College Basketball: 5-on-5 with Nathan Giese and Maxwell Ogden
2. At this very moment, where does Doug McDermott stand amongst the greatest college basketball players of all-time?
Nathan Giese: As it stands, there are a lot of factors that go into discussing Doug McDermott’s legacy at Creighton, especially in today’s college basketball. There are a lot of people that will look at McDermott, see all the points he’s scored over his career and say, “Well, who has he played throughout his career?”
Creighton spent McDermott’s first three years in the Missouri Valley Conference, possibly the best mid-major conference in the country, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for some people.
He’s now 11th on the all-time scoring list, having passed Larry Bird, who also played at a mid-major school (although he only needed three seasons to score his points). Points are points, and they’re nothing to scoff at. Not with the way McDermott plays. He goes into every single game as the main focus of the opposing defense.
Opposing teams go into Creighton games thinking that if they stop McDermott they’ll win the game. Nobody’s been able to do that this season and few have done that throughout his career. Dougie Fresh is so versatile it’s ridiculous. He can shoot from NBA range, work it inside for easy baskets and everything in between.
It’s always hard to gauge where a player ranks historically when they are still playing. That’ll be for future basketball historians to decide. For now we’ll just appreciate his game and respect how great he has been for Creighton. And we better savor this now because, come April 8, he will be just another memory in college basketball.
He’ll go down in history when it’s all done as a top 10 scorer and probably a top 20 all-time player in college basketball. Of course, that’s all up for debate and in the eye of the beholder but I’d say he’s a top 20 player as it stands.
Maxwell Ogden: It’s hard to disagree with anything that Nathan said. In terms of pure ability and production, Doug McDermott is one of the greatest player to ever step foot on the college ranks, and it’s about more than just points scored.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s 26 points away from cracking the Top 10 and has a realistic shot at cracking the Top 5 by the end of the year.
Despite playing on a team that has just one other player scoring in double-figures—Ethan Wragge at 11.4 points per game—McDermott has out-of-this-world efficiency. This is stunning considering, on every given gameday, McDermott is an opposing defense’s No. 1 target and his team’s only trustworthy scorer.
That hasn’t stopped Dougie Mac from averaging 25.8 points on a slash line of .519/.448/.898.
Believe it or not, that 51.9 field goal percentage is McDermott’s worst mark of his four-year college basketball career. That includes three straight seasons, 2013-14 included, in which he’s averaged more than 14.4 field goal attempts per game.
All in all, McDermott is No. 11 on the all-time scoring list with a career slash line of .550/.459/.836.
The truth of the matter is, that legendary production—and yes, it’s legendary—won’t lead to much in terms of all-time recognition without a deep NCAA Tournament run. McDermott has led Creighton to the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons, but the Bluejays have never once reached the Sweet Sixteen.
I hate to put team success on one player’s shoulders, but if he doesn’t at least reach the Round of 16 in 2014, it will be an asterisk. If he does, he’ll solidify his place as one of the Top 100 college basketball players of all-time and potentially move even further up the ranks into the Top 50.
We won’t truly appreciate what this all-time college basketball great has done until years after his career comes to a close, but we should still marvel it today.