Men's Basketball

Polyfro Primer: Creighton at BYU (NIT Quarterfinals)

[dropcap]Creighton’s[/dropcap] march through the NIT hits the road on Tuesday night, when they take on the second-seeded BYU Cougars in the quarterfinals with the winner advancing to the final four (small caps, because it’s the NIT and not the NCAA’s) in New York City next week. The Jays have parlayed stifling defense into two wins over Alabama and Wagner, and they’ll need nothing short of that to come out of Provo with a third win.

BYU has defeated UAB and Virginia Tech in the first two games, getting gigantic performances from senior Kyle Collinsworth in front of large, rowdy crowds for both wins. In a 97-79 win over UAB, Collinsworth had a triple-double with 19 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists, while he logged 18 points and 10 assists in their 80-77 win over the Hokies.

He owns the NCAA single-season (6) and career (12) records for triple-doubles and leads the team in rebounds (8.4 rpg.), assists (7.6 apg.) and steals (1.9 spg.) per contest. The Bluejays experienced his across-the-board skillset first-hand the last time the two teams met, as Collinsworth scored 12 points with 10 rebounds in a 77-65 win back in December of 2010. You’re not misreading; that game did in fact take place six years ago, during Greg McDermott’s first season on the Creighton sideline. It seems like an eternity ago. 2010 was Doug McDermott’s freshman year, the season Grant Gibbs redshirted after transferring from Gonzaga, and the game against BYU took place a couple of weeks before Gregory Echenique became eligible to play his first game for Creighton.

Like I said, an eternity ago. And Collinsworth played in that game!

Following that freshman campaign, Collinsworth left for a two-year Mormon mission to Russia, and rejoined the team in 2013. A guard who stands 6’6″, 215 pounds, Collinsworth is a nightmare for teams to defend because it’s exceedingly difficult to totally shut him down. As a senior, no one’s really done so. In 35 games, he’s been held to single digits in points just twice, fewer than six assists in a game just seven times, and fewer than five rebounds just once, and never all in the same game. No wonder he has six triple-doubles this season.

Take away his scoring, and he finds open teammates for shot attempts. Take away his passing lanes, and he scores at the rim. And because he’s 6’6″, defenses can’t smother him with taller guards to limit his effectiveness on both counts; they have to pick their poison and live with one or the other.

He shoots 46.3% from the floor (194-419) and averages 15.3 points per game, with all but 36 of those shot attempts coming inside the arc, for good reason: he’s a mediocre 25% shooter (9-36) outside of it. A by-product of driving inside so often is that he gets to the line a lot — six times a game, on average — but he’s a mediocre shooter from there, too, making just 66% of his attempts (140-212). Because of those shortcomings, stopping him from penetrating off the dribble is how teams limit his scoring. The problem is, he has two dynamite scorers to pass to when you do that.

Chase Fischer, a 6’3″ senior guard, leads them at 18.3 points per game, and is a 37.1% shooter from downtown (109-294). That’s simply a crazy number of attempts; Isaiah Zierden has the most three-point attempts for the Bluejays this year at 182, and the only three times I can find in Creighton’s record book where a player attempted 200 or more threes in a season is Kyle Korver in 2002-03 (269), Ethan Wragge in 2013-14 (234) and Doug McDermott that same year (214). Holy crap.

Fischer scored 24 in the win over Virginia Tech in the 2nd round of the NIT, and 27 in the win over UAB, taking 20 shots in both games — 8-20 overall and 4-9 from three-point range against VT, and 10-20 overall and 7-16 from three-point range against UAB. He gets to the line nearly as often as Collinsworth, but is almost automatic from the stripe, shooting 139-168 (82.7%).

Nick Emery, a 6’2″ freshman guard, is second on the team in scoring at 16.2 points per game and is almost as lethal from downtown as Fischer. He’s a 38.5% shooter from outside, with slightly fewer made shots and attempts (92-239). Emery and Fischer both take more than half of their shot attempts from three-point range, and have routinely torched teams that force Collinsworth to pass out of his dribble-drives instead of shooting.

It’s clear that BYU knows where their bread is buttered, so to speak, and they let those players carry the load offensively. Between Emery and Fischer, they’ve attempted 64% of the team’s three-point shots. Emery, Fischer, Collinsworth, and Kyle Davis take 74% of the team’s shots and have 73% of their points.

Davis is a 6’8″ junior forward and an effective post scorer (11.9 points per game) and rebounder (7.6 boards per game). He’s a traditional power forward that doesn’t have great shooting range, but is extremely effective at scoring on the block, making 53.7% of his shots (166-309).

BYU outrebounds opponents by an average of 4.8 per game, shoots 38% from three-point range as a team while holding opponents to 33.1% percent, and shoots 46.4% overall as a team while holding opponents to 41.4%. KenPom ranks their offense better (46th) than Creighton’s (67th), but their defense a little worse (78th) than CU’s (37th). These are two solid all-around teams, and it should be a close matchup decided late.

Quick Notes on the Cougars:

  • BYU is 25-10 this season, including a 15-2 mark at home. The Cougars went 13-5 in the West Coast Conference, finishing third behind Saint Mary’s and Gonzaga.
  • BYU is playing in the National Invitational Tournament for the 12th time in program history and third time under Dave Rose. BYU has advanced to the third round of the NIT for the 6th time. In 2013, the Cougars advanced to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden. BYU, a No. 3 seed in 2013, lost to Baylor in the semifinals.
  • Seniors Chase Fischer and Kyle Collinsworth have led BYU to back-to-back wins to open the NIT. Fischer is averaging 25.5 points and 6.0 assists while Collinsworth is averaging near triple-double at 18.5 points, 8.0 rebounds and 11.0 assists.

Bluejay Bytes:

  • Maurice Watson Jr. enters Tuesday’s game with 483 points and 220 assists. With 17 points, he can become the first player in CU history with 500 points and 200 assists in the same season. Currently, the only man to ever score 500 points and dish 160 or more assists in the same year is Antoine Young, who did so with 511 points and 195 assists in 2010-11 when he was also a junior under Greg McDermott.
  • With their win over Wagner on Saturday, Creighton has won 20 or more games for the 16th time in 18 seasons, a feat that puts the Jays among an exclusive group, nationally. The only other three to do it in 16 of the last 18 years are Arizona, Xavier, and UCONN. Kentucky, Florida, Texas and Syracuse have each done it in 17 of the last 18 seasons. Just three schools nationally have had 20 or more wins each of the last 18 years: Duke, Gonzaga and Kansas.
  • Both Creighton and BYU have spent the majority of the NIT with a lead. Creighton trailed for 7:11 against Alabama and just 35 seconds vs. Wagner, while BYU trailed for 7:08 against Virginia Tech in the second round after never trailing in the first round.

The Series:

BYU leads the all-time series with Creighton, 6-3, including a 2-0 mark in Provo, as the Cougars previously beat them 96-68 in 1971 and 61-52 in 2001. Greg McDermott is 1-3 in his career against the current West Coast Conference membership, with the lone win coming over Loyola Marymount. McDermott is 0-1 against BYU and teams coached by Dave Rose.

The Last Time They Played:

The last time these teams met in 2010, it was part of the Mountain West-Missouri Valley Conference Challenge Series. BYU has since left the MWC for the West Coast Conference, while Creighton left The Valley to join the Big East Conference. BYU won that game, 77-65, but eventual National Player of the Year Jimmer Fredette was held to a season-low 13 points in the contest. Freshman Doug McDermott had 20 points and 12 rebounds in becoming the first Bluejay freshman since 1988 to record a double-double.

Conventional wisdom in hindsight is that game was an early turning point for Coach Mac’s first Bluejay squad, with their defensive performance in shutting down the unstoppable Jimmer setting a tone for the rest of the season, and McDermott’s first career double-double — against the 21st ranked team in the country, no less — serving as a breakout performance of sorts. Re-reading our postgame coverage, I’m reminded that that’s not how it felt at the time.

Ott had harsh words in a commentary on the team and their lack of toughness, and Patrick Marshall lamented that it appeared CU had a long way to go before reaching the level of a Top 20 opponent.

Gratuitous Linkage:

The Utah Valley Daily Herald’s Darnell Dickson takes on a Salt Lake City radio host who made the tired joke about the NIT champ finishing 69th in the country with a column titled “It’s OK to enjoy BYU’s NIT run if you want to.” It’s a good piece, and I liked this passage in particular:

“Yeah, making the NCAA is the goal. But when it doesn’t happen, only a rare team can focus enough to make an NIT run…

Every game isn’t created equally. But you can enjoy any competition independent from having to rank it according to importance, right?

Sometimes, being a fan is just about experiencing something positive.”

This Date in Creighton Hoops History:

On March 22, 2010, Creighton defeated Fairfield — coached by future nemesis Ed Cooley before he left for Providence — 73-55 in the second round of the CIT. I was much, much more of a smartass in those early days of WBR; in the game recap I spent an entire paragraph making fun of the ridiculous suit Cooley wore during that game and recounting all the ways he was heckled by the fans in attendance for it.

Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:

The Bottom Line:

The Marriott Center has seen big, rowdy crowds for BYU’s first two games of the NIT — they drew over 12,000 fans for the game against Virginia Tech on Friday, and have reportedly already sold more tickets than that for Tuesday’s game. Oh, and the Cougars are a talented, veteran team. Still, BYU is favored by somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 points depending where you look, which means this is basically a toss-up when you factor in the advantage of them playing at home.

For Creighton to get the win, they’ll need Mo Watson to avoid turnovers and try to match Collinsworth’s assist/scoring output, Geoff Groselle and Zach Hanson to have big games inside and on the glass, and not allow Fischer and Emery to overwhelm them with a barrage of three-pointers. Do that, and they have a good chance to advance to NYC next week.

Newsletter
Never Miss a Story

Sign up for WBR's email newsletter, and get the best
Bluejay coverage delivered to your inbox FREE.