Drake has been the surprise team in the Valley through the first half of the conference slate, seated in third place behind Creighton and Wichita State. Raise your hand if you predicted that’s where they’d be after nine games.
(Waiting)
(Waiting)
That’s what I thought. Very few people (and none that I’ve talked to) thought Drake would break into the top half of the league this year, and several pundits figured they might not win five conference games all year, much less by the halfway point. It’s an impressive feat for Coach Mark Phelps, whose Bulldogs are playing without their best two big men — Seth VanDeest and Reece Uhlenhopp will both seek medical redshirts after suffering injuries. Talking about their surprising start last week with someone at the Bluejay Banter viewing party for the Missouri State game, it was brought up that the Bulldogs conference schedule is back-loaded. While they’ve compiled a 5-4 record, they’ve done so without playing Wichita State yet, something worth noting.
Still, Phelps told boosters at the team’s basketball luncheon earlier this week that “the best is yet to come” for this team, as a friend of mine in attendance told me via email. We’ll know by Sunday whether that’s true or just coachspeak — Drake hosts both Creighton and Wichita State in the next four days, so that back-loaded conference slate gets off to a robust start right away.
For the most part, they’re a team still plagued by the same shortcomings they had during the first matchup against the Jays. The injuries to VanDeest and Uhlenhopp leave them without a reliable player taller than 6’8″, forcing the Bulldogs to play a lot of zone to keep from being destroyed by opposing big men. Earlier this month, Creighton exploited that lack of size with a gameplan that focused on getting the ball inside as much as possible — their 11 three-point attempts in the game are their fewest in Valley play so far, and their third fewest of the entire season. Doug McDermott had 24 points on 9-12 shooting in that game, Gregory Echenique had 10 points on 5-7 shooting, and Antoine Young had 18 points on 5-8 from the field. None of them attempted a single three-pointer (not exactly news from Echenique, granted, but the fact that neither McDermott nor Young attempted a three is noteworthy).
That game was borderline uncompetitive — the final score of 76-59 was only as close as that because the Jays were tremendously sloppy, turning it over a season-high 20 times. They only have one other MVC game with as many as 15 turnovers, and are averaging 12.7 in conference play, so that was an uncharacteristic spell of sloppy ballhandling. 10 of the turnovers were courtesy of Antoine Young (6) and Grant Gibbs (4), numbers that aren’t likely to repeat themselves in the rematch.
One number the Jays hope repeats itself is the scoring of Rayvonte Rice, Drake’s dynamic guard who leads the team in scoring at nearly 17 points a game. He was shut down in that first game, going 2-10 from the floor en route to six points — his lowest point total of the year, and one of just four times where he failed to score in double figures.
A year ago as a freshman, Rice had a similar game in Omaha (2-11 shooting, 7 points) but rebounded with 16 points on 5-12 shooting in the rematch in Des Moines. That’s emblematic of the Bulldogs — they tend to shoot much better at home, particularly against the Jays.
Creighton was less successful in containing Ben Simons, the second cog in Drake’s offense. He scored 17 points on 7-10 shooting, just above his season-average of 15.5 points a game. He’s benefitted greatly from opposing defenses focusing on Rice, doubling his scoring output from a year ago (8.1 to 15.5), taking almost twice as many shots (6.2 a game to 11.2) — and managing to increase his shooting percentage, too (48.2% a year ago, 48.9% this year). At 6’8″, 208 pounds, he’s also able to put the ball on the floor a bit and is the Bulldogs best three-point shooter to boot, going 50-118 from downtown (42.4%). Those 50 three-point makes are the most in the MVC, incidentally. Simons is an oft-overlooked player when discussing the Valley’s best players, but if he continues putting up these types of numbers, he won’t be for long.
This is a frightening game — some of Creighton’s best teams have struggled at the Knapp Center against inferior Bulldog teams. I think Creighton comes away with a tight victory, but as much as I hate to say it, coming home with a loss would not surprise me.
Hopefully there will be a lot of Jays fans in attendance. In 13 of the last 15 years, Drake’s crowd at the Knapp Center for their game against Creighton has exceeded their season average by an average of nearly 1,800 fans a game (they’ve averaged 4,529 for all other home games in that span, but 5,790 against the Jays.) For a few years, the Knapp Center was lovingly known as “Qwest Center East” by Jays fans who annually took advantage of the shortest road trip in the Valley, but frustratingly, after being a Saturday game several years in a row, it’s been a mid-week game all but once since 2007. That has cut down on the number of people driving over to the game from Omaha. There’s an urban legend bandied about that Drake requested the game be played mid-week to keep their sparsely-attended home arena from being overtaken by Creighton fans; whether or not that’s true is debatable, but the fact remains nearly 1/3 of the arena’s tickets remained unsold 48 hours before the game, something that would not have been true were this a Saturday game. Alas.
Catching Up with the Bulldogs: Ben Simons has scored at least 11 points in all but two games this season, leads the Missouri Valley Conference in three-point field goals (50), and ranks second in minutes played (35.2), twice playing all 40 minutes in a game, in addition to 42 minutes in Drake’s overtime win at Southern Illinois (1/18) … Simons has six games this season with at least four three-pointers made, including a season-high five vs. Winthrop at the Paradise Jam (Nov. 19) … Rayvonte Rice, a 2010-11 all-freshman, all-newcomer and honorable mention All-MVC performer has raised his scoring average to 16.9, third-best in the MVC and No. 85 in the NCAA, and averages 5.3 rebounds per game, up from his team-leading 4.8 figure of a year ago … Rice ranks No. 1 in the MVC and No. 21 in the NCAA in steals (2.3), and ranks fifth in minutes played (32.9) … Kurt Alexander is averaging 12.0 points per game off the bench in his last six games, and 13.3 in three home games within that stretch. He has recorded a career high for points twice in the last five games, first with 17 points in a win over Bradley on Jan. 10, and again with 21 points at Northern Iowa on Jan. 22 … Drake went to the free-throw line a season-low seven times (making 4) in its loss at Northern Iowa Sunday night, its fewest since attempting just six (made 3) in a win at Southern Illinois, Feb. 2, 2011.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: This year’s Creighton team is outrebounding foes by 5.5 boards per contest, the first time since 1998-99 (+5.8) it’s had a rebound margin of better than 4.0 per game … If they win tonight at Drake, Creighton will have won eight of its first nine road games for the first time in program history … After going 6-21 in true road games the previous two seasons, Creighton is 7-1 in true road games this year. The Bluejays have started 4-0 in league road games for the first time since 1942-43, when the program finished 5-0 … Each of Creighton’s last eight NCAA Tournament teams have won 10 or more games away from home, and seven of those teams had a winning record in true road contests … When Ross Ferrarini made a three-pointer at the end of Saturday’s game to get to 75 points (and free pizza), it was the second time in his 17 career home games that he’s scored the 75th point. Last year he hit a three-pointer with 12 seconds left to close CU’s scoring in a 75-59 home win over Illinois State win, one reason his teammates have dubbed him “The Godfather” … Creighton has scored enough to give fans free pizza in 82 of 148 all-time games at CenturyLink Center, and the player who’s scored the most “pizza points” is a surprising one — Johnny Mathies, who did it a whopping TEN times.
The RUN-DMD Show: Doug McDermott enters this week leading the MVC with 8.5 rebounds per game. The only Creighton player to ever lead the MVC in rebounds per game was Bob Harstad (9.4) in 1988-89. No Bluejay has averaged more than 7.4 rebounds per game since 1993-94, when Nate King averaged 9.0 rebounds per game … Doug enters this week with 464 points, putting him 36 shy of reaching the 500 point milestone for a second straight season. Last year he set an MVC freshman record with 581 points. Should McDermott get to 500 this season, he’ll become just the third player in MVC history with 500 or more points as both a freshman and sophomore, joining Mitchell Anderson (Bradley) and John S. Williams (Indiana State). In Creighton history, the only players with multiple seasons of 500 or more points are Paul Silas (3), Bob Harstad (3), Rodney Buford (3), Rick Apke (2), Bob Portman (2), Chad Gallagher (2) and Nate Funk (2).
The Last Time They Played: Three weeks ago in the first meeting of the year, Creighton jumped out to an 11-0 lead in the opening minutes, making 5-of-6 shots while holding the Bulldogs to 0-of-6 from the field and forcing three turnovers. Grant Gibbs had five points and a blocked shot in the first five minutes, and the lead was extended to 21-5 after an Avery Dingman three-point shot midway through the half. Creighton’s 40-25 halftime lead was keyed by 18 points from McDermott, celebrating his 20th birthday in style. They would go on to win 76-59.
The Series: Creighton’s 90 wins and 148 meetings with Drake are easily its most against any foe. The Jays lead the all-time series with Drake by a 90-58 margin, but in Des Moines, the Bulldogs maintain a 37-32 edge.
Greg McDermott is 11-6 in his career against Drake. He was 8-2 while in the MVC at Northern Iowa, 1-3 while at Iowa State, and 2-1 at Creighton.
Gratuitous Linkage: The Des Moines Register’s Mark Emmert wrote a piece today with terrific insight from Drake’s Ben Simons reminiscing about playing with then-Ames High senior Doug McDermott in the Capitol City Summer League.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: By some fluke of the calendar, Creighton hasn’t played a game on January 25 since 1997, and has played on this date just three times since 1985. On January 25, 1997, the Jays defeated the Evansville Purple Aces in Omaha, 75-62, behind 20 points from Rodney Buford and 17 from Chris Chestnut. The Aces’ future MVC Player of the Year, Marcus Wilson, went off for 26 points, making 10-17 from the floor and 6-10 from three-point range.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: For some reason, when I went to YouTube today, this is the video they recommended I view. Who am I to argue with complex algorithms that purport to know what I desire to listen to? So, here it is. Rockin’ with Dokken!
The Bottom Line: Drake/Creighton games in Des Moines are always among the most unpredictable of the conference season. In the last decade alone, they’ve featured Pierce Hibma as sharpshooter not once but twice, and three overtime games. The one thing that you can usually count on is an unexpected performance from one of Creighton’s native Iowans, whether it’s Kaleb Korver, Casey Harriman, Pierce Hibma, Tyler McKinney, or any of a bevy of others who exceeded their usual scoring averages to have starring roles in Jays wins at the Knapp Center.
I think Marion, Iowa native Grant Gibbs is that guy tonight, scoring 15 in a tough-fought Jays win.
Creighton 83, Drake 75
