Heading into the season, the power forward spot looked to be the biggest wildcard on the Creighton men’s basketball team with Mason Miller, Isaac Traudt and Jasen Green battling it out for playing time.
Then a hand injury sidelined Green for an extended period, and the race was down to two. Miller earned the starting role with Traudt backing him up.
Green missed the first four games, then saw spotty minutes upon his return, most of them coming late in blowouts with a few brief first-half stints here and there.
However, over the past three games, Traudt has been working at the back-up five spot while Miller has been working through a shoulder injury. That opened the door for Green to crack the rotation, and he’s working to make the most of the opportunity.
“I think Jasen’s going to be a really, really good player,” Coach Greg McDermott said before practice on Monday. “He missed, you could argue it’s probably the most important six weeks of the season, the last three weeks of [preseason] practice and the first three weeks of games. You’re adding so much stuff, there are so many reps that are important that time of year, and then you’re playing some teams where you can play a lot of guys and he wasn’t available at that time. So he missed a lot and basically, it’s his first year after redshirting last year, so it’s taken him some time to catch up. But defensively and on the back boards, I think you see what he brings to the table.”
At Providence, Green checked in at the 3:40 mark and played the rest of the first half, converting two put-backs. At Xavier, he grabbed another offensive rebound and drew two fouls in another four minutes of playing time.
“I’ve learned that every second I have on the court, I’ve just got to make it count because I don’t know if it’s going to be a couple minutes, it could be longer than that,” Green said about those first two games in the rotation. “I don’t know how long it’ll be so every second I’m on the court, I’ve got to make a difference whether it be rebounding, blocking, shots, boxing out; whatever it could possibly be, I’ve just got to do what I can.”
Before the Georgetown game, McDermott spoke to what Green had shown to earn his playing time.
“He’s done some really, really good things in practice when he’s on the scout team, and we’ve seen some strides in his game, and then when he’s had opportunities he’s made some things happen with his movement,” McDermott said. “His ability to get to the offensive glass and rebound on the defensive end is something that’s going to be needed for us as we move forward.”
He took another step forward against the Hoyas, playing a career-high 15 minutes and scoring a career-high seven points. He made both of his field goals and went 3-for-4 at the foul line while grabbing one rebound on each end and assisting a Baylor Scheierman 3-pointer. The Bluejays outscored the Hoyas by 15 points in his 15 minutes.
“Jason’s continued to work,” McDermott said before practice on Thursday. “We watch every practice after each practice on film, so sometimes when guys are on the scout team and maybe they don’t think we notice what’s going on, we definitely notice. It’s been obvious to us how much he’s improved and how much he’s grown and he’s gotten back to the point that he was before he got hurt and beyond. He brings a little different element to our team with his athleticism and ability to rebound and physicality, and he understands how to play.
“It’s been coming at the right time and I’m happy with him. It would have been easy for him to pack it in and look forward to next year and what I have to do in the offseason, but to his credit, he hasn’t done that.”
Before this last three-game stint, Green had played a total of 44 minutes in his career. In the first half against Providence, he was the first sub off the bench and played seven straight minutes before returning to the bench, the first real extended shift of his career. McDermott quipped he was probably a little tired by the end, but Green was grateful for the trust his coach showed in him.
“I feel like over the last two years I’ve kind of worked my way up and kind of earned some of those minutes,” Green said on Thursday. “So I feel like finally being rewarded for all the work I put in and everything I’ve done, it’s just a good feeling.”
Green spent his first year on campus redshirting and credited head coach of athletic performance Jeremy Anderson for getting him ready to compete physically in the Big East.
“Last year, I could tell just visually watching how physical it was going to be, but stepping on the court is a completely different thing because everybody wants to win on the court,” Green said. “You have to want it more than everybody else does. You have to be in the mindset like ‘I’m going to go get this ball, no one’s going to take it from me, I’m going to come down with it, I’m going to rip it out anybody’s hands if they try to take it back.’”
He did just that against Providence, ripping the ball out of a Friar’s hands for his first put-back. Miller has plenty of experience trying to box him out in practice and said it isn’t fun.
“Having him be able to go in the game and get those huge rebounds that he can do, he’s a great rebounder,” Miller said. “Moving IT to the five some so we can have some floor spacing at the five more … I’m definitely used to that in practice, having to box him out every single day. I just kind of know exactly what he’s going to do, and when he went in the game, he did exactly what he’s been doing in practice.”
