The 2018-19 season tips off on Tuesday, which is an odd night for a season opener — not only is it Election Day/Night, it’s the first time the Bluejays have begun a campaign on a Tuesday since 1991, and the first time at home since 1986. Both of those teams began the year against Iowa State; Tony Barone’s ’86 crew won 80-65, while Rick Johnson’s ’91 squad lost 92-75. For that matter, it’s been over a decade since the season opened during the week instead of on a weekend — the 2007 season began on a Monday night against Mississippi Valley State; every season since has tipped on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Like I said, it’s an odd night for an opener.
Their opponent this time around is the Western Illinois Leathernecks out of the Summit League. WIU returns four starters from a team that went 12-16 a year ago, but despite an enviable amount of experience and a pretty damn good recruiting class by Summit standards, they were picked ninth in the league’s preseason poll.
Brandon Gilbeck, a 7’0”, 245-pound senior, was named Preseason Second Team All-Summit after a junior year where he averaged 10.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks a game en route to Summit League Defensive Player of the Year honors. Defensively, he’s a fantastic shot blocker, and is equally proficient at the rim and away from the basket — 31 of his blocks came near the rim, and 39 on jumpers.
On offense, he’s kind of an interesting player for the Bluejay big men to battle this early in the year, because despite his large frame, he’s not purely a back-to-the-basket center — Gilbeck has a pretty good midrange game. Just over half of his shot attempts a year ago came at or near the rim according to Hoop-Math.com; he made 80% of those shots. The other half of his shots were two-point jumpers, which he made 47.8% of. Though he’s slow-footed, a seven-footer with a midrange game presents matchup problems for a lot of defenders.
It’s curious that despite his nice shooting touch and high shooting percentages, he attempted just the fourth-most shots on the team a year ago. WIU does not run their offense through the post, and with Gilbeck not doing much to create shots for himself — he had just 22 putback shot attempts off of offensive boards, and he took just eight shots all year in transition — he averages just over 10 points a night.
Guard Kobe Webster was also named Preseason Second Team All-Summit League. The 6’0”, 160-pound sophomore averaged 15.9 points per game last winter, and is what you’d charitably call a “volume shooter.” Webster took nearly 100 more shots than any other player, despite relatively pedestrian shooting percentages: he made 43% from the floor (165-383) and 37% from three-point range (59-161).
With that said, defenders can’t lose track of him around the perimeter; he scored 44 points in a pair of exhibitions last week, making six of eight 3-pointers against Iowa Wesleyan and a perfect six-of-six against Knox College. He’s not an elusive player off the dribble, at least not in terms of slashing into the paint — over 85% of his shot attempts were jumpers last year, and as with most jump shooters, his shooting is streaky. His shooting last week is testament to that.
In transition, he shot a perfect 100% when he attempted shots at the rim. Thankfully for his opponents, that didn’t happen very often — they were successful at stopping his dribble penetration a year ago and forcing him into jumpers. A whopping 85% of his 69 shot attempts in transition were jumpers, either inside the arc or behind the perimeter.
Also back are returning starters Isaac Johnson (7.0 ppg., 4.5 rpg.) and C.J. Duff (8.1 ppg., 2.0 rpg.). They’re joined by freshman forward Ben Pyle, who was Kansas’ Mr. Basketball as a Senior in high school and averaged 22.5 points and 7.6 rebounds per game for McPherson High School last year, and Zion Young, the first three-star (or higher) freshman recruit in WIU history.
WIU wasn’t very good at putting pressure on opposing teams defensively a year ago, forcing a turnover on just 14.5% of opponents possessions — that ranked 344th out of 351 teams in D1. That’s just what the doctor ordered for a young Bluejay guard corps looking to get their feet wet in a game that counts, because Western Illinois isn’t likely to speed them up, force them to make passes they don’t want to make, or poke the ball away if a ballhandler gets sloppy.
- Tip: 7:30pm
Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha - TV: FSN
- Announcers: Jay Alter and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: Cox channel 47 (SD), 1047 (HD); CenturyLink Prism 748 (SD), 1748 (HD); DirecTV channel 671-2; Dish Network channel 418
- Outside Omaha: Varies depending on region.
- The game will air live on Fox Sports Midwest in Nebraska and Kansas, Fox Sports Detroit (Plus), Fox Sports North (Plus), Fox Sports Southeast (Non-Hawks & Hornets), Fox Sports Sun, Fox Sports Wisconsin (Plus) and WCUU Chicago.
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO, with region restrictions
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Josh Dotzler
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters
- WIU is 21-69 (.304) on the road since the beginning of the 2011-12 season, and 7-50 (.127) since the beginning of the 2013-14 season. They won just once away from home a year ago, a 69-67 win over SIU Edwardsville.
- WIU played just 28 games a year ago, and just 27 prior to the Summit League tourney, and is slated to play 29 this year (including two against non-D1 foes). That’s because they did not compete in a holiday/exempt tourney either year, taking away their opportunity for the “bonus” games teams receive in those tourneys to get to 31 regular season contests.
- Western Illinois holds the distinction of being the only non-military institution to officially have its nickname derived from a branch of the military service. The school began use of the Marine Corps’ official nickname, “The Fighting Leathernecks”, in 1927 when then-athletic director and head base- ball, basketball and football coach Ray “Rock” Hanson was granted permission by the U.S. Navy, based on his status as a Marine hero, to use the nickname.
- Creighton’s non-conference schedule ranks as the 20th toughest among power conference teams according to BartTorvik.com, and that isn’t taking into consideration the final two games in the Cayman Island Classic. While the final ranking could end up worse depending on how teams fare, on paper that sets up the Bluejays to have plenty of opportunities for resume-building wins before Big East play starts.
- Including last year’s 92-76 win vs. Yale, Creighton owns an all-time 85-15 record (.850) on opening day, including wins in 20 of its last 21 openers. The Jays have won 12 of its last 18 season-openers by 20 or more points. They haven’t trailed in their home opener in nine of the past 18 seasons.
- Creighton is a perfect 58-0 all-time in regular-season home games that take place on or before November 26th. The Jays have won 61 of its 62 regular-season November home games since 1990, falling only to Boise State in 2012.
Creighton leads the all-time series 4-0 over Western Illinois. The Jays won the first-ever meeting 76-72 in Honolulu at the Nike Classic in December of 1999, then beat them 96-50 in Omaha the following November. The Jays dispatched the Leathernecks 60-47 in Omaha in 2010, and 97-67 in 2015. From Matt D.’s recap:
“Western Illinois only shot 41.4% overall from the field, but they converted 7-of-12 from three-point range to keep the game within reach at halftime at 44-31. They wouldn’t hang around much as soon as the second half started, however, as Creighton’s depth, physicality, and pace wore down the previously unbeaten Leathernecks.
Creighton junior point guard Maurice Watson Jr. and freshman guard Khyri Thomas combined to score all of their team’s points in a 12-4 run to start the half that pushed Creighton’s lead out to 56-35 with 17:09 remaining.
Watson only scored two points in the first half, but used that strong start to the second half to wind up with seven points, four rebounds, five assists and only one turnover in 21 minutes on the floor.”
Last week, Stadium published a ranking of Big East jobs as voted on by head and assistant coaches in the league. It’s a very interesting read and fair ranking, with some brutally honest quotes. In particular, the league’s coaches pulled no punches on St. John’s and Seton Hall; of the latter, one assistant said “I don’t like where it’s located, and wouldn’t want to live there, but it’s close to a ton of players. That’s by far its biggest selling point.” Another assistant said, “It’s got a bunch of negatives. For one, they play their games in Newark – which is a dump – in an arena that’s way too big for them. Not enough support, and doesn’t have much juice in recruiting.”
Creighton ranked #1 in both facilities and in gameday atmosphere, and dead last in history/tradition and in recruiting base. It’s hard to quibble with any of that. Their overall rank is #6.
Creighton has never played a regular season game on November 6, but they’re undefeated in exhibition play on this date, winning four times (89-82 over Athletes in Action in 1990, 62-53 vs UNO in 2001, 81-42 over Rockhurst in 2011, and 113-77 over Upper Iowa in 2015).
We’ll focus on the first of those: on November 6, 1990, Creighton won the first of two exhibition games prior to that title-winning season 89-82 over Athletes in Action. The game, played before 4,570 at the Civic, featured double-doubles from three players — Chad Gallagher had 30 points and 10 rebounds, Bob Harstad had 23 and 13, and Duan Cole contributed 16 points and 10 assists, while Darin Plautz just missed being the fourth with 12 points and nine rebounds.
The actual video for “Sabotage” is amazing, and a Top Five All-Time video in my list of Top Five Videos if such a list existed. But seeing the Beastie Boys perform the song live shortly after “Ill Communication” was released, creating the song’s enormous sound live in real time, is amazing in it’s own way. Plus, there’s David Letterman sarcastically introducing them as “fly, fresh, dope, and phat”, which is also amazing.
The Bottom Line:
KenPom predicts an 85-65 Bluejay win. I think it’s closer to 25.
Creighton 88, Western Illinois 63
