Men's Basketball

Halftime in the Big East (Part I): Creighton’s First Nine Games

Ed. Note: This is the first of a three-part series on the first half of the Big East slate. Today, we’ll look back at Creighton’s first nine games. On Wednesday, we’ll look at how the other nine teams have fared. And on Thursday, we’ll look ahead to the backstretch of the schedule for Creighton, and whether they can avoid a February swoon.

When it was announced that the Big East would play a round robin schedule, no one figured it would work out like this for Creighton — playing every team once during a 29-day span, then taking a nine-day break before playing rematches against all nine teams. Rarely, if ever, do you get such a clean delineation between the first half of the season and the second. For the Bluejays, a team that has suffered three-game losing streaks in each of the last two February’s, having such a break in their first season in the league would seem to be a huge advantage.

The only team to beat them the first trip through was Providence; Creighton owns road wins over Seton Hall, DePaul, and #4 Villanova, and home wins over Marquette, Xavier, Butler, Georgetown and St. John’s. Contrary to what some people have written, Creighton doesn’t live and die by the three-point shot. They’ve won games in a lot of different fashions — with their defense, in grind-it-out battles, and yes, with their three-point shooting. Here’s a look back at their first trip through the Big East.

Creighton 67, Marquette 49 (December 31)

Doug McDermott hit a three-pointer on the Bluejays’ first offensive possession in the Big East, showing they intended to pick up in their new league right where they left off in their old one. Creighton led wire-to-wire in a game where Marquette was content to let them shoot as many jump shots as they desired — the Jays attempted 35 three-pointers, but were hardly red-hot, missing 22 of them.

Marquette came into the game shooting 45% from the field, and shot just 35% in this one. They also made 30% from behind the arc for the season entering the game, and made just 16% of their perimeter shots against CU. Jahenns Manigat did a terrific job of denying open looks to shooters, Avery Dingman was the physical presence on opposing wings that the Jays have sorely lacked the last two years, and Ethan Wragge and Will Artino held their own in the paint against much bigger, more physical players, boxing out on rebounds and moving their feet well to be in position to at least contest shots, if not stopping them. Oh, and they out-rebounded the Golden Eagles 38-36. All of that helped Creighton win by 18 on a night they shot just 40.3% overall, and 37% from behind the arc.

Creighton 79, Seton Hall 66 (January 4)

Three teams in the Big East have opted to play Doug McDermott straight-up, at least to start the game, this year. All have paid dearly for it. The first was Seton Hall, who defended him one-on-one during the first half of their game in New Jersey. McDermott promptly scored 11 of his team’s first 13 points, and wound up with 22 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal in the first half alone.

Austin Chatman was in foul trouble most of the game, and Devin Brooks turned in a solid performance in his place, playing 27 minutes with 11 points, four rebounds and just one turnover. Much like the game against Marquette, Creighton shot OK from three-point range, but not insanely well — they made 10-27 from behind the arc (37%). Half of their points came around the rim, as they outscored the Pirates 40-20 in the paint. They dominated on the interior, as a matter of fact. They out-rebounded them 38-27, held the Pirates to one — ONE — offensive rebound the entire game, and outscored them 19-2 on second-chance points.

Creighton 81, DePaul 62 (January 7)

The Bluejays’ were able to beat DePaul in Chicago by 19 points in spite of losing Grant Gibbs to a knee injury in the first half, and Doug McDermott being a non-factor before suffering an injury of his own. The Blue Demons held McDermott scoreless for the game’s first ten minutes, and to seven total points in the first half. Still, Creighton led 37-32 at the break.

Despite being barely able to lift his left arm above his head, McDermott came back and played 17 second-half minutes, scoring 12 points mostly on shots at close range, since his balky shoulder made jumpers difficult. Meanwhile in Gibbs’ absence, Devin Brooks started the second half, but made two careless turnovers in the first three minutes, opening the door for Avery Dingman. The junior turned in a transcendent half of basketball, finally combining the offensive production he displayed as a freshman with the defensive prowess that has earned him minutes this year. In 14 minutes of play, he scored 11 points on 4-5 shooting with four rebounds and a block, while continuing to play lock-down defense on opposing wings.

Creighton 95, Xavier 89 (January 12)

The Musketeers made four straight three-pointers to begin the game, taking a 12-0 lead thanks to a defensive gameplan that backfired — the Jays were doubling the post to keep the gigantic Matt Stainbrook from destroying them. But when Stainbrook calmly passed out of those double-teams to the resulting wide-open shooters on the perimeter, and those shooters hit shots, it was deadly. They switched away from that plan, and while Stainbrook got his, the Jays were able to keep the rest of the team in check enough to come back.

Ethan Wragge made sure of that, making five 3-pointers including three in a 62-second span in the second half, each one further away from the basket than the previous one. After the third of those treys, they’d outscored Xavier 52-29 since the opening haymaker, dominating the physical Musketeers on both ends of the floor. CU maintained a double-digit lead for most of the rest of the game, until late trouble inbounding the ball against Xavier’s full-court press made things interesting.

Creighton 88, Butler 60 (January 14)

Butler was the second team to try to stop Doug McDermott one-on-one, and it went about as well for them as it did for Seton Hall. The Bluejays’ throttling of Butler was the first conference win you could legitimately chalk up to overwhelming offensive efficiency, though ironically it was also one of their worst three-point shooting nights. They scored 53 first-half points on 30 possessions, or 1.76 points per possession — to put that in perspective, CU led the nation in offensive efficiency at 1.20 points per possession at that point, and the national average is somewhere near 1.0. All that despite shooting 7-19 from long range, and 0-7 in the second half. Live by the three, die by the three, eh?

Over the final 9 minutes and 47 seconds of the first half, they outscored Butler 32-6, including baskets on 14 straight possessions. McDermott had 13 points during the run, but he was hardly alone — Will Artino, Devin Brooks, Austin Chatman, Avery Dingman, Zach Hanson and Jahenns Manigat also contributed at least one basket. Led by Doug McDermott, who scored a sensational 63 points in 60 minutes in the homestand against Xavier and Butler, the Bluejays made 65 of 118 attempts from the field in the two games (55%). The Jays made 14 of 28 shots from behind the arc against the Musketeers, then followed that up by making 7 of 12 first-half three-pointers against Butler in a ruthless display of offensive production.

Providence 81, Creighton 68 (January 18)

Creighton’s lone loss over the first half of the Big East slate came at Providence. The Friars took the battle to the Jays from the opening tip, both on the scoreboard and on the glass. They dominated CU on the offensive boards, and often used their second chances not to get easy baskets but to slow the tempo and keep the Jays from running in transition — it seemed like all eleven times they grabbed an offensive rebound, they re-set the offense and took another 20-25 seconds off the clock. That prevented the Jays from running the floor to wear out the Friars, who played just seven players, and by slowing down the tempo, it didn’t allow Creighton to get into a rhythm on offense.

PC opened the second half on a 18-5 run, and the 26-7 run that spanned the last three minutes of the first half and the first six minutes of the second half was the difference in the game. Creighton had cut the deficit to one point prior to the run; by the time it was over, they trailed 55-35. They made just 4-19 from three-point range for the game, and though they tried several times to make a run, they simply couldn’t make enough shots, or get enough rebounds, to get over the hump.

Creighton 96, #4 Villanova 68 (January 20)

Over the last 20 years, Creighton’s blown out a lot of teams with relentless offense execution, usually three-pointers, but never on this big of a stage, and never to this extent. In front of a national TV audience on FoxSports1, they annihilated the #4 Villanova Wildcats in Philly with an avalanche of three-pointers in one of the most ridiculous displays you’ll ever see.

At the 13:55 mark of the first half, Ethan Wragge had already made seven three-pointers, was one point shy of his career-high in points, and the Bluejays had jumped out to a 27-8 lead. Wragge was like the basketball version of Tecmo Bo, impervious to defenders, impossible to stop, a one-man wrecking crew single-handedly overwhelming his team’s opponent.

After knocking the Wildcats to the mat with an onslaught of offense in the first half, they broke Villanova’s back in the second half with tremendous defense. Over the first 15 minutes of the second half, they allowed just 10 points to the second-highest scoring team in the Big East. Meanwhile, they continued scoring almost at will, putting together a 38-10 run to open the half en route to a 92-51 lead at the 5:33 mark.

Creighton 76, Georgetown 63 (January 25)

The Bluejays scored just seven points on their first 18 possessions against Georgetown, yet remained in the game because their defense didn’t allow the Hoyas to run away from them. On the perimeter, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera and Markel Starks were smothered (a combined 1-3 from three-point range in the first half), and when they drove the lane, they weren’t greeted any kinder, with CU getting solid post defense from Ethan Wragge and Will Artino (holding the Hoyas to just eight points in the paint during the first half).

With 14:46 to play, Wragge was on the bench with three fouls, McDermott was struggling to score, and the Hoyas were down by just six points. That’s when Will Artino, “Big Swag”, decided he’d seen enough. He sparked the 16-6 run that ultimately decided the game with a ferocious putback dunk to make it 44-36 — it re-ignited the crowd, re-energized his teammates and stalled the momentum G’Town had to start the half. On CU’s next possession, he made a layup to run the lead back out to ten, and added another layup later in the run for good measure. It had to be a demoralizing thought for John Thompson III that his team succeeded at stopping Doug McDermott (5-15, just 14 points) and Ethan Wragge (just three 3-pointers and 12 points) — yet still lost by 13 points.

When people say Creighton’s only as good as Doug McDermott is on a given night, or that they can only win when they make threes, point to the win over Georgetown as Exhibit A when you tell them it isn’t so.

Creighton 63, St. John’s 60 (January 28)

With that said, it’s awfully nice to have the best player in college basketball, and to have him put the team on his back from time to time. Against a physical, athletic Red Storm team that dared Doug McDermott to beat them single-handedly, he did just that. McDermott took 11 of Creighton’s 21 shots in the first half, and scored 20 of their 29 points. CU built an 18-point lead with 12 minutes to play in the game, as McDermott had as many points (30) as the Johnnies did as a team. Then things unraveled. St. John’s cut 10 points off the lead with a run, and a furious comeback over the game’s final three minutes tied the game.

Sloppy turnovers and poor defense by Creighton, combined with better shot selection by the Johnnies, had the homestanding Bluejays on the verge of an upset loss at home after they’d led by 18 points. On their final possession, with everyone in the building knowing who was going to take the final shot, McDermott got open thanks to a super-screen by Isaiah Zierden and hammered home a three-pointer for the win.

If John Thompson III was demoralized at the thought of stopping McDermott and Wragge yet still losing by 13, how do you think Steve Lavin felt after stopping literally everybody else on the team but giving up 39 points to McDermott to lose at the buzzer? This is a hard team to gameplan for, because they’ve proven to be capable of winning games so many different ways. It will be interesting to see if they’re as successful when they play these nine teams a second time, and coaches have a chance to scheme based on experience instead of scouting reports.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at how the rest of the Big East fared over the first half of the season in Part II.

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