The circumstances are eerily familiar.
Here was Creighton, off to a hot start to the season, just like last year. The Bluejays had some ambitious dreams of not only a BIG EAST championship, but a long and enjoyable run through the NCAA Tournament come March. It all seemed like a very solid bet.
But just like last season, when the Jays were thrown a major curve when national assists leader Maurice Watson Jr. was lost for the season to an ACL injury, the unthinkable happened again. This time to budding star Martin Krampelj, who like Watson, was lost to Creighton for the season when he tore his ACL in the Bluejays’ victory over Seton Hall last week.
The dual injuries occurred exactly one year and one day apart but there’s even more to link the two together.
“It was our 19th game against the 19th-ranked team both years (Seton Hall this year, Xavier last season),” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said after his Bluejays knocked off St. John’s, 68-63, to run their record to 16-5 overall and 6-3 in the BIG EAST.
McDermott then added some levity to the situation when he said, “And I got on an airplane on January 19th, that takes guts,” he said with a laugh. “But it was unfortunate. It was a fluke injury.”
So now for the second consecutive season, the Bluejays will have to reshuffle the deck a bit and learn to live in their new normal. So, are the Bluejays perhaps a little snake-bitten?
“Just a little bit,” said Marcus Foster, who finished with a game-high 24 points in the victory over the Red Storm. “But it’s basketball, it happens and you can’t really predict things. I just wish the best for Martin, that he recovers well and will be ready for next season.”
Like last year, when the Bluejays lost their first game without Watson, Creighton went down at Providence last Saturday. But unlike last season, when they also dropped a second straight game versus Marquette, the Jays found a way to get by a persistent Johnnies team that was looking to pull off the upset.
So have they already learned to adjust to life without Krampelj?
“Not really,” Foster said. “We still need a little more practice because he put so much pressure on the rim and how he gets up and down the court, it’s hard to replace him. But once we get back to the practice floor for another week or two, I think we’ll figure it out and I think we’ll be fine.”
But there will be a ripple effect felt within the Bluejays as McDermott looks to tweak his game plan on a nightly basis.
“It’s very similar to last year in some ways,” McDermott said. “I mean, you build your offense around certain personnel, and our pace and space and transition offense and what we do in the quarter court, we don’t have a guy who can simulate what he did. So we have to figure out other ways to score. It’s going to make the defensive end of the floor, the rebounding and our ability to take care of the ball that much more important.”
Having gone through the same situation last year will help the Bluejays adjust as they look to regroup this year, according to senior forward Toby Hegner.
“It definitely helps for sure,” said Hegner, who scored 16 points in the Bluejays’ win. “Obviously there are a lot of people in that locker room that were close to Maurice and it hurt a lot of us when it happened. Now it’s the same thing with Martin a year and a day later, which is pretty ridiculous. But we’ve been through this and all of our leadership came back and we’ve lived it. So it’s up to us to make the younger guys realize that we’re going to be OK and that we can move on and still win some games.”
Both McDermott and Hegner know that once the initial shock of losing Krampelj wears off, it’s time to get back to business because no one in the league is going to be sending them an Edible Arrangement for their loss.
“I think you’re prepared for the emotional part of it. You feel awful for your teammate, one of the young people I coach and care about a lot,” McDermott said. “But you also know nobody is going to feel sorry for you. I got a few calls from fellow coaches in the league the day (the injury) was announced but after that nobody cares. They want to kick our teeth in. So we have to get past it emotionally and we have to get ready to play. This game (vs. St. John’s) was a win we really needed to have for our guys’ psyche if nothing else.”
“We’re trying to figure out some things obviously,” Hegner said. “We’re going to throw out some lineups that we’re not used to, but the big thing is we have to move past it. Obviously we’re going to be there for Martin every step of the way but we have 10-plus games left and we want to finish out strong. We want to be at the top of the BIG EAST, not the bottom.
Everyone is just going to have to step up a little more. Everyone is going to step up in their own ways and in their own roles and we’re going to put things together at the right time and hopefully make a deep run in the tournament.”