McDermott owns a 365-188 record in 16 years at Creighton, moving his career mark to 645-383 in 32 seasons as a head coach at Wayne State (1994-2000), North Dakota State (2000-2001), Northern Iowa (2001-2006), Iowa State (2006-2010) and Creighton (2010-2026). The Cascade, Iowa, native became Creighton’s all-time wins leader on Nov. 13, 2024, when he passed predecessor Dana Altman with his 328th win.
During his time at Creighton McDermott led the Bluejays to 14 seasons of 20-plus wins and 12 NCAA Tournament wins in 10 NCAA Tournament trips, including one Elite Eight (2022-2023) and three Sweet 16 appearances (2020-2021, 2022-2023, 2023-2024). Creighton has 21 victories in 14 postseason trips overall under McDermott, taking two teams to the NIT quarterfinals and one to the CBI final. That doesn’t take into account the 2019-2020 season, when Creighton won a share of its lone BIG EAST title to date and was ranked seventh nationally before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the NCAA Tournament.
In addition to the 2019-2020 BIG EAST regular-season title, Creighton also won the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season crown in 2012-2013 as well as the Valley Tournament title in both 2012 and 2013.
McDermott helped transition Creighton from the Missouri Valley Conference to the BIG EAST in 2013. The Bluejays rank second in league victories in that time and its active streak of 10 straight top-five BIG EAST finishes ranks as the third-longest streak in league history and the best by any program in 35 years. Creighton has met or exceeded its preseason poll prediction in 11 of 13 years in the BIG EAST. McDermott’s 147 league victories rank sixth in the storied history of the BIG EAST, trailing only Naismith Hall of Fame inductees Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Jay Wright, John Thompson and Rick Pitino.
Creighton has produced three NBA First Round picks (Doug McDermott, Justin Patton, Baylor Scheierman) and three NBA Second Round picks (Khyri Thomas, Marcus Zegarowski, Ryan Kalkbrenner) during his tenure. His son, Doug McDermott, was a three-time First Team All-American and was named National Player of the Year following the 2013-2014 season as he finished with 3,150 career points, ranking fifth in NCAA history at the time.
Creighton has been a fixture in the Top 25 under McDermott, spending 121 weeks in the Associated Press rankings. His teams have produced 43 Top-25 victories, with 17 Top-10 wins, including triumphs over No. 1 Connecticut and No. 1 Kansas in 2024.
