, a junior, has a diverse arsenal of scoring moves, which allows him to average 23.1 points per game—the second best output in the country behind only Virginia Tech’s Erick Green. Connecting on 49.7 percent of his 3-point attempts—the sixth best mark in the nation—McDermott is a deadly sharpshooter from downtown.
It’s easy to tell McDermott—the two-time Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year—is the son of a basketball coach based on his heady play and uncanny feel for the game as scorer.
“He’s a counter-puncher,” Krzyzewski said. “They run stuff for him, and if it’s not there, he sees that it’s not there and he goes right to his counter-punch. He has another read. Many of his shots are made before he gets the ball…. He can make it after he gets the ball too, but so many of it is that he gets it and does something with it—just a tremendous basketball player.”
McDermott is a winner too. In high school, McDermott and Barnes won 53 consecutive games and back-to-back Iowa state championships as upperclassmen.
At Creighton, he has carried the Blue Jays to two consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances. Last year, Creighton was eliminated by Barnes and the Tar Heels in the Round of 32.
Kelly will have to rise to the occasion on both ends of the floor for Duke to win. The senior missed 13 games in the midst of ACC play and returned to the lineup just three weeks ago. In his first two games back, he tallied 36 and 18 points respectively, but in his last three he has failed to score more than eight points. As he gets closer to ideal physical condition, Kelly breaking out of his mild slump will be key for Duke.
“I’m in a much better place than I was right when I came back,” Kelly said in regards to his conditioning. “And that’s just due to playing more. There’s a lot of things in my game that I need to play better at.”
McDermott’s game, meanwhile, has never been better. After dropping 27 points to lead Creighton past Cincinnati in the Round of 64, the Blue Jays have their sights set on advancing to the second weekend of the Big Dance.
“It's a huge opportunity for our program, McDermott said. “Like [Creighton guard] Grant [Gibbs] said, ever since we lost to Carolina last year we've been working for this moment, and we're finally here. So we're really excited about it.”
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