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• Pay tribute to CU point guard Antoine Young and fellow seniors Ross Ferrarini, Matt Dorwart and Derek Sebastian by cutting out these photos and mounting them on cardboard or poster board. Attach them to a stick and you're good to go for Tuesday night's final home game.

• Senior point guard Antoine Young (PDF)
• Senior forward Matt Dorwart (PDF)
• Senior guard Ross Ferrarini (PDF)
• Senior guard/forward Derek Sebastian (PDF)

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Too many times these days, a college basketball player's legacy is defined by four letters: NCAA.

How a player is ultimately remembered by a fan base often is tied to whether he got his team to college basketball's grandest stage in March. Especially if that player is a point guard, such as Creighton's Antoine Young.

Young knew that coming into his senior season. The Bluejays had fallen short of making the NCAA tournament his first three seasons in the program. He told everyone and anyone before the season that his goal was not to be watching March Madness on television this season.

"I don't think there's any doubt that has been a driving force for Antoine this year," said Doug Woodard, Young's old high school coach at Bellevue West. "Fair or not, I think there's been a feeling that the team underachieved a year or two along the way.

"I think that's what makes this so special, not only for him but for all their guys. It's been a dream year, and hopefully they can finish with a run in the Missouri Valley tournament and get a good seed for the NCAA tournament."

As he prepares to play his final regular-season home game Tuesday night, Young knows that the Bluejays still need to do a little work to get back in the NCAA field for the first time since 2007. But most of the heavy lifting has been done, and it was Young who might have provided the last big shove to get Creighton over the hump.

Young's basket with three-tenths of a second to play Saturday night gave Creighton an 81-79 BracketBusters win over Long Beach State.

"It's been a tremendous year so far," Young said. "We've had a little bump in the road, but that Long Beach State team we just beat is a tremendous team. It's probably the best team we've played all year.

"Beating them was important for us to give us a little leeway for getting into the tournament."

Young has made plenty of big shots and big passes over the past four seasons, but the basket he hit against Long Beach will provide him a "SportsCenter" highlight that he can replay in his head the rest of his life.

"That one was special," Young said. "I've kind of dreamed about making big shots in front of the home crowd in my hometown. It's crazy that it actually came true.

"It's just as crazy that it all eventually has to come to an end."

No player in program history has enjoyed a longer association with the Bluejays than has Young, who became Creighton's youngest basketball commitment when he informed former coach Dana Altman that he would accept a scholarship offer weeks before his sophomore year began at Bellevue West.

He played pick-up games with his future teammates over the next couple of summers before joining the program in 2008. He played all but one of Creighton's 35 games as a true freshman, averaging 4.9 assists per game as a backup to Josh Dotzler, another former Bellevue West point guard.

Young took over as a starter as a sophomore, averaging 7.1 points and 3.1 assists per game. His role changed last season when Greg McDermott became Creighton's coach, and he finished second on the team in scoring (13.1 points per game) and averaged 5.0 assists per game.

Young had to make another adjustment this season, one reason McDermott values what the player has been able to do in his two seasons as coach.

"We needed him to score every night as a junior, and if he didn't, we were going to have a hard time winning," McDermott said. "This season, he has become more of a distributor who also has to have the ability to score.

"And he's become more of a leader, which we desperately needed as well."

Young enters Tuesday's 7:05 p.m. game against Evansville second on the team with an 11.6 scoring average. He's also averaging 4.4 assists per game and ranks among the national leaders in assist-to-turnover ratio.

Earlier this season, Young became the 35th player in school history to score 1,000 points. He now has 1,245 to rank 22nd on the career scoring chart, and his 472 assists put him third behind Ryan Sears (570) and Ralph Bobik (549).

Sears, who finished his career in 2001 with 1,309 points, and Young are the only players in program history with at least 1,000 points and 425 assists.

"Antoine has always been a gifted scorer, and that part of the game has always come easy for him," said Bellevue West's Woodard. "He's also been good at getting other people shots. Watching him these past four years, I think he's become more mature and knowledgeable in picking his spots.

"He knows when it's time to get his offense going, just as he knows when it's time to get the ball to a teammate that's hot or has a matchup advantage. He's always been a good point guard, but his decision-making has improved over the years."

In some ways, Young's final season has required the biggest adjustments. The continued emergence of Doug McDermott as the Bluejays' primary scoring threat has diminished some of the need for Young to be a big scorer.

The addition of Grant Gibbs also has taken some of the pressure off Young as a distributor. Gibbs leads the Bluejays with an average of 5.6 assists.

Young molded his game this season into one in which he focuses on what needs to be done at various times during games.

"I've tried to get my teammates involved and find the open person," Young said. "At the same time, when things get a little rough, I know it's time for me to get a little more aggressive.

"That's when I become more of a scoring point guard as opposed to just a point guard. I think some people struggle to do that, but Coach has kind of given me the reins and trusted my confidence. He's trusted me to play and make plays."

McDermott honored

The Missouri Valley named Creighton forward Doug McDermott its player of the week Monday, while the Bluejays crept closer to a return to the national ratings.

McDermott averaged 27.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in the Bluejays' wins last week over Southern Illinois and Long Beach State.

It's the fifth time this season the Valley has honored McDermott. The league record is six by Bradley's Hersey Hawkins in the 1987-88 season, when he was named national player of the year.

Creighton continued to receive votes in both the Associated Press and USA Today-ESPN rankings. The Bluejays were 26th in voting for the AP's Top 25, while they were 27th in the coaches poll. They were 28th in both polls last week.

Creighton's NCAA RPI ranking dropped a spot to 28th.

The Bluejays continue to lead the nation in field-goal percentage (.511), while ranking third in 3-point percentage (.428) and assists per game (18.3) and eighth in scoring (79.9 points per game).

Creighton also ranks seventh in average attendance at 16,679 per game.

McDermott remains the country's third-leading scorer with a 23.2 average. He also is seventh in field-goal percentage (.617), 67th in free-throw percentage (.833) and 68th in rebounds per game (8.3).

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com

twitter.com/PivOWH

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