Ryan Kalkbrenner was 10-of-10 from the field on Wednesday night (William / WBR)
Early in the first half of Wednesday’s matchup against Seton Hall, Creighton’s offense was scuffling and the energy in the building was close to flatlining. Then two local kids who are not shy about expressing pride in the fact that they get to put on a Bluejay uniform changed everything in a matter of 66 seconds. Isaac Traudt started it with a pick-and-pop 3-pointer on the right wing, then another on the same action from the same spot on the next possession. Then Jasen Green ripped an offensive rebound right of Dre Davis’ hands and found Steven Ashworth open on the same wing that Traudt had dotted on the previous two possessions. Nine points, three possessions, two former AAU teammates and All-State standouts from Nebraska. That pushed Creighton’s lead from three to 12 with and forced Pirates head coach Shaheen Holloway to call a timeout.
The Hall never got any closer than nine points over the final 27 minutes and change.
“I think that was kind of a gut punch for them,” Traudt said of the 9-0 run. “It seemed like after that they were not as aggressive for the rest of the first half at least. I think that really blew it open.”
Any concern about Creighton hitting a skid coming off an 80-66 loss at St. John’s was squashed with that spurt. The Bluejays led by as many as 27 points in the second half on their way to an 85-64 win in front of announced attendance of 17,022 at CHI Health Center Omaha. Between Traudt and Green, the redshirt freshmen duo combined for 11 points, three assists, and two rebounds in 20 total minutes off the bench to help the Bluejays improve to 21-8 on the season and 12-6 in Big East play to claim sole possession of third place in the standings with two games to go.
Isaac Traudt provided some juice in Creighton’s win on Wednesday (Williams / WBR)
Trey Alexander scored 15 points and dished out a career-high 10 assists. Ryan Kalkbrenner dropped a game-high 23 points on a perfect 10-for-10 shooting to go along with six rebounds and four blocked shots. And Baylor Scheierman knocked down six 3-pointers — including a deep step-back number from the top of the key to beat the shot clock horn and eclipse 1,000 points for his Creighton career — to finish his night with 20 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, and three steals.
While Creighton’s big three thrived, Seton Hall’s was held in check. Davis along with the starting backcourt of Kadary Richmond and Al-Amir Dawes entered the night averaging over 48 points per game in Big East play. They were limited to 46 points on Wednesday night, and 20 of those points came after the Jays had built a 66-41 lead with 8:54 left in the game.
“As I told the team in the locker room, defensively in that first half we were really locked into our plan,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “I thought we did a good job on Richmond, a good job on Dawes, and a good job on Dre Davis. I thought Trey and Steven [Ashworth] really worked hard to try to make their catches a little bit tougher. That was the one adjustment that we made from the first time we played them. And then the start of the second half was just beautiful basketball offensively with the way the ball moved and how we turned good shots into great shots.
“Trey getting a double-double with assists I think that just speaks his versatility and the way he can put his fingerprints all over the game. Kalk was perfect from the field and besides the four shots he blocked, I think there were probably eight or nine shots that he changed. We beat a good basketball team.”
Seton Hall didn’t completely fold up shop after the run fueled by Green and Traudt. Richmond converted a 3-point play out of Holloway’s timeout and fifth-year center Jaden Bediako added a putback on the next possession to cut the lead down to 25-16 with 5:44 to play before halftime. Creighton’s veterans punched back this time with Scheierman threes on back-to-back trips up the floor and Alexander intercepting a cross-court pass and taking it in for a layup on the other end. That run took 61 seconds this time and forced another timeout by Seton Hall’s second-year head coach. The Pirates stayed in that range the rest of the half, trailing 38-22 at the break. But the Bluejays scored on each of their first eight possessions of the second half to extend the lead to 55-28 and it was a wrap at that point.
No matter how much defensive pressure SHU applied or what ball screen coverages they deployed, Alexander always made the play to get Creighton a great look, whether it was at the rim or on the perimeter. Each of his career-best 10 assists on the night produced either a dunk, a layup, or a 3-pointer.
“I think that Kalk did a really good job of getting out of ball screens pretty fast,” Alexander said. “That’s something he’s been working on the past couple of days and something that we knew we were going to be able to get a couple of times with him on the late roll. I knew that if I stretched it out a little bit and let the person that’s supposed to be tagging against him just make a decision, whether that would be having to stay out there with a shooter and then I could hit Kalk, or if they stayed with him then he was going to probably flare [screen] the shooter and I’d be able to throw it over top. I think we just had a really good game plan going into this game. Everybody was ready to make shots tonight and I think that Kalk did a good job of getting out of ball screens pretty well.”
Next up on the slate as the calendar flips to March is a date with No. 5 Marquette on Saturday afternoon. It’ll be super senior day in Omaha for Baylor Scheierman and Francisco Farabello, and given the professional prospects of Ryan Kalkbrenner and Trey Alexander, it’s possibly the final game they’ll play together at CHI Health Center. It won’t be easy for them to go out on a high note, either, as the Golden Eagles have won 11 of their last 12 games, including the last three over DePaul, Xavier, and Providence by an average of 27 points per game.
They’ve won three straight games in the series against the Jays as well, earning a regular season sweep last year and taking the first matchup in Milwaukee this season. Six of the last eight meetings between the two programs have been decided by six points or less.
“Every time we play Marquette, it’s pretty high-level game,” McDermott said. “They obviously got off to the great start this season. They had some injuries and hit a little bit of a rough patch, but man they got it over it fast and Shaka appears to have been playing their best at this point in the season. I think we’ll have an environment here on Saturday similar to what we had against UConn. Obviously, there are some guys that are going to be playing their last game in this building, so we hope that we can give a great effort. We’re playing a team that’s got a chance to go to the Final Four. They’re that talented and we’re going to have to be really locked in and our preparations going to have to be on point.”
Tip-off between the Bluejays and Golden Eagles is set for 1:30 p.m. (CT) on Saturday, March 2.