On December 7, 2002, Creighton and BYU met up in Omaha, with one team (nearly) ranked and featuring a national player of the year candidate, while the other was a solid team hoping to pull off an upset. The Jays were ranked 26th in both the AP and the USA Today Coaches Poll that week, and would move into the Top 25 the next week, where they’d remain the rest of the season. And they were led, of course, by their dynamite perimeter shooter Kyle Korver.
Korver set an Omaha Civic Auditorium record that Saturday night, in its final season, by attempting 14 three-pointers. He’d wind up with 19 points and 11 rebounds in 35 stellar minutes; freshman Nate Funk scored 14 off the bench as he was red-hot from 15 feet and in, going 6-9 from the floor. The defensive intensity that Jays team showed all year was the difference, as they forced 23 Cougar turnovers and turned that into a 25-4 advantage in points off miscues. 8,529 fans saw the Jays come away with a 74-64 win over the previously undefeated Cougars, a win that would propel them into the Top 25 two days later. Come March, the win (along with one over Notre Dame) was one of the highlights of their resume, as BYU finished the season 24-8, losing to UCONN in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as an at-large team.
Tonight, the Jays and Cougars meet up for the first time since that 2002 battle, and once again, one team is ranked and featuring a national player of the year candidate, while the other is a solid team hoping to pull off an upset. Except this time, the script is flipped — it is BYU who is rated, and it is their superstar, Jimmer Fredette, who is one of the best players in America.
In the weeks and days leading up to tonight’s game, there’s been a mix of excitement and trepidation from Jays fans. On the one hand, BYU is the best non-conference team to play in Omaha since #24 Xavier in December of 2006. On the other hand, Jimmer Fredette is an absolutely astonishing shooter, and makes shots even against good perimeter defense. The entire basketball world witnessed that last year in the NCAA Tournament, when he had 37 points in their overtime takedown of Florida, followed by 21 in a loss to #7 Kansas State. Given the Jays propensity for playing porous perimeter defense (note to self: can I use any MORE words that start with “P” in this sentence? Jeez.) its a frightening proposition.
Last year alone, Fredette scored 33 at San Diego State, 36 in the Coaches vs. Cancer game against Utah, 36 at Colorado State and 45 vs. TCU in the MWC Tournament — and a monster 49-point, nine assist, seven rebound game against Arizona where he made an incredible 9 three-pointers. All of those efforts are enough to give Greg McDermott and his staff headaches, but its the latter one that makes fans nauseous. We’ve all seen mediocre shooters have career nights against Creighton’s perimeter defense the last handful of seasons, and have seen good shooters have historical nights against the Jays. What happens when they face a truly great shooter? Is Cavel Witter’s arena scoring record in danger of being broken?
Probably not. But it would be unwise to count on him not scoring his average, which is 24.8 points. He makes a ridiculous 49.5% from the floor, so he’s going to get 25 — minimum. Those 40+ point nights are rare; even Fredette has just one of them in his career. But seeing him go off for 30 or 35 would not surprise anyone.
So if that’s the case, and pretty much no matter what you try defensively he’s going to score 25, the Jays need to have a couple of things happen to have any hopes of pulling an upset. They need one guy, or a combination of guys, get relatively hot from behind the arc to mitigate the damage from Fredette’s scoring. And two, they need to make sure no one else from BYU gets hot, namely Jackson Emery, who averages just under 13 a game and also proved he could make clutch baskets in the NCAA Tournament a year ago.
They will also need to continue rebounding the ball, playing good interior defense, and winning both the turnover and the free throw battle, something they’ve done in their wins this year — and have done for big chunks of both losses. I think those are all doable tasks, given that BYU is not terribly deep or overly talented in the paint to begin with, and starting forward Chris Collinsworth will not play tonight due to a sprained ankle. Foul trouble has been an issue with their interior players this year (and most of last year), as Jay Drew of the Salt Lake Tribune told WBR’s Patrick Marshall, so its not unfathomable that Kenny Lawson could shoot 10 to 15 free throws tonight, or that Antoine Young could shoot 8 or so. Make 90% of those, and you’re well on your way to canceling out Fredette’s scoring average without making a single field goal.
Drew also offered this bit of hopeful news: “There are times when the other players stand around and watch Fredette do his thing too much. The Cougars have a propensity to turn into a one-man team on offense, and Fredette tends to over-dribble at times. The Cougars historically have trouble rebounding, because they are not all that athletic.”
BYU is a very good team. Jimmer Fredette is a very good player. But they are not unbeatable. To go into this game with a sense of doom and gloom, or with impending unease over a probable blowout loss, would be a mistake. That might happen, sure. But the Jays can absolutely win this game.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: Creighton is a vomit-inducing 18-116 all-time against teams that are ranked in the AP poll, although Greg McDermott was 6-3 against said teams (and 6-0 at home) while at Northern Iowa. We will conveniently ignore his 1-19 record against said teams at Iowa State, because its my column and I make the rules … Creighton has won 36 straight Wednesday home games, and is 23-0 all-time at Qwest Center Omaha on Hump Day. Their last loss? One of the 116 to ranked teams all-time, on January 12, 2000 vs. #19 Tulsa … Antoine Young played all 40 minutes in Sunday’s game at Northwestern, becoming the first Creighton player to play the entire game without a rest since Ryan Sears in the 2001 NCAA Tournament versus Iowa, a span of 329 games … Since the start of the 2004-05 season, Creighton is 39-1 in home games following a loss in the previous game … BYU’s Jimmer Fredette set the single-game arena scoring record at Arizona’s McKale Center (49) last year and has nine career 30-point games. He could challenge Cavel Witter’s Qwest Center record of 42, which came in 2008 against Bradley. The most points in Qwest Center history by an opponent is 34 by Dayton’s Brian Roberts on Nov. 26, 2005 … BYU leads the country with a +8.8 turnover margin differential, ranks ninth nationally averaging just 10.2 turnovers per game, and is 10th with a 1.56 assist/turnover ratio. Meanwhile Creighton ranks 14th-best with just 10.5 turnovers per game and 24th with a 1.37 assist/turnover ratio … Doug McDermott was named MVC Newcomer of the Week for a third straight week earlier this week. The only other player to claim three consecutive MVC Newcomer of the Week awards had been Bradley’s Marcellus Sommerville in 2003-04.
The Last Time They Played: December 7, 2002, when the Jays beat BYU 74-64, as we talked about above. One other interesting note about that game, though, that I’d forgotten: BYU’s coach back then was Steve Cleveland, who would later go on to torment Jays fans as his Fresno State Bulldogs played the Jays seemingly all the time in BracketBusters. He actually coached in just two of those, but for any of us annoyed by the sight of another Fresno State matchup, it seems like more than that.
The Series: BYU leads the all-time series with Creighton, 5-3, but the Bluejays are 3-2 in Omaha against the Cougars. Interestingly, the home team has won each of the last four match-ups between the schools.
Greg McDermott has never faced BYU, but is 0-2 against Mountain West Conference foes in his career, losing to both San Diego State and Utah while he was coaching at Northern Iowa from 2001-06. He has also never faced current BYU head coach Dave Rose.
Gratuitous Linkage: A friend of mine sent me a link to this new video from British pop duo The Boy Least Likely To (I’ve never heard of them either, so you’re not alone) for a song called “George and Andrew.” If you’re thinking the horribly awesome thoughts I think you might be, you’re thinking the George and Andrew they’re referring to are George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley from Wham! You’d be right. The video imagines what a reunion of the duo reuniting at a pub and getting loaded together might look like, while a cheesy song that sounds very close, musically, to “Last Christmas” is played by the bar’s house band.
It’s sufficiently dominant, but I prefer my fake Andrew Ridgeley’s to be played by Tom Hanks and be giving interviews to Goatboy. Just a personal preference though. Your mileage may vary.
Out of Context Simpsons quote: “I’ve done everything the Bible says — even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!” -Ned Flanders
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: On December 1, 1999, the Jays traveled to Atlanta to take on Georgia State in the road portion of a 2-for-1 deal. They moved to 3-0 on the season, as junior Ryan Sears was 19 points on 5-of-8 shooting from three-point range and a perfect 4-for-4 free throw performance, along with three assists and three rebounds. Fellow junior Ben Walker contributed nine points along with a team-high seven caroms, although Creighton was outrebounded 33-24 for the game. The game was played in front of a robust 1,031 fans at the Georgia State University Sports Arena.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: I can’t help myself. After linking to that fake reunion of Wham!, I have to play a Wham! video. But not the ones you already know and mock, because what fun is that? No no, we’re talking about an even more unintentionally hilarious video — in fact, this might be one of the two or three most unintentionally hilarious mainstream 80s pop videos ever made. It features George Michael rapping. And its creatively titled “Wham! Rap.” Seriously, I’m not making this up.
Prediction: I think Fredette goes off for 32 points tonight, but somehow, someway, the Jays eek out a one-point win, sealed by free throws late, helped immensely by a HUGE near sellout crowd of 17,000+.
Jays 73, BYU 72.
Super Special Prediction Number Two: New Travis, who wows Creighton fans with his “knowledge” of basketball and of the Jays on the pre-and-post game shows on 590, will finally know who Jimmer Fredette is by tonight’s postgame. You might recall that when a caller mentioned him a couple of weeks ago, he replied “WHO?” in a tone of voice that indicated he thought it was a made up name or something. Pretty sure he’ll know who he is after tonight’s game.
