Creighton got some good news on Monday. They found out who their BracketBuster opponent will be on February 19th and they will be staying somewhat close to home. Unfortunately it was not chosen to be on TV. The Bluejays were matched up with the Akron Zips of the Mid America Conference and will head to Ohio during BracketBuster Weekend in a few weeks.
There were many names thrown around during the day on Monday ranging from UC-Santa Barbara, Murray State and even fellow Jesuit school Fairfield, who the Bluejays played in the CIT at the end of last season. We even tried to predict the Bracketbuster TV games. But in the end the only game we got right was Akron and Creighton. The matchup satisfies a request by head coach Greg McDermott to stay somewhere in the midwest before the last week of conference play with Wichita State and Northern Iowa.
Akron is 12-9 overall and 3-4 in conference play, with an RPI of 167, and sitting in sixth place of the seven team east division of the MAC. Easy win then, right? In reality, the Bluejays and the fans better be careful assuming that this will be a likely win for Creighton. Historically, Creighton has not had great luck with teams from the Mid America Conference.
Creighton has avoided played a lot of Mid America Conference teams in the past 10 years. Mainly, because they keep losing against them. The Bluejays were assigned a pesky Kent State team in the 2004 Bracketbusters and the 2005 return game. The Bluejays lost both games. Go back a little farther to 2002-03 season where Creighton had one of their most successful seasons ever with Kyle Korver leading the way and it was Central Michigan that stuck it to the Bluejays in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
However, they have had some success including surviving a 73-71 win against Bowling Green in the first round of the 2009 Postseason NIT after coming back from a 14 point deficit. They did grit out a 71-60 win against Akron in the 2006 Postseason NIT. Let’s just say the games against the Mid America Conference have not been easy.
The Zips are led by Nikola Cvetinovic, Brett McClanahan and Zeke Marshall who all average double-figures. The 7′ Marshall should have an interesting battle with Creighton’s Gregory Echenique while 6’8″ Cvetinovic leads Akron in rebounding. The rematch from the 2006 NIT has been set and should be a pretty decent matchup.
As for the other Valley schools, the MVC were awarded three TV games:
- 2/18, 6PM, ESPN2–VCU @ Wichita State
- 2/19, 4PM, ESPN2–Missouri State @ Valparaiso
- 2/19, 6PM, ESPN2–George Mason @ Northern Iowa
The rest of the MVC games:
- Evansville @ Murray State
- Morehead State @ Indiana State
- UW-Green Bay @ Southern Illinois
- Illinois State @ Western Michigan
- Detroit @ Drake
- Bradley @ Tennessee-Martin