In a weird scheduling quirk, Creighton is done with five Big East teams for the regular season before seeing Marquette for the first time, and will face off with the Golden Eagles twice in the season’s final 14 days. Steve Wojciechowski’s team enters the game at 14-11 (and 5-8 in the Big East), and has seen their NCAA Tournament hopes all but evaporate in the mist of a stretch where they’ve lost five of their last six games.
Marquette has three of the better shooters in the conference in Markus Howard, Andrew Rowsey, and Sam Hauser. All three are capable of going off for 20+ (or, in the case of Howard, 50 — he hung 52 points on Providence in January). The trio scores 55.5 of Marquette’s 81.8 points per game, and all three take well over half of their shot attempts from three-point range. In fact, they combine for 23 three point attempts a game, making 10. No other player on the roster has led the team in scoring in any game this year.
The 5’11” Howard leads the way with 21.9 points per game, and has an effective field goal percentage of 56.2%. Of his 409 shot attempts, 221 have been three-pointers, and he’s made 38% of them. Nearly one-fourth of his shot attempts come in transition, and interestingly, his effective field goal percentage is quite a bit worse in transition (48.8%) than from their half court offense. That’s likely because he’s a much worse three-point shooter in transition (30.8%), yet he pulls up for a three 60% of the time when he shoots in transition.
When Howard gets rolling, he can be extremely hard to stop. Against Providence on January 3, he scored 52 (yes, FIFTY-TWO) points by making 6-10 on two-pointers, 11-19 on threes, and 7-7 from the line. He took 29 shots, made 17, and hung half-a-hundred on the Friars. Then three nights later he lit up Villanova for 37 more, going 8-14 on two-pointers, 5-13 on threes, and 6-6 from the line. He’s had 33 at Xavier (making 14-27 shots), 32 against Seton Hall (9-13 from the floor and 10-10 at the line), and 26 against Butler.
Howard didn’t do much in his first game against Creighton last January in Omaha, but the then-freshman had a giant impact on the rematch — he scored 18 points (7-11 shooting), had seven rebounds, nine assists, and two steals.
Next up is Rowsey, who averages 19.4 points per game and leads the team with 106 assists (just over four per game). Like Howard, Rowsey is 5’11” and shoots a boatload of threes — 59.2% of his shots are three-pointers — and like Howard, he makes a ton of them (41.1%). Rowsey began his career at UNC Asheville, where he was just as prolific a scorer. The senior is the third-highest active player in D1 basketball in career points with 2,101.
Also like Howard, Rowsey can be tough to stop once he gets started. He’s scored 30 or more four times in Big East play, including 34 at St. John’s last weekend (11-26 from the floor), 31 against Seton Hall (10-18 shooting), and 35 against Georgetown (9-18 from the floor, 11-11 from the line).
A year ago against the Jays, Rowsey was mostly held in check, scoring 19 total points in two games, though he did make 4-5 from three-point range.
The third cog in their machine is Sam Hauser, who averages 14.2 points and is their leading rebounder at 6.0 boards a game. He’s fourth-best in college basketball from three-point range, making 49.3% of his attempts. He’s not *quite* as explosive as Howard and Rowsey, mostly because he doesn’t take nearly as many shots and doesn’t draw nearly as many fouls, but he makes more of the shots he does take, and is just as capable of lighting up an opposing defense. His high-water mark is 30 points at Butler, a game where he made six 3-pointers.
With those three, they have the pieces to outscore opponents if the game turns into a shootout. And Marquette’s games frequently turn into shootouts, because they’re — to be charitable — not very good defensively. Or, to be more precise and less nice, they’re really, really awful defensively.
Their opponents have a 54.8% effective field goal percentage, dead last in the Big East. Opponents make an absurd 55.3% of two-point baskets, also dead last in the Big East. Opponents score over eight points more per 100 possessions than the national average — an adjusted efficiency of 113.1, which is, you guessed it, dead last in the Big East. And they can’t even manage to play what little defense they do play without fouling! Nearly a quarter of opponent’s points have come from the free throw line, most in the league.
By traditional counting stats, things are no better. They give up an average of 78 points per game, worst in the league by nearly four full points. And they allow teams to shoot 47.9% from the field, worst in the league.
Perhaps as a byproduct of their porous interior defense, Marquette’s opponents have attempted the fewest three-pointers in the league (and it’s not close; the next closest team has given up 22 more attempts). They miss Katin Reinhardt and Luke Fischer a lot. Luckily for the Jays, those are the two players who hurt them the most a year ago. In two games, Reinhardt scored 33 points on 12-24 shooting, had eight assists, and made six 3-pointers. Fischer had 31 points on 14-17 shooting, 12 rebounds, seven blocks, and four assists. Toby Hegner had a hard time chasing Reinhardt around the perimeter, and Fischer wrecked havoc on the block (and was tremendous at protecting the rim defensively).
It will be a stiff test for a Bluejay defense that quietly has become one of the league’s best at defending the three-point shot. Opponents make just 33% of their threes against Creighton, second best in the Big East and 29th best in all of college basketball. The Jays’ biggest weakness has been interior defense, especially since Martin Krampelj’s injury, and Marquette is not suited to take advantage of that. If they can hold Howard, Rowsey, and Hauser in check even a little bit, there’s no Reinhardt or Fischer to torch their forwards like a year ago.
There’s likely to be a lot of points scored Saturday night. The rematch in Milwaukee might end differently, but in Omaha, with a well-lubricated late-night crowd ready to pounce, CU will score more.
- Tip: 9:00pm
- Venue: CenturyLink Center Omaha
- TV: FSN
- Announcers: Steve Physioc and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: Cox channel 47 (SD), 1047 (HD); CenturyLink Prism 748 (SD), 1748 (HD); DirecTV channel 671; Dish Network channel 418
- Outside Omaha: Varies depending on region, as seen below.
- The game will air live on Fox Sports Midwest (Non Indiana PLUS & Nebraska), Fox Sports Wisconsin, Fox Sports Arizona, Fox Sports Detroit (Plus), Fox Sports Florida, Fox Sports North, Fox Sports Ohio, Fox Sports Southeast, Fox Sports Southwest (Texas PLUS & Non Spurs), Fox Sports Sun (Non Lightning), Fox Sports West, YES, MASN 2, WCUU Chicago and Yurview New England.
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO, with region restrictions
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- Markus Howard had made 66 consecutive free throws before he missed one at Xavier January 24, and the entire squad’s effort from the free throw line is currently the best in the country, as they shoot a combined 80.0% from the line. If that holds, it would be the program’s best mark dating all the way back to the 1948-49 campaign. They have the league’s top two free throw shooters in Howard (1st, .935) and Andrew Rowsey (2nd, .906) and Sam Hauser is right behind at .875.
- Through games of Feb. 15, Howard (84) and Rowsey (81) have combined for more 3-point field goals (165) than any other duo in the country. Nevada’s Kendall Stephens and Caleb Martin are right behind with 164 treys and the Kansas tandem of Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk and Devonte’ Graham own 160 3-pointers. Hauser also has 71 of his own and could team up with either Howard or Rowsey in the top-10 listing as well.
- There are other players on Marquette’s roster besides Howard, Rowsey, and Hauser, believe it or not. Sacar Anim starts alongside Hauser at the other forward spot, and averages 7.0 points and 3.0 rebounds a game. The 6’5″, 210-pound Anim is one of their better defenders, such as it is, and it will be interesting to see if he draws the assignment of guarding red-hot Marcus Foster. At center, 6’10” Matt Heldt starts and is sixth in the league in blocks at just under one per game (0.9).
- Saturday night’s 9:00 p.m. tilt marks Creighton’s 11th start in the 15-year history of the CLink with a tip-off later than 8:30 pm. That list that includes some of the livliest crowds and best games in building history, including two games where they hit a game-winning shot in the final seconds (Rhode Island in the 2008 NIT, Long Beach State in a 2012 BracketBuster game).
- Marcus Foster has scored 528 points so far this season, becoming the ninth different Bluejay with multiple 500-point seasons in a career, joining Doug McDermott (4x), Paul Silas (3x), Rodney Buford (3x), Bob Harstad (3x), Bob Portman (2x), Chad Gallagher (2x), Nate Funk (2x) and Rick Apke (2x). The point total is remarkable because he so rarely gets to the line — he has 97 more points than any other player in the country this season who has made 55 or fewer foul shots.
- Foster has made 52 three-pointers at home this year, tying the CenturyLink Center Omaha’s single-season record set by Booker Woodfox (in 19 games) in 2008-09. His 79 total threes put him within striking distance of all but Kyle Korver’s school record 129 in 2002-03 — he’s already tied for seventh-best, and will almost assuredly pass Tad Ackerman’s 82 in 1994-95, Woodfox’s 91 in 2008-09, and Doug McDermott’s 96 in 2013-14.
Marquette leads the series with Creighton by a 52-32 margin, with a 21-20 edge in Omaha. The teams have split eight meetings since the schools became Big East rivals, with the road team winning three of the last four meetings in the series.
Greg McDermott is 2-4 against Steve Wojciechowski as a head coach, and is 4-4 in his career against Marquette.
Last year, Marquette had these numbers in two games:
- 26-52 from three-point range (50%)
- 69-122 from the floor (56.5%)
- 29-41 from the line (70%)
- 193 total points
And the Golden Eagles won both, 102-94 in Omaha and 91-83 in Milwaukee.
Yikes.
Our friends at Marquette blog “Anonymous Eagle” preview the game, and call it a must-win for the Golden Eagles (which it is). They point out the Jays’ struggles defensively since the injury to Martin Krampelj with a bunch of fancy charts:
Still, if Creighton is going to struggle to stop teams down the stretch, that is going to benefit Marquette in a big way. The Golden Eagles are going to play the Bluejays twice in a 15 day stretch, and if they can finagle two wins out of them because their defense just happens to be lighting itself on fire on a regular basis, then so be it.
Hopefully, Marquette’s offense will be ready to take advantage of Creighton’s weaknesses. Remember that defensive rating chart for Creighton? Here’s Marquette’s adjusted offensive rating in the same system from BartTorvik.com. Yep, that’s right: MU has been a roving dumpster fire with the ball, relative to the rest of the season, for about the exact same timeframe as Creighton’s defensive struggles. Marquette has trouble defending almost literally anyone. When the MU offense is clicking, then they can absolutely burn anyone’s barn to the ground. If it’s not clicking, though, and the defense can’t stay in front of anyone…… that’s a really bad recipe for the on-court product.
On February 17, 2002, the Bluejays defeated Wichita State 69-67 on a buzzer-beater by freshman point guard Tyler McKinney. The Jays had blown a big lead by surrendering 30 points in the game’s final 8-1/2 minutes, turning a 51-37 lead into a tie game. Guard Randy Burns scored 14 all by himself in the final four minutes, hitting one clutch three after another — including a three with 8 seconds to play that tied the game at 67.
That set up the final possession, where the Shockers’ defense focused (probably correctly) on Kyle Korver, Terrell Taylor, and DeAnthony Bowden. McKinney brought the ball up the floor as the clock ticked down, examined the options WSU’s defense was giving him, and took advantage of their focus elsewhere to drive nearly uncontested to the rim. His shot dropped through the net with 0.4 seconds left, and the Jays escaped.
“I don’t think they really wanted to step off anyone, so they just kind of let me go and thought the guy who was guarding me was going to stay with me,” McKinney told media after the game. “That’s the only reason I got an open lane.” Shocker coach Mark Turgeon had a bit different explanation. “I don’t know if our guys thought the freshman was going to take it all the way in there,” he said. “I think a lot of our guys thought he was going to pass the ball.”
The great music writer Steven Hyden penned a piece yesterday on the weird alternative rock charts of 1998, which is 20 years ago — my sophomore year at Creighton, which means GAH I’M OLD — with particular attention paid to the strange variety of styles that hit #1 on that chart.
That’s essentially the soundtrack to my second year in the corner room on the ninth floor of the old, pre-renovation Swanson Hall. Put it on blast.
The Bottom Line:
KenPom predicts a seven-point Bluejay victory. That sounds good to us.
Creighton 90, Marquette 83
