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Morning After: #23 Creighton Uses a 23-0 First Half Run to Pull Away from #16 Iowa State, Holds on for 71-58 Exhibition Win

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[Box Score]

For 20 minutes on Friday night, we saw what Creighton’s ceiling could be, especially during a 7-1/2 minute stretch where they had a 23-0 run that featured 10 straight defensive stops and a barrage of beautiful offensive execution. For the other 20 minutes, we saw how far they have to go before they reach that ceiling consistently. After committing just one turnover in a first half where they outscored #16 Iowa State 46-23, they had 10 in the second half and saw the Cyclones cut the lead into single digits.

“Iowa State’s a hard team to play. We haven’t seen that kind of pressure yet,” Greg McDermott said on the postgame radio show. “In the first half we handled it tremendously. The second half they dictated the game a little bit more than I wish they would have.”

Trailing 6-0 after 90 seconds after three relatively uncontested layups and 8-4 three minutes in after another easy paint bucket, Creighton looked like a team who sorely missed Ryan Kalkbrenner’s rim protection. The defense was always going to be a work in progress, yes, but this was ridiculous.

If you had Kerem Konan, the 6’9” freshman from Turkey, as the sparkplug on your BINGO card, congratulations on your luck. Konan checked in with 16:46 to go and blocked a shot at the rim on his first defensive possession, then cleared the board and started a fast break. Nik Graves buried a three on the other end, and CU took a 9-8 lead. They would not trail again.

As a matter of fact, they’d score the next 20 points, ripping off a 23-0 run that turned ISU’s 8-4 lead into a 27-8 Bluejay advantage in just under seven minutes. Konan would strongly contest another shot at the rim a couple of possessions later and clear the board, and it led to a three from Fedor Zugic. Zugic would bury another three seconds later, opening up a 15-8 lead. And when Konan checked out ahead of the under-12 timeout, he did so to a standing ovation from the Bluejay crowd.

Iowa State went 0-for-11 from the field during the run, with the Jays blocking two shots at the rim (one each by Konan and Hudson Greer) and altering a third (by Jason Townley-Thomas). Meanwhile, CU made 7-of-10 shots themselves, with six of the makes coming from three-point range. Five Bluejays scored a bucket. Four different Jays had an assist. Fedor Žugić and Austin Swartz each hit back-to-back threes; Nik Graves bookended the run with threes at the beginning and end.

“It was like a layup drill for them for a little bit,” McDermott said. “I thought we settled in and the guys didn’t panic which was good to see, and you know, we did some great things defensively to ignite that run.”

Creighton led by as many as 28 early in the second half. And though the rest of the game was ugly — they made 1-of-12 from three-point range after halftime, and had more turnovers (10) than field goals (seven) — when you look at it through the lens of an exhibition game, it was exactly what the coaching staff needed. When they do their film study, not only will they have a lot of correctible mistakes to point out, they’ll be able to credibly say that as good as the first half was, there’s still work to do.

Iowa State trimmed that 28-point lead down to eight, 65-57, with three minutes to play thanks to a huge run of their own. Creighton had been ahead 62-39 with 9:29 left, and then found themselves on the wrong end of a 18-3 run. They went scoreless for nearly five minutes. They missed three free throws, six shots and turned it over twice. And as the gap dwindled, McDermott opted against calling timeout. He said he wanted to see how his team reacted, and who would step up.

It was Graves.

First he drove into the paint, drew the defense and found a cutting Josh Dix for an easy layup. Then he stole the ball on the other end, started a fast break and found Jasen Green at the rim. Those plays made it 69-57 Jays with 1:57 left, and effectively sealed the win.

“In a normal game, I obviously would have taken a timeout or two maybe there, but I just wanted to see how they handled it and see if they could figure it out,” McDermott said. “I thought Nik’s poise in the quarter-court was really, really good. Iowa State’s kind of a hard team to run on, but I thought we had some opportunities in transition where we were able to attack, and Nik’s electric with the ball when he gets it in transition and can push it. To handle that pressure, early in that game, when it’s really pretty hot and heavy with that pressure, I thought Nik did a terrific job.”

The 71-58 win gave Creighton exactly what they needed out of a mid-October exhibition. 14 players saw action, and 11 of them played 10 minutes or more. They have first half film showing what good ball security, ball movement and crisp execution looks like. They have second half film showing what happens when a physical opponent is able to dictate tempo and muddy up the game. No one got hurt.

“This is a great learning experience for us, and, you know, it’s awesome that we won, but that wasn’t really that important to me,” McDermott said. “It was more like, how are guys gonna handle our system and our style of play? It’s new to them. How are they going to be able to perform with the lights on? For the most part, we did some good things.”

Inside the Box:

Creighton scored 71 points in a 66 possession game, which is impressive against an Iowa State team known for their physical, stifling defense. They’re the type of opponent Creighton has often struggled to score on. Having multiple players that can create their own shot off the dribble and create for others opens up possibilities the Jays haven’t always had in these types of games.

Austin Swartz had nine points with three 3-pointers. He was an inconsistent shooter from three a year ago at Miami, and he credited Creighton’s system for his marked improvement in his debut.

“Just shooting it faster made all the difference. When I was at Miami I felt like we got shots off a little bit slow which made your shots more contested. This is a lot faster, a lot faster pace, a lot more threes, a lot more movement,” Swartz said. “It may have been tough to tell because (Iowa State) was doing a lot of trapping, doing a lot of extracurricular stuff that most teams don’t do, but we’ve been working on this so much that now it’s just…The ball movement, making one more pass, all that extra stuff, it’s just ingrained now. It just made it so easy to play.”

“Especially with Nik in that first half, he was on fire making plays for himself and making plays for others,” Swartz said on the postgame radio show. “Josh (Dix) can do it. I can do it. Jax (McAndrew) could do it when he gets back. Blake (Harper) can do it. We have so many guys that can take people off the dribble and make plays not just for themselves but for others, and the more we do that, there’s no team in the country that can guard us.”

“All you have to do is give up the rock for sure,” Swartz continued, not lacking in the confidence department. “Especially in this game, once you get two defenders on the ball, you don’t even have to try. They do it for you, and as long as you hit the open man, you make good reads, you can score as many points as you want.”

Those soundbites might be a slight exaggeration, but Swartz’ point is well-taken: Creighton could be very difficult to defend when they’re clicking like they were in the first half. That a Cyclone team widely expected to be among the top ten best defenses in D1 surrendered a 23-0 run to them is all the evidence you need of that.

Nik Graves led the Jays with 13 points on 4-of-7 shooting, including 3-of-4 from three-point range. The latter number is encouraging since Graves shot just 33% on threes a year ago at Charlotte; like Swartz, he said the improvement is due to Creighton’s system more than any mechanical change to his shot.

“I feel like my shot has come along really really good,” Graves said on the postgame show, noting that while they made minor mechanical tweaks to his shooting form, Creighton’s system gets the bigger share of the credit. “Coach Mac has a great system for improving shots. The shots I got were, I mean, I feel like pretty good shots so that helps, obviously. We work on shooting each and every day in practice. The summer was a grind. Some days I got really frustrated because I wasn’t shooting that well, but, you know, you got to have days like that to improve anything. We have a lot of great shooters on this team, and not shooting as good as them pushed me to improve.”

Graves also had five assists and one turnover against the Cyclones’ aggressive defense. It’s the latter number that bothered him, as he told John Bishop on the postgame show.

“I was able to get five assists, and I pride myself on being an unselfish point guard so I was really happy with that. I only had one turnover tonight, but I would love to have zero,” Graves said. “I had a silly mistake trying to do a little bit too much, I would say, and that’s what caused my turnover. If I can play a little bit more poised I think I can prevent that one turnover.”

“Nik’s got to run the show, and it’s a lot to learn,” McDermott said. “That’s a hard position to learn in one year, and I think he’s embraced what we need him to do. The scoring is one thing; the five assists, one turnover is even better, that he’s making good decisions against a team as physical and aggressive as they are.”

McDermott said that so far through three weeks of practice and one exhibition, Graves has started to separate himself from the pack of potential starting point guards. After struggling initially with the transition from playing in one of the country’s slowest systems at Charlotte to one of the fastest at CU, Graves has turned a corner the last week to 10 days in his understanding of what’s expected of a point guard in Creighton’s system. His conditioning to play that way is still a bit of a work in progress.

“Just getting up and down this first game, I really had to catch my breath every now and then,” Graves said. “I’m a little tired — we play a lot faster here. I’m still getting used to the fact that it’s always okay to get up and down in transition and try to make a play.”

According to McDermott, it’s not so much that Ty Davis has struggled — Graves has just improved more. And Davis is going to play a lot, regardless of who starts.

“We have probably more secondary ball handling off the ball than we had last year with Josh’s ability, Austin’s ability, Blake’s ability, and Fedor’s ability to handle the basketball,” McDermott said. “So from that standpoint, I don’t think it puts as much pressure on the point guard as maybe we’ve had in the past. That’s a nice thing about this team. We have multiple ball handlers. Like I said, one turnover against Iowa State in the first 20 minutes, that’s good stuff. We’ll figure out what went wrong the second half and why it wasn’t as clean as we evaluate the film.”

In the frontcourt, Kerem Konan had six points, four rebounds and a block in 14 minutes. His athleticism and instincts are undeniable, but his understanding of Creighton’s defensive schemes — or lack thereof — is also undeniable. More than once he was late to recognize and call out CU’s ball screen coverages and make sure people were in the right spots, which is something CU needs their bigs to do in order to succeed.

“He did some good things. I was happy to see that he was able to make a few plays,” McDermott said. “He still gets a little bit lost at times on where we want him, but he’s getting better as time goes on. He’s been inconsistent. He showed up three days after school started and had none of the summer camp. Language is still somewhat of a barrier. He’s learning a new system, a new style, a new country, you name it. Oh, and we found out just yesterday that he’s gonna be able to play today. Obviously, athletically, he does some really good things. It’s just a matter of understanding what to do and when to do it. That’s been a bit of a struggle for him like it is for a lot of freshmen, so tonight will be good for him.”

Freshman Hudson Greer had two points and four rebounds, shooting 1-of-5 from the floor in his first taste of collegiate hoops. The highlight of his night was probably a blocked shot early in CU’s 23-0 run, and for a true freshman hoping to earn bigger minutes on a team of older players, the quicker he can become an asset defensively, the quicker he can earn those minutes.

“Hudson goes out and plays hard,” McDermott said. “I mean, he’s come to practice every day, he’s really competed and has been able to sustain that effort, which I think is very difficult for freshmen sometimes. The fact that he’s been able to do that has been awesome.”

Asked if the exhibition game helped crystallize anything in terms of roles and rotations, McDermott said things were just as muddy as they were before the game. Not because they’re lacking in top-end talent — because there’s too many players that can make valuable contributions.

“Very few positions really are settled at this point,” McDermott said. “I think Josh Dix has probably solidified his spot. I think we’re wide open at the other two or three guys that are going to play at that position. Jackson (McAndrew) and Isaac (Traudt) have both played really well in practice. So, you know, those would be the guys at the ‘4’. Jasen’s done some good things, but he’s you know, he started at the ‘5’ tonight. He started at the ‘3’ last year. We’ve had to use all of those guys at the ‘5’ in practice a lot because we haven’t had bodies. And how that’s all going to sort out once, if, we can get everybody healthy. That’s yet to be seen.”

Ah, yes, injuries. On that front, Fedor Zugic and Jackson McAndrew are both banged up. Zugic played and scored eight points in 11 minutes, hitting a pair of threes in their 23-0 run. McAndrew did not.

“Fedor was back on the practice floor yesterday after missing the day before,” McDermott said. “Jackson’s injury is nothing serious. I think it could be five, six days or a little bit more, but everything checked out. For precautionary reasons we decided not to risk it tonight.”

As for Owen Freeman, while he’s back on the practice floor, McDermott cautioned against expecting much from him for awhile.

“I mean, it’s been great to have him back, but he’s a long, long ways away, and, you know, besides his surgery in June that’s knocked him out for four months, he also had surgery in January for a hand injury when he was at Iowa,” McDermott said. “He was out three months, doing nothing there. So he really hasn’t been through a full practice for nine months, and anytime that happens, it’s gonna be slow going when you come back. He’s doing some really good things, but he’s got a long road back. We’re gonna be patient and go about it the right way so we get him back at full strength.”

Highlights:

Press Conference:

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