Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Key Stats:
21 turnovers. Of all the numbers in this one, 21 turnovers is the headline, and for good reason. It represents a staggering 28.0% of the Jays possessions on Saturday, and you can draw a direct line between those turnovers and Xavier attempting nine more shots.
It ties the most in a single game during the Greg McDermott Era (with the Iowa State game last month), and is the most since Nov. 29, 2008, when they had 24 at Nebraska. There was a 13-possession stretch in the first half where the Jays turned it over 11 times — in just about every way you can imagine. There’s no sugarcoating it, and Greg McDermott didn’t try.
“We have to take care of the basketball. It’s a broken record, and the guys are certainly aware of the issues,” McDermott said on the postgame radio show. “But we have a tendency to invent new ways to turn it over.
“The issue is it’s not just one guy, and it’s not just one particular thing. It’s traveling. It’s stepping out of bounds. It’s casual passes. Casual catches. Some of the turnovers today were timing issues, from not being in the kind of rhythm we’d probably be in if we’d played more games recently. But as the game moves on, you should adjust to that. And we didn’t do a good job of that. As coaches, we have to put them in a situation where they have a better chance to be successful, and I think we’re moving the right direction. But not as quick as they would like, or our fans would like, and certainly not as quick as I would like.”
It had a couple of prominent alumni expressing frustration:
And another preaching patience.
Fans were on both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between, some believing that after 15 games the “young team” excuse no longer holds water and some believing it’s still just a matter of time before the lightbulb goes off. In the meantime, two of their five losses are directly attributable to one stat. One giant, nasty, quickly-becoming-inexcusable stat.
21 turnovers. Yuck.
Recap:
After Creighton and Xavier traded big runs in the opening moments — the Musketeers jumped ahead 7-0, and the Jays answered back with an 11-0 run — CU controlled the first half. That 11-point burst included this alley-oop to Ryan Kalkbrenner:
Their defense dominated the paint, with Kalkbrenner and company blocking eight shots in the game’s first 20 minutes. This montage from FOX’s broadcast is something else; look at the different types of shots he blocked, and the different angles he used to do it.
Xavier shot poorly at the rim against Villanova mid-week, and it continued against the Bluejays; all totaled, at halftime Xavier had made just 10-of-26 (38.5%) at the rim in one-and-a-half games. Meanwhile, CU had one of their better shooting halves of the season, making 60% overall (15-of-25) and 4-of-9 (44.4%) from three-point range. They outrebounded Xavier 20-10. So complete was the domination that over the final 11:32 of the half, Xavier had one defensive rebound. Everything else was a made basket for the Jays, a made putback by the Jays off of a missed shot, or a Bluejay turnover.
Ryan Nembhard had five assists and three steals, Ryan Hawkins had six points and nine rebounds, but despite all of those glossy numbers a 34-29 lead felt like a giant missed opportunity.
13 turnovers kept Xavier in the game.
“If we keep those turnovers to a minimum, we have a chance to have a double-digit lead at halftime,” McDermott said. “Then I think the game plays out totally different.”
Instead, trailing by just five, Xavier adjusted their gameplan to focus on the paint with a big lineup featuring 6’9” Zach Freemantle, 7’0” Jack Nunge, and 6’6” Colby Jones playing together. They ran isolation plays for those three, picking on the Jays’ inexperience and making the most of it. At one point, Jones and Nunge combined to score 14 straight points. Midway through the half, the Musketeers used three consecutive buckets at the rim to take the lead 50-49
“We talked at halftime about how pleased we were with our rebounding effort. We kept guys in front of us, our blockouts were good,” McDermott noted. “But they have the ability with their roster construction to play a lot of different ways. They have good shooting, quickness and athletic ability, but they can also go big and that’s what they did in the second half. We had a hard time matching that.”
And once Xavier took the lead, with the rowdy Cintas Center crowd behind them, the Musketeers pulled away.
Creighton played just four games over the first month of the season after three were postponed due to COVID. Those wound up being Villanova at home, at Marquette, at Villanova, and at Xavier. That’s the toughest conference schedule in the country according to KenPom’s data. Going 2-2 is pretty impressive when you think about it that way — and if the schedule holds, they have an opportunity to make some strides over the next week. They’re favored in home games with St. John’s and DePaul, and in a road game at Butler, before the next tough stretch hits them.
