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So, is Creighton trying to overcome the rep of being soft by being dirty?

Norm Peterson

By Norm Peterson
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Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Here's an article that appeared in the OWH after their NCAA tourney loss to No Carolina in March 2012.  http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120318/BLUEJAYS/703189808/-1

 

In that game, there were several instances in which Creighton players were on the delivering end of controversial contact including:  Echinique knocking over Zeller; Gibbs hitting John Henson's previously-injured wrist; and Wragge decking Kendall Marshall on a drive to the bucket that caused Marshall to sustain a fractured wrist.

 

Here are some quotes from the linked article:

 

As to the Gibbs incident with Henson: 

 

Henson, who missed the last three games with an injured wrist, received a technical foul after protesting when Gibbs slapped his wrist in a battle for a loose ball.

"I thought the whistle blew and one of their players slapped down on my wrist three or four times," Henson said. "I don't know if it was purposeful or not, but I thought it was unnecessary and it got me a little fired up."

 

After the technical foul was called on Henson, Gibbs was seen winking at the CU bench.  As to which Gibbs was quoted in the above article stating:

 

"I was reacting to him getting the technical," said Gibbs, explaining the wink. "It's like when I got (Evansville's) Colt Ryan to get one early in the season. I'm an instigator, I guess."

 

In that same article, they discussed Wragge decking Kendall Marshall, and here's what Wragge said about it in the OWH article: 

 

Wragge said he wasn't trying to injure Marshall on the play, which occurred with about 11 minutes to play. Marshall and Wragge collided as the North Carolina guard was making a hard drive to the basket.

"He split the middle and was coming hard down the lane," Wragge said. "I moved over to try to block the shot, we collided and he hit the court."

 

A slo-mo replay of the Wragge incident shows Wragge jogging towards the basket from about the top of the key and Marshall following in behind him getting ready to blow past him.  Wragge turns and sees Marshall about ready to blow by and as Marshall goes airborne, Wragge gives him a forearm shiver with his right arm into Marshall's chest, knocking Marshall off balance and causing him to land hard.  Wragge's right arm is nowhere near the ball and really not in a position to make any kind of play on the ball.  It was a hard foul.  Plain and simple.

 

At the very end of the article, there's this:

 

The irony of the postgame hullabaloo is that Creighton rarely is recognized for its on-court toughness. The Bluejays are more apt to be called a bunch of softies than thugs.

"When was the last time you heard a Creighton team being called too tough?'' Rasmusen said.

 

Which sounds to me like an endorsement of unmitigated jackassery.  But not quite as blunt and unambiguously supportive of thuggish behavior as the head coach tweeting props to a player for getting ejected after committing a flagrant foul.  I think there's an unmistakable message in all of this.  And I don't think it speaks very highly for the Creighton team and its coach.

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Norm Peterson
Norm Peterson

Here's an article that appeared in the OWH after their NCAA tourney loss to No Carolina in March 2012.  http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120318/BLUEJAYS/703189808/-1   In that game,

hhcmatt
hhcmatt

His MRI revealed that he is indeed a jerk

49r
49r

I wish I could have any kind of emotion about this.  But I don't.  I simply don't care.

royalfan

royalfan

Posted
Posted

Gibbs is just a dirty asshole.  He is still a pussy, but he is a cheapshot artist.  Thinks he is so damn important.  But he isn't.  No team with him playing that much is ever going far in a dance.  Simply not a good enough athlete for NCAA tourney ball and a big reason they have struggled in the tourney.   Being dirty is a far cry from being tough.  They are a very soft team and this won't change by trying the tough guy act.  I will love it when someone wipes that shit eating grin off his face for good. 

 

I would love to play this ahole in a pickup game.  I am very equipped to play that kind of game and he would not like me very much when it was over, I can guarantee you that. 

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Royal, it goes without saying that Gibbs is a dirty asshole.  That's one of those "self-evident truths" like "all men are created equal."  In fact, I think "Grant Gibbs is a dirty asshole" was in Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

 

But that doesn't really answer the question.  The question is whether Creighton thinks that, by being dirty, they can shed the reputation of being soft.  And is that what they're trying to do?  Are they trying to prove they aren't soft by being dirty assholes?

hal9000

hal9000

Posted
Posted

Norm, my personal opinion is that they diliberately have certain players who engage in this cheap bulls@&$! because they are trying get inside their opponents head.  They are not-so-subtly trying to get them so pissed off that they focus more on getting even than playing basketball.  It's the whole Kurt Ramis/Bill Lambier thing.  I've played basketball all my life, and I've come up against douche wads like this.  I have no doubt this is a directive from the coach, which I'm sure the players approve of wholeheartedly.  His classless tweet pretty much proves it.

 

That said, I don't doubt that this "soft" stigma bothers them and is also a motivating factor in this kind of pussy tactics. 

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Geez, taa, would you puh-lease get the whole quote in there? 

 

It's a self-evident truth that Gibbs is a dirty asshole.  Just like "all men are created equal."  Just quoting the "it was in the Declaration" part doesn't provide enough context. 

  • 4 weeks later...
huskerbaseball13

huskerbaseball13

Posted
Posted

Speaking of dirty, CU resident "tough guy" Grant Gibbs went down with an apparent knee injury last night.  He might need a 7th year now.

 

#karma

 

 

Saw that this morning.....first thing I thought of was Karma as well.  For a guy that has tried to further injure others and is proud of being an "instigator".....I'd say he had this coming. 

GoBigRed

GoBigRed

Posted
Posted

Best part about Gibbs' injury: according to his own team's fans, he grabbed a guy's arm going for a rebound, and the DePaul player was none too happy about it and let him know. Gibbs ends up watching the rest of the game on crutches.

atskooc

atskooc

Posted
Posted

I wish I could have any kind of emotion about this.  But I don't.  I simply don't care.

You have summed up my feelings about all things Creighton.

 

I don't care enough about them to even hate them.

GoBigRed

GoBigRed

Posted
Posted

 

Best part about Gibbs' injury: according to his own team's fans, he grabbed a guy's arm going for a rebound, and the DePaul player was none too happy about it and let him know. Gibbs ends up watching the rest of the game on crutches.

 

His MRI revealed that he is indeed a jerk

 

 

I laughed out loud. Thanks for that, Dimes!

huskerbaseball13

huskerbaseball13

Posted
Posted

Just a dislocated kneecap, he'll be back, sorry to disappoint.

 

Not dissappointed at all......Gibbs is going to most likely miss the majority of creightons conference games and when he does come back he will be lucky to be at 100%.  Couldn't have happened to a better person.  Perhaps he will think twice about poking at other players injuries now....nahhh, I doubt it.  #karma

  • 2 weeks later...
GoBigRed

GoBigRed

Posted
Posted

Mose, so would Villanova finish last in the SWAC? Just curious, since your fellow Bluejays claimed when they went off on us that SWAC teams were better than us. Now that Creighton went ON THE ROAD and opened up a 40-point lead at Villanova, that must mean Villanova is worse than every SWAC team then, right? SWAC must be looking at 7 or 8 bids this year?

 

;)

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Mose is good folks and he shouldn't have to defend every a-hole Creighton fan out there.  There's something about the Bluejay message boards, though, that really draws out the worst in them.  And I think it pre-dates Matty Perrault, although I think he exacerbated things.  I don't know why it is, but the conversations I see over there about other teams (thanks to 49r for posting links or I wouldn't have found the place) reflect a peculiar meanness and pettiness that doesn't speak very well of their message board posters in general (which is quite different from their fans in general.) 

 

I kind of watched from the distance as they ripped into Creighton Fan after he got banned from over here.  It's like they eat their own over there if they don't genuflect at the altar of Greg McDermott.  Sometimes I post things in the heat of emotion that, on reflection, I'm not proud of and wouldn't want my kids to see.  But Lincoln Jay and some of his cohort over there post things in the sober light of day that I would be ashamed to have associated with my name.

49r

49r

Posted
Posted

It's kind of the "little man" syndrome, I think.  

 

There's a faction (vocal minority, if you will) of them who feel slighted for whatever reason by the media and et cetera and take it upon themselves to make their displeasure known.  It's childish, that behavior, but it's not terribly unique I suppose.

 

Cousin Mose and one or two level-headed fans who post over here from time to time belie that characteristic and it's good to have their input.  But yeah, for the most part the Creighton message board is a cesspool.  I haven't been back since the first half of our game with them.

SOB

SOB

Posted
Posted

Here's an article that appeared in the OWH after their NCAA tourney loss to No Carolina in March 2012.  http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120318/BLUEJAYS/703189808/-1

 

In that game, there were several instances in which Creighton players were on the delivering end of controversial contact including:  Echinique knocking over Zeller; Gibbs hitting John Henson's previously-injured wrist; and Wragge decking Kendall Marshall on a drive to the bucket that caused Marshall to sustain a fractured wrist.

 

Here are some quotes from the linked article:

 

As to the Gibbs incident with Henson: 

 

Henson, who missed the last three games with an injured wrist, received a technical foul after protesting when Gibbs slapped his wrist in a battle for a loose ball.

"I thought the whistle blew and one of their players slapped down on my wrist three or four times," Henson said. "I don't know if it was purposeful or not, but I thought it was unnecessary and it got me a little fired up."

 

After the technical foul was called on Henson, Gibbs was seen winking at the CU bench.  As to which Gibbs was quoted in the above article stating:

 

"I was reacting to him getting the technical," said Gibbs, explaining the wink. "It's like when I got (Evansville's) Colt Ryan to get one early in the season. I'm an instigator, I guess."

 

In that same article, they discussed Wragge decking Kendall Marshall, and here's what Wragge said about it in the OWH article: 

 

Wragge said he wasn't trying to injure Marshall on the play, which occurred with about 11 minutes to play. Marshall and Wragge collided as the North Carolina guard was making a hard drive to the basket.

"He split the middle and was coming hard down the lane," Wragge said. "I moved over to try to block the shot, we collided and he hit the court."

 

A slo-mo replay of the Wragge incident shows Wragge jogging towards the basket from about the top of the key and Marshall following in behind him getting ready to blow past him.  Wragge turns and sees Marshall about ready to blow by and as Marshall goes airborne, Wragge gives him a forearm shiver with his right arm into Marshall's chest, knocking Marshall off balance and causing him to land hard.  Wragge's right arm is nowhere near the ball and really not in a position to make any kind of play on the ball.  It was a hard foul.  Plain and simple.

 

At the very end of the article, there's this:

 

The irony of the postgame hullabaloo is that Creighton rarely is recognized for its on-court toughness. The Bluejays are more apt to be called a bunch of softies than thugs.

"When was the last time you heard a Creighton team being called too tough?'' Rasmusen said.

 

Which sounds to me like an endorsement of unmitigated jackassery.  But not quite as blunt and unambiguously supportive of thuggish behavior as the head coach tweeting props to a player for getting ejected after committing a flagrant foul.  I think there's an unmistakable message in all of this.  And I don't think it speaks very highly for the Creighton team and its coach.

Something tells me the answer to this thread question is "no".  Watched the replay of that Nova gameon my DVR , it was an absolute pure beatdown of the stuffy pro wrassling style old Big East. no cheapshots needed. Very fun to watch those schools have to deal with those guys. 

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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Posted

Did they look physical during the Nova game, though?  I saw a lot of highlights (which is no substitute for watching the game, of course) but in the highlights they were knocking down a lot of 3 bombs and making a lot of finesse plays on the offensive end.  That was neither physical nor punk.

 

There's a difference between playing physical and playing like a punk.  Gibbs was sort of their punk in lieu of a physical player and he's out right now, I guess, so maybe they're not trying to be "physical" without him.  Beating Nova doesn't mean they were being physical to do it, though.  But props to them for a big win.

 

I know they're enjoying this run, and they should.  I kind of liken it to the '97 Championship we had in football.  They better enjoy it because it could be a very long time before they have the players again to put together the kind of season they're having this year.  These kinds of teams don't come around that often for programs not named Duke or Kentucky or Kansas, etc.

Norm Peterson

Norm Peterson

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One stat about Creighton that might say something about how physical a team they are:  Nearly half of their shot attempts (495 out of 1099) are from beyond the arc.  Nearly half.  About 5 out of every 11 shots they take.

 

Don't compare that to us.  Clearly, we don't have the shooters.  Compare that, instead, to a team that they would consider to be closer to their caliber:  Michigan State.  Michigan State has attempted 1141 FGs this year and only 379 were from three.  Which is about like 4 out of every 12 shots.

 

Or Wisconsin.  Of Wisconsin's 984 FG attempts, only 378 have been from beyond the arc. 

 

In all of D1 basketball, only VMI has more 3 pt attempts on the season than Creighton.  (There is some disparity between the NCAA stats and those available on ESPN, by the way.)  Thing is, Creighton has two guys with over 100 3-pt attempts and another guy with more than 80, and they're all seniors.  The guy with the next most 3-pt attempts is a junior who has only 42.

 

So, Creighton is going to need to find another way to score points next year.  Be interesting to see how they do it. 

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