Before the Creighton basketball team will face St. John’s in the Big East championship game, head coach Gregg McDermott called out critics of his program after beating the UConn Huskies on Friday night. Consequently, as the game between the Creighton basketball team and the Huskies got heated, McDermott fires back at doubters who said the team was “soft.”
When speaking to the media after the victory, McDermott would clearly say that he has “some tough dudes in my locker room” and questions why some people think their defense is soft compared to UConn and St. John’s according to Matt DeMarinis.
“Our defense is a little different,” McDermott said. “You’ve got teams like UConn and St. John’s that play with a lot of pressure and a lot of physicality; force a lot of turnovers. For some reason they think the way we do it is soft. I got news for ya – I got some tough dudes in my locker room.”
“It takes toughness to execute defense the way we execute it,” McDermott continued. “We’re trying to win the analytical game at the free throw line and that takes mental toughness as well to understand that and be disciplined.”
Greg McDermott was asked about the first half offensive performance and breaking full-court press late in the game against UConn tonight.
He used that as an opportunity to set the record straight on how Creighton is perceived, and he said what he said with his whole chest. pic.twitter.com/a3NsVcuaeF
— 𝓜𝓪𝓽𝓽 𝓓𝓮𝓜𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓲𝓼 (@mjdemarinis) March 15, 2025
Dan Hurley shouts out Creighton basketball
Subsequently, there is some criticism towards the Creighton basketball team for a late dunk in the remaining seconds where the game was already decided, leading to a scuffle after the end. However, there wouldn’t be any bad blood between the programs as the player who dunked in the ball in Jamiya Neal apologized after, according to Fox.
“Yeah, definitely [I regret it],” Neal said. “I got caught up in the moment of the game. Just a lot of emotions going on, so yeah, I would like to apologize for that. I respect Coach Hurley and those guys over there… I apologize. Just got caught up in the moment there and I shouldn’t have done it.”
Still, Huskies head coach Dan Hurley would give credit to the Bluejays as being deserving of making it to the championship team as one of the two best teams in the conference according to Michael DeRosa.
“You don’t beat UConn a couple times in a season if you don’t have tough dudes. No, we don’t force a bunch of turnovers. No, we don’t get up under you. But there’s a method to our madness in what we’re doing and this group of guys has executed it extremely well as season long.”
“I think the two teams that are deserving to play for the championship are going to play,” Hurley said. “We were the third-best team, I guess, in the regular season. Third-best team doesn’t deserve to play for a championship.”
“We got exactly what we deserved, and that’s going home”
“We were the third best team”
Dan Hurley’s opening statement following a tough loss to Creighton. pic.twitter.com/HXnOcmDSGs
— Michael DeRosa (@MDtheDream) March 15, 2025
Correspondingly, Creighton looks to win the Big East crown Saturday against St. John’s.
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