*Great thoughts coming from the point guard position:
Put 10 Creighton basketball fans in a room, and it likely wouldn't take long before the conversation gravitated to who should start at point guard this season for the Bluejays.Josh Dotzler or Cavel Witter? Cavel Witter or Josh Dotzler?Save your breath, Dotzler and Witter would tell the fans. The questions of who starts and how the coaches divide the playing time do not distract the pair from focusing on more important things.
"Honestly for me, it really doesn't matter," said Dotzler, the senior from Bellevue West who has started 61 of 82 career games. "It's all about winning, and I think Cavel feels the same way, too."We're just going to try to do what the coaches ask of us. Obviously, we're totally two different kind of players."
Witter, who came off the bench 33 times last season, chuckled when the subject was brought up. He then echoed Dotzler's comments."Let's not worry about who's starting," he said. "All we're worried about is trying to win games. I'm going out there trying to do all I can with the minutes I get. The last thing I'm worried about is starting or anything like that."
For now, Witter's primary focus is on getting healthy. He sprained an ankle Tuesday and will likely miss at least a week of practice."Right now, there's not much to talk about because we don't know how long Cavel is going to be out," coach Dana Altman said.
When Witter is ready to play, Altman knows he'll have a pair of guards who bring decidedly different skills to the table. Witter, a 6-foot junior from Kansas City, is capable of providing instant offense. He scored 42 points — the most by a Missouri Valley player since 1999 — in Creighton's double-overtime win over Bradley last season.
Witter also hit the game-winning shot with 3.2 seconds to play that lifted the Bluejays to a 74-73 win over Rhode Island in the National Invitation Tournament. Overall, he finished his first season as a Bluejay fourth on the team in scoring with a 9.1 average. His 87 assists ranked second behind Dotzler's 118.Distributing and defense have always been Dotzler's strong points. Healthy last season after battling injuries as a freshman and sophomore, Dotzler ranked among the Valley leaders in assists (eighth, 3.6 per game) and steals (fifth, 1.6 per game).
But Dotzler's offensive skills frustrate some CU fans. He shot 30.4 percent from the field and 13 percent from 3-point range in averaging 3.4 points per game last season. He enters his senior season with a 3.9 career scoring average and shooting percentages of .340 for all field-goal attempts and .264 for 3-point shots.
"For three years now, I've never been a huge offensive guy," Dotzler said. "I'd like to be a little more aggressive offensively because it would help the team out, but that's not my main focus. Never really has been."Coming into my senior year, I'm going to try to do whatever it takes to win the game, whether that's defense, whether that's getting someone else the ball or whether that's being more aggressive offensively."
Witter and Altman say fans who solely focus on Dotzler's lack of offense are short-changing him."He's a really good general on the floor," Witter said. "He makes sure the other players are in the right place on the floor, and he does a lot of things that people don't talk about. I learn so much from Josh every day. I watch him to try to make myself a better player."
Altman wants the 6-foot-1 Dotzler to be more productive offensively this season."There's no one that wants to do it more than Josh, and no one that puts in any more time than he does," Altman said. "A lot of our fans don't see all the positives that he gives us. Offensively, he has to be more productive this year."He just has to relax, be patient, pick the ones (shots) he likes and knock 'em down."
Dotzler was productive on offense as a freshman, averaging 6.4 points and shooting 41.5 percent from the field and 39.5 percent from 3-point range in his first 23 games. He suffered a season-ending knee injury in mid-February 2006, underwent surgery in May and struggled throughout his sophomore season to regain his freshman form.A finger injury that required surgery in December 2006 didn't help.
"He's been through a lot," Altman said.
Dotzler started all 33 games last season and averaged 21.3 minutes per game. His court time diminished toward the end of the season when Witter put together six double-figure scoring games in CU's last eight games, including the 42-point night against Bradley.
"Cavel has put in the hard work to make himself a better player," Dotzler said. "That's why I didn't have a problem with that. It would be hard to see someone else playing in front of you if you knew they weren't putting in the work. But that's not Cavel. He's dedicated to getting better and winning."
As far as Witter is concerned, he and Dotzler complement each other and complicate things for Creighton opponents.
"We're two different styles of players," Witter said, "and that makes it hard for a defense to adapt to either one of us."
-Courtesy of the Omaha World Herald
