Monday, May 10, 2010

Greg McDermott Kicks P'allen Stinnett Off Creighton

Greg McDermott has not waited long before putting his stamp on Creighton by kicking P'Allen Stinnett off the team. In some sense, this is a surprising move: Stinnett has been a star at Creighton ever since he put up 12.6 points per game as a freshman. At the same time, he has plateaued as a player, and his bad attitude has begun to wear thin at the school. None of the Creighton fans seem too upset to see him go, with the story of the day being a crude facebook posting he made after finding out he was off the team (I'm not going to link to it, but you can do a facebook search for his profile, which is public).

I can understand McDermott wanting to make sure he has the right personalities on his team going forward, and it will probably benefit the team in the long run. But for the time being Creighton is now down a key scorer and ball handler, and they were a team that was going to head into the season with an excellent shot at the NCAA Tournament. I had projected them to finish in second place in the MVC in 2010-11. They'll probably run the offense through Kenny Lawson, another rising-senior, who had passed Stinnett as the best player on the team anyway. Antoine Young is an interesting young player who will have to become the new primary ball handler in the backcourt. If Young can expand his game, if Lawson continues to improve and dominate the paint, and if the removal of Stinnett improves the team attitude and morale, then there's no reason Creighton can't still make the NCAA Tournament in 2011.

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