Your father is the coach and you get to shine at Madison Square Garden and treat the throng that trekked all the way from Omaha to cheer their humble star. Suddenly, their Broadway Doug, their McBuckets, was there to put on another show, this time on the biggest stage, the Big East Tournament stage that once belonged to Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin and Pearl Washington, to Looie Carnesecca and his sweater and Big John Thompson with that white towel slung over his shoulder and the frumpled Rollie and the whiny young Boeheim.
It’s a new Big East, and there aren’t nearly enough Creighton alums to electrify the Garden the way Syracuse did, but if you bring us a Doug McDermott, we will watch every time.
He is not Larry Bird, because no one is, even if he has passed him on the career NCAA scoring list, even if they like to call him Dougie Legend. But he usually finds the ball, and the ball usually finds him, and it only seems as though he is aiming at a basket larger for him than it is for everybody else.
And playing the Garden in a Big East Championship game was a treat no kid growing up in Ames, Iowa, possibly could have imagined, no less a kid who loves the big stage and lives for the biggest games and relishes this maddening March opportunity that could put an exclamation point on his legacy.
McDermott can beat you inside and out, every which way but loose, and if he gets hot, you bet he can carry these Bluejays to a Final Four, the way Bird carried Indiana State in 1977, the way Danny Manning carried the Miracles for Larry Brown and Kansas in 1988.
But first he had to carry his team past the ironmen of Providence College, a team deserving of an NCAA Tournament bid, but no lock to receive an invitation if it lost to Creighton.
He had no idea he would be McBewitched, McBothered and McBewildered. McBottled. And McBeaten, 65-58.
Dance, Friars, dance.
“I think the highlight of our season is yet to come,” McDermott said.
It sure wasn’t Saturday night.
The Friars came out with the desperation of a school that hadn’t won a Big East title in 20 years, that didn’t want to be on anybody’s bubble, riddled with anxiety on Selection Sunday, that had refused to let injuries and suspensions ruin them. Ironmen with an iron will.
So it was the indefatigable Bryce Cotton (23 points, Most Outstanding Player) who first decided that maybe this didn’t have to McDermott’s night after all, now did it?
At a time when McDermott (27 points) struggled to find even the tiniest cracks in the unexpected Providence zone, Cotton exploded with a wire-to-wire lay-in, a left-wing 3 and a right wing jumper and Ed Cooley, the coach, was on the court after a timeout was called with 6:54 left in the half greeting his ironman with both fists clenched and quivering, fire in his eyes, the Friars crowd roaring, and they would never look back.
“I thought we were panicking, almost,” McDermott said.
It was Providence 26, Creighton 17 at the half. There are plenty of nights when McDermott, a 26.9 point-per-game scorer, a 3,000-point scorer, gets 17 in the first half himself. He had nine points in this half, on 4-of-9 shooting, 1-of-6 from downtown Omaha.
“That zone kind of threw us off to start the game,” McDermott said.
Now Cotton, who had been 6-for-24 from the floor against St. John’s and Seton Hall, converted a McDermott turnover into a three-point play and then a 3. Then came a crossover dribble that led to a converted four-point play. It was 40-29.
“Bryce Cotton was Superman in the second half,” Cooley said.
McDermott was having trouble getting the ball, the Friars were making the other guys beat them. Finally, he got the ball, and drained an NBA 3.
“He’s an amazing, amazing player,” Cooley said.
Inside nine minutes. McDermott drilled a long 3. Down 7 now. McDermott sank a pair of free throws. Down 5. A Cotton driving layin. Up 7.
McDermott ran into a LaDontae Henton pick and splattered on the court. He got up wincing, then clapping on defense. Down 4.
Inside three minutes left. Down 6. McDermott needed the ball now. He got it. McDermott banged a long 3 from the right side. Down 3.
“You almost have to have a man-and-a-half around him,” Cooley said.
Then McDermott hit another long 3. Down 2. Henton coolly answered with a huge jumper. Up 4. Just 45.6 seconds left. McDermott launched a 30-foot prayer around a pick on Cotton. Off the front rim.
“I really thought we were going to win that game,” McDermott said.
Providence College did too.
Cotton was wearing the net around his neck when he said: “God definitely came through for us.”
It took Divine Providence to beat Doug McDermott.