The Creighton University men’s basketball team, coached by United States Sports Academy alumnus Greg McDermott, is off to a fast start and a national top 10 ranking this season.
The Bluejays (10-2) are ranked eighth in this week’s Associated Press men’s basketball top 25 poll following a recent 97-79 win over St. John’s University. McDermott was the Academy’s 2014 Alumnus of the Year after leading the Bluejays to the NCAA tournament in the 2011-12 season and again in 2013-14. He was the first coach in Creighton history to win 20 or more games in each of his first three seasons there. Now in his 11th season at Creighton, McDermott is the reigning Big East Conference Coach of the Year.
McDermott earned his Master of Sports Science degree in sports management from the Academy in 1994.
“The United States Sports Academy afforded me the opportunity to earn my master’s degree at a time in my life when attending full-time graduate school was not a possibility,” McDermott said. “I couldn’t be more pleased with the well-rounded education I received, and the many relationships I developed as a result of the experience.”
This is the 18th time that Creighton has earned a top-10 ranking in program history, with all but one of those weeks during McDermott’s tenure. It’s the 104th week in program history that the Bluejays have been ranked, with 76 of those under the direction of McDermott. Creighton is 130-48 all-time as a ranked team, including a 96-36 mark under McDermott. Creighton has been ranked at least one week in eight of McDermott’s 11 seasons on The Hilltop after doing it just five different seasons in program history before his 2010 arrival.
McDermott, a former 6-foot-8 college center for Northern Iowa, began his coaching career as an assistant at the University of North Dakota in 1989 and earned his first head coaching position in 1994 with Wayne State, a Division II school. He has also coached at North Dakota State, Northern Iowa and Iowa State.
His meteoric rise in the coaching ranks began at his alma mater, Northern Iowa, where he took over a program in 2001 that had failed to post a winning season in four years. Northern Iowa had only made the NCAA tournament once in its history but McDermott led the Panthers to three straight appearances. He also led the school to its first ever national ranking in 2006.
