Creighton’s opponent in the Round of 32, the Baylor Bears, is a team full of long, athletic players who make scoring in the paint difficult. They outrebound opponents by almost seven boards a game. They get nearly 15 points a game just on putbacks from offensive rebounds. That’s a scary proposition given what teams like San Diego State, St. John’s and Providence did to the Jays.
7’1″ center Isaiah Austin is their starting center, and he blocked 18 shots in the Big XII tournament to shatter the previous record of 11 held by Missouri’s Arthur Johnson in 2003. He makes life miserable for opposing centers and for guards who manage to get into the paint. Because of their zone defense, he’s not likely to have to chase Ethan Wragge around the perimeter like so many opposing centers have had to this year, but because Creighton takes half their shots from outside, they also negate his single biggest talent — if there aren’t many shots being taken at the rim, there aren’t many shots to block. For that reason, I don’t think Austin will be the difference-maker in this game that he has been during their recent run.
It’s the rest of his teammates that worry the heck out of me. Corey Jefferson (6’9″, 220) is a monster on the glass, with at least 9 rebounds in eight of his last 12 games. His line against Texas in the Big XII tournament — 20 points, 13 rebounds — is frightening because it’s not an anomaly. He has 14 double-doubles this year. At 8.4 rebounds a game, he ranks 67th in the country.
Royce O’Neale (6’6″, 220) might be even better on the glass. In Baylor’s last 8 games, O’Neale’s averaging 9.4 boards per contest. He’s not much of a scorer, with just eight games in double figures, but he does an incredible job of grabbing offensive rebounds and creating scoring opportunities for his teammates that way, and he’s also a solid defender.
Rico Gathers (6’8″, 270) comes off the bench to provide nice complementary numbers, averaging 6.6 points and 6.4 rebounds a game. Taurean Prince (6’7″, 210) also contributes solid minutes off the bench, averaging 6.4 points and 2.8 rebounds in about 12 minutes of action a game.
In the backcourt, they’re equally talented. Point guard Kenny Chery (5’11”, 180) battled turf toe in the middle of the season, but since his return the Bears are 11-2. He had a triple-double against Kansas State in February, with 20 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists, and is capable of beating teams multiple ways. Chery has averaged 14.2 points, 5.8 assists and 3.3 rebounds in Baylor’s last 13 games, but didn’t do much statistically against Nebraska on Friday, scoring eight points to go along with one rebound and one assist.
Likewise, Brady Heslip (6’2″, 180) had a rough day against the Huskers, going 0-6 from the floor. He’s a 43% career three-point shooter, so that sort of night is rare. This season, he’s 10th in the country in three-point shooting (46.1%), 6th in three-point makes (112), and 19th in attempts (243). He’s not quite Ethan Wragge in terms of reliance on the three, but 79% of his points come from outside the arc, which is fourth-highest percentage in the nation. Of note, Heslip’s made 5 or more three-pointers 8 times this season, so if you’re looking for a guy to keep an eye on from the outside, he’s the one.
Their frontcourt is huge, but their guards aren’t big, long or overwhelmingly athletic, and as a result they don’t create a ton of steals (5.3 per game, 267th in the country). This won’t be a carbon-copy of the San Diego State or St. John’s games, where long, athletic guards wreak havoc with Creighton’s backcourt.
Baylor actively wants teams to jack up tons of threes. Their zone discourages shots in the paint and at the rim. For a lot of teams, that’s a problem. For Creighton, that’s playing right into their hands. To say that Sunday night’s round of 32 battle comes down to making shots seems terrible simplistic, but given the way Creighton’s team is constructed — and the way Baylor forces teams to play — it’s also the truth. When they get a ton of semi-open looks from behind the perimeter, and they make 40 or even 50% of them, there isn’t a team left in this tournament that they can’t beat. When they don’t get those looks, or they do but the shots don’t go in, they can lose to anyone, too.
That’s true for every team in America, but for Creighton, making three-pointers at that rate is something they do more often than not. It’s who they are. They take threes, and they make threes. They lead the nation in 3-pointers made and 3-point percentage, and could become just the second team in history to top the country in both categories, as Princeton also did it in 1987-88.
They’re 74-9 the last three years when shooting 30% or better from three-point range, and they’re 55-4 when shooting 40% percent or better from downtown in the past three seasons. They’ve played 105 games over that span, so that means in 83 of them — 79% of the time — they made 30% or better from three-point range. And 56% of the time — over half!! — they have made three-pointers at a better than 40 percent clip. This is insane. The old coaching adage “Live by the Three, Die by the Three” never took into consideration how good living could be when a team makes shots like this.
All five Bluejay starters make at least 39.5 percent of its three-point attempts. So while Baylor’s size, athleticism, length, and rebounding prowess on the interior are impressive, if Creighton goes bombs away and makes, say, 15 or 16 threes on 29 or 30 attempts, it won’t matter. It simply won’t matter. All the big guys in the world can’t win you a game if you’re trading twos for threes.
Tonight, Creighton looks to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time in the modern era of college basketball. Yes, they’ve technically been there before, but the tourney was a far different beast in those days. They’ve finished among the final 16 teams four times:
- In 1941, the tourney had just eight teams, and they were one of them. Creighton lost their first game 48-39 to Washington State
- In 1962, the tourney had 25 teams; Creighton won their first game 87-83 over Memphis, then lost their second, 66-46 to Cincinnati
- In 1964, the tourney again had 25 teams; Creighton won their first game 89-78 over Oklahoma City, then lost to Wichita State 84-68
- And in 1974, Creighton won their first game in the still-25 team tournament 77-61 over Texas, before dropping a 55-54 game to Kansas
Since the tournament expanded to 64 teams or more in 1985, Creighton has not advanced to the Sweet 16. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense. It’s time to beat the Baylor Bears and get to the second weekend. That time is tonight.
About the Bears: This is Baylor’s fifth NCAA Tournament appearance since 1950 … Baylor lost to the eventual national champion in four of its previous seven NCAAs (1946, 1948, 2010, 2012) … Twelve Baylor opponents made the 2014 NCAA Tournament field, and the Bears went 11-9 against those teams this season … Baylor is 60-4 when leading at the half since 2011-12 and has a 17-2 record in 2013-14 … Baylor is 9-3 this season in games decided by 5 points or less or in OT after going just 3-8 in those games last year … A win would advance Baylor to the Sweet 16 for the third time in the last five seasons (2010, 2012, 2014) and mark the fifth consecutive postseason appearance with at least two wins … BU is 18-3 when holding opponents under 70 points and 7-8 when allowing 70+ points. Conversely, BU is 21-3 when scoring 70+ points and 4-8 when being held under 70 points.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: Since the bracket expanded to 64 or more teams in 1985, No. 3 seeds are 36-27 (.571) against No. 6 seeds, including a 10-2 mark in the previous six seasons … Creighton has won a postseason game for a seventh straight season, and an NCAA Tournament game for the third straight year. Both are the longest streaks in program history for such postseason success … Creighton finished Friday’s victory with 18 assists against just six turnovers, and for the season, they have 603 assists to just 334 miscues. That 1.81 assist/turnover ratio ranks first nationally and is on pace to be the second-best mark in NCAA history (since 1993), trailing only West Virginia’s 2005-06 club that finished with a 2.01 assist/turnover ratio.
The RUN-DMD Show: Doug McDermott continued to blow up the Creighton record book on Friday, this time taking down some long-standing NCAA Tournament records. McDermott’s 30 points and 13 field goals were both most by a CU player ever in an NCAA Tournament game. The previous record had been held by Terrell Taylor, who scored 28 points in a double-overtime win against Florida in 2002, including the buzzer-beating three-pointer to win the game. The field goal record of 11 in a game was substantially older, jointly held by Paul Silas (3/12/1962), Gene Harmon (3/9/1974) and Chad Gallagher (3/17/1989).
For his career, McDermott also now owns more NCAA Tourney points (114) and field goals (38) than any other Bluejay, as well. The career point record and field goal record had previously been held by the great Paul Silas, who scored 105 points on 35 made field goals in six NCAA tourney games in 1962 and 1964.
The RUN-DMD Show, Part II: McDermott posted his 37th career double-double on Friday, finishing with 30 points and 12 rebounds. Incredibly, his 17 points and 10 rebounds by halftime marked the first time in his career he’d owned a double-double in any half. Friday also marked the first game in McDermott’s career he had 30+ points, 10+ rebounds and zero turnovers in the same game.
His 30 points on Friday give him 13 games this season of 30 or more points, as he continues to rewrite the old Creighton record of 10 he had shared with Bob Portman. It was also his 27th career game of 30 or more points, extending another record. Creighton is 26-1 all-time when McDermott scores 30 or more, and 21-0 when he scores 31+ points.
McDermott owns 20 or more points in 30-of-34 games this season (and he had 19 in two of those four misses), and 86 such games in his career overall.
The RUN-DMD Show, Part III: Hey, this will be the last game Doug McDermott ever plays for Creighton if they lose, so let’s keep celebrating all the ridiculous things he’s doing just in case we can’t do so in the present tense again.
He continues to race up the NCAA’s all-time scoring chart, and enters Sunday’s game with 3,135 career points to rank in fifth place in NCAA history, 30 behind Mississippi Valley State’s Alphonso Ford (3,165). McDermott owns 20 or more points in 14 straight games, scoring 25+ in 13 of those, and owns 30 or more points in four of his last five outings, so Ford is squarely in the crosshairs.
The RUN-DMD Show, Part IV: Last one, I promise. Otherwise we’re getting into Rocky territory here, and everybody knows how Rocky V turned out, unless you’re the sort of person who denies its’ existence, in which case I salute you.
Remember the nonsense about the supposed Sports Illustrated curse? Since the March 5 cover shoot, he’s averaged 33.8 points and 6.6 rebounds per game while shooting 58.7 percent from the floor (64-109), 53.8 percent from three-point range (21-39) and 80 percent at the line (20-25). He’s had 30 points or more in four of the five contests, and Creighton has won four of the five contests.
Out of Context Ron Swanson Quote: “Poise: sting like a bee. Do not float like a butterfly. That’s ridiculous.”
The Last Time They Played: On December 4, 1999, Creighton traveled to Waco for the second half of a home-and-home series with the Bears. The Jays trailed 61-47 with just over three minutes to play, but mounted one of the most improbable comebacks of the Altman Era to force overtime. Baylor went just 2-9 from the free throw line over those final three minutes, leaving the door open a crack, and CU took full advantage. A 16-6 run, keyed by a pair of newcomers in Terrell Taylor and Livan Pyfrom, cut the deficit to 67-63 with 15 seconds to play. Ryan Sears nailed a jumper to make it 67-65 with five seconds remaining, and then Baylor’s Wendell Greenleaf stepped on the end line while attempting to inbound the ball.
That gave Creighton the ball back, and Ben Walker hit a running jumper at the buzzer to send the game to overtime. Walker then hit the eventual game-winner in OT with 1:04 to go, a shot that gave Creighton it’s first lead of the day, and helped ice the game at the free throw line. The 77-76 victory moved the Jays to 4-0 for the second straight year for the first time since the 1927-28 and 1928-29 seasons.
The Series: Creighton leads 3-0, with wins in 1962 (90-69 in Oklahoma City), 1998 (73-59 in Omaha), and 1999 (77-76 in OT in Waco).
Greg McDermott is is 2-2 in his career against Baylor and Scott Drew, with all four meetings coming while he was head coach at Iowa State.
Gratuitous Linkage: The Dallas Morning News does a position-by-position breakdown, including this take on their zone defense: “Recently, Baylor’s zone defense has thrown opposing teams for a loop. Having Austin in the middle makes it tough for teams to penetrate the lane forcing them to shoot from beyond the arc. But Creighton tops the nation in 3-pointers made in the regular season, percentage and 3-pointers made per game. Baylor might have to deviate from what’s made them so successful in the past few weeks to give them a shot at pulling the upset.” He gives Creighton the edge — and predicts a Jays victory. I like it.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: Creighton has played twice on March 23. In 2009, they hosted Kentucky in the second round of the NIT, losing a 65-63 heartbreaker when Booker Woodfox’s would-be game-winner bounced off the iron at the buzzer.
In 2011, Creighton played host to UCF in the third round of the CBI, and it was a slightly better outcome — the Jays won 82-64 to set up a homecoming for departed coach Dana Altman with his Oregon Ducks. Thanks to a 10-0 run to open the game, the outcome was rarely in doubt; turnovers on each of UCF’s first two possessions were converted into two 3-pointers by Doug McDermott, and the lead would eventually stretch to 15-2 before the first media timeout. CU eventually built an 82-52 lead before UCF scored the game’s final 12 points to make the score appear a bit closer.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: Right Now, it’s Creighton’s Time.
The Bottom Line: Ethan Wragge and Jahenns Manigat combine for eight 3-pointers. Austin Chatman has another clutch game distributing the rock. Mostly, Doug McDermott is an unstoppable force of will who doesn’t want his collegiate career to end just yet.
Creighton 79, Baylor 72
