By Lee Strawther
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
Having a parent as your head coach on any level isn’t for everyone, but that didn’t get in Doug McDermott’s way during his four years playing for his father at Creighton University.
Douglas Richard McDermott was born January 3, 1992 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where his father Greg was an assistant coach of the University of North Dakota’s men’s basketball team. Doug played basketball at Ames High School in Ames, Iowa alongside prep All-American Harrison Barnes, and the Little Cyclones won 53 consecutive games during the duo’s junior and senior seasons, winning consecutive Class 4A Iowa State titles in 2009 and 2010 in the process.
As a senior, McDermott averaged 20.1 points and 7.8 rebounds per game and was named first team All-State.
A three-star prep recruit according to ESPN.com, McDermott was rated the No. 28 small forward in the nation his senior year where he averaged 20.1 points and 7.8 rebounds per game and was named first team All-State.
Originally, he signed a National Letter of Intent to play for nearby Northern Iowa University after high school, but after his father became head coach at Creighton, he was released from that commitment in order to play for the Bluejays.
“How would you feel about playing me two or three times a year,” he recalls his father asking him after accepting the Creighton job. “If you’re going to be in the same conference I’d rather be playing for you,” he responded. The rest is history.
As a freshman (2010-11) McDermott started all 39 games while averaging 14.9 points and 7.2 rebounds per contest. The 6-7, 225-pound forward set a Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) record for points by a freshman (581) and was named both conference freshman and newcomer of the year. He also became the first player to earn first team all-conference honors as a freshman since 1954.
Prior to his sophomore season, McDermott was named to the preseason watch lists for the prestigious John R. Wooden and James Naismith Player of the Year Awards, and by season’s end was not only named the MVC Player of the Year, but also a first team All-American, the first Creighton player honored as such by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
McDermott finished his second season averaging 22.9 points per game, ranking third nationally, and his 801 points, 307 field goals, and 48.6 percent shooting from behind the three-point line were all school records for a single season. Creighton finished the year with a 29-6 record and advanced to the third round of the NCAA tournament.
As a junior (2012-13) McDermott led the nation in total points scored (835) and was second in scoring (23.2 ppg) while setting school records for points in a single season and in a career. He was again named a first-team All-American, and in late April 2013 he announced he would not enter the 2013 NBA draft and would return to Creighton for his senior season.
Dubbed “Dougie McBuckets,” during his time as a Bluejay, he was named one of the 10 semi-finalists for Naismith Award On Senior Night against Providence, he scored a career-high 45 points and passed the 3,000 point threshold.
Leading the country in scoring at 26.7 ppg, McDermott was named a First-Team All-Big East Conference selection in Creighton’s first season in the league and won the conference Player of the Year award, as well as earning First-Team All-American honors by U.S. Basketball Writers Association for a third time. He would go on to become the consensus national player of the year, winning all of the major awards (Wooden, Naismith, AP, NABC, USBWA, and Sporting News).
“Like any dad, my dad can be annoying; he can be a pest,” he would say of playing for his father. “But he’s doing it for all the right reasons.”
By the conclusion of his college career, McDermott ranked fifth on the all-time NCAA Division I scoring list with 3,150 points, surpassing basketball hall-of-famer Larry Bird. He became the first player in 29 years to be named to the AP All-America first team three times and is one of only three players in NCAA men’s basketball history to record 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. He also set an NCAA record by scoring in double figures in 135 games.
After graduating from Creighton McDermott was selected with the 11th overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft by the Denver Nuggets but was traded to the Chicago Bulls. He went on to play two and a half seasons for the Bulls before being traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder in February 2017. McDermott also played for the New York Knicks, Dallas Mavericks, Indiana Pacers, and San Antonio Spurs and is currently on a one year contract with the Sacramento Kings.
At the end of the day McDermott doesn’t see his basketball journey as being all that complicated. “My dad has been coaching basketball my whole life, so I was born into the game,” he penned in a 2017 article for the Des Moines Register.
It doesn’t get much simpler than that.