The Bluejays had Sunday and Monday off to lick their wounds — and prepare for Finals Week — after Saturday night’s 94-75 drubbing in Lincoln at the hands of in-state rival Nebraska. They relived it with a 20-30 minute film session before taking the court for practice on Tuesday. Before telling you what happened next, it’s important to note that a typical session starts with some review of quarter-court or baseline out of bounds sets, then the players stretch before huddling up around head coach Greg McDermott. At that time, Mac will read a quote and ask a player or two to interpret in their own words what type of message or lesson that particular quote is trying to convey.
On Tuesday, the quote was replaced with a simple statement: If what happened on Saturday isn’t enough to motivate you, then nothing else needs to be said.
What ensued afterward was something that more closely resembled preparation for a College Football Playoff contest than a basketball game. The Jays didn’t run a single offensive drill, or even put any emphasis on that side of the ball for the entire day. Even the five-on-five sessions focused entirely on any defensive miscues that were made. The early series of drills centered around gap assignments, communication, closeouts, on-ball defense, and rebounding. Next they jumped into what could probably be described as an interior defense gauntlet. Every player on the roster took a turn getting set, getting in a stance, and taking a charge before finishing their rotation with verticality contests at the rim, and they had to go through the entire roster before their turn was done — drawing charges from half, then walling up and contesting the other half, all in rapid succession. They followed that drill with a 1-on-1 loose ball session: Two guys matched up, diving on the floor, no blood, no foul.
It got chippy, but it never got personal. Everyone’s goal seemed to be to push each other’s limits and get better. Creighton scored 75 points on Saturday. That would have been enough to win each of the last 23 meetings against the Huskers. On Saturday, because of their performance defensively and their effort most of the night on the 50/50 hustle plays, it wasn’t even enough points to make the game interesting. The coaches and players actively addressed that with Tuesday’s practice.
“We’ve got to win some of those one on one battles a little bit better than we have when it comes to just going and getting the basketball,” head coach Greg McDermott said after practice on Wednesday. “There were a couple times when we had an opportunity to be the first to the floor [against Nebraska] and we weren’t, a couple times where we could have stood in there and really taken a charge but we chose not to … we have to try to fix that.”
While Tuesday was an “us” session for the team, Wednesday was about Green Bay. The Phoenix are 10th in the country in tempo according to KenPom, which means all of the moving parts associated with transition defense — communication and loading to the ball — were at the forefront of Creighton’s drills for most of the afternoon.
“They probably play faster than we do,” McDermott said. “There aren’t many teams I will say that about. They are terrific in transition, and a lot of different guys will bring it in transition, so that causes some cross-matching defensively — that’s why we worked on that today. You’re not necessarily going to have your own man. They have some size and they have some guys that can shoot it.”
The defensive side of the ball has been a real struggle for Creighton this season without Khyri Thomas in the mix anymore. They are 127th in defensive efficiency according to KenPom, and their ability to affect shooters is even worse — through nine games they are 281st in the country in effective field goal percentage. They’ve countered that by ranking 1st in that category offensively, but unlocking their potential is tied to how well they can shore things up on defense. If Green Bay comes in on Friday and makes more than they miss it will mark that first time in Greg McDermott’s career at the D1 level that a team of his will have allowed five straight opponents to shoot 50 percent or better from the field. His 2011-12 Creighton squad is the only other team he’s coached before this season that has allowed four straight opponents to do it.
“We’ll get better, but there is still a huge gap,” McDermott said. “You’ve taken away a guy who essentially took the other team’s best player out of the game, so number one, we don’t have another one of those guys right now, and the other four guys defensively who aren’t guarding the best players most of them are young.
“It’s not like we have the same guy making the same mistake every possession. In some ways that would be easier, because you could replace that guy or you could really work to fix that. Our issue right now is one play it’s one guy and the other four are good, but the next play it’s a different guy and the other four are good. We need consistency, and it starts with a little bit more energy and a little bit more communication, because at least with energy and communication you can cover up a mistake. Right now we’re not covering up mistakes. That’s the reality. As a result our defensive numbers have been atrocious the last four games.”