Subscribe to our Newsletter

FeaturedMen's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton Leads Wire-to-Wire in 92-69 Win over Utah Tech

By
0
Share

[Box Score]

Though it took longer than expected, eventually Creighton was able to pull away from Utah Tech on Monday and make the score look as expected. But the 92-69 win was closer than that spread indicates.

The Jays took a 7-0 lead after two minutes and 17-5 after five, with all five starters scoring. As they have repeatedly during this resurgent stretch, the new starting unit got them off to a good start offensively, their defensive execution was lacking — or the plan was flawed. Greg McDermott leaned toward the latter.

“Our ball screen coverage was awful. And part of it was me. You know, I probably made some bad decisions on how to cover some of their ball screens,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “It was also a one day prep, with no Josh (Dix), no Jasen (Green), and no Owen (Freeman) at practice yesterday. So it was a skeleton crew. We were not as prepared defensively in a situation like that as we would normally be.”

But every time Utah Tech got close, Austin Swartz pushed them away. When they cut the lead to 9-5, he buried a catch-and-shoot three from in front of the UT bench. He did the same a couple of minutes later with the Jays ahead 17-13.

And when they cut Creighton’s lead to 28-26, he hit threes on back-to-back possessions. The second came as the shot clock approached zero, with a defender closely guarding him.

“It’s just being poised,” Swartz said in the press conference afterward, chuckling. “We don’t necessarily work on that at practice.”

McDermott also admitted they were caught off guard a little by Utah Tech pushing the pace and trying to score early in the shot clock; in the limited amount of time they had to scout and prepare, they felt the opposite would be true. But there was a silver lining.

“I thought our pace wore into them as the game went on,” McDermott said. “I thought they were really fatigued that second half.”

With 16:44 to go, the Jays made 12 of their next 14 shots, and scored on nine straight possessions. In the process, they pushed their lead from eight (48-40) to eighteen (74-56). The stretch that broke the game open included an alley-oop from Graves to Green:

And three great examples of the Jays’ vastly improved ball movement and decision making. The first saw four passes in three seconds — Graves to Fedor Zugic to Blake Harper and then back to Zugic for three:

The second featured Dix passing to Owen Freeman, who then threw a bounce pass to Graves as he cut to the basket.

And then Zugic passed to Dix, who drew a double-team and flipped it to a wide-open Harper in the corner for a three.

Around that same point in the game, they switched up their ball screen coverages. “We were able to force some turnovers and give them a look that they hadn’t seen before,” McDermott explained.

One of those turnovers was this steal by Harper, who took the ball coast-to-coast for an explosive dunk.

From there, they pulled away for a 23-point win, their third straight victory — and third straight game where the margin of victory exceeded what the predictive metrics thought would happen. It’s also the third straight game where they held an opponent to under 1.0 points per possession (Xavier had 0.77, Marquette had 0.82, and Utah Tech had 0.96).

The result is a meteoric rise from 72 to 44 in KenPom, and from 119 to 58 in the NET.

On the morning of December 14 following the loss to Kansas State, Creighton’s adjusted defensive efficiency was 103.3, ranked 87th according to KenPom. Today it sits at 100.0, a full 3.5 points fewer per 100 possessions, good for 42nd. On the same date a year ago, their AdjDE was 100.1 and it ranked 57th.

“We changed the starting line up to get a little more communication out there,” McDermott said. “And I think the guys that moved to the bench, probably from their vantage point now, they see how important that is, and I think they bought into that better.”

He added that from his perspective, the team’s unselfishness offensively has carried over to the defensive end.

“This was a team for too long that was worried about whether my man scored, or if it was my mistake that was the reason that they scored,” he said. “Defense is a five man unit, and our job is to keep them from getting a good shot and doing whatever we have to do to make sure that happens. We’ve subscribed to that much better recently.”

Four straight top 50 KenPom teams await after the break: Butler (OK, the Bulldogs are 51st, but close enough) and St. John’s (20) at home, Seton Hall (45) and Villanova (28) on the road. By January 13 when Georgetown comes to Omaha, we’ll have a lot more clarity on whether these last three games were fools gold, or truly an overnight turnaround.

“We’re in such a better place than we were 10 days ago, and I’m proud of the guys for that,” McDermott said. “I think they’ve bought into each other a little bit more and bought into what we’re asking them to do and keeping the game maybe a little simpler than we were before, and the results have been better because of that. I’m really proud of the way that we’ve finished these last three games before break.”

Inside the Box:

Austin Swartz led the Jays again with 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting, including 5-of-9 from three-point range. He’s averaging 16.6 points over the last five games, and has scored in double figures in five of the last six. He had nine points in the other game.

Josh Dix had an outstanding game on both ends, on the heels of several games where he played lockdown defense but struggled to score. The opposite was expected to be the case, especially coming from an Iowa program under Fran McCaffery where defense was optional. On the postgame radio show, John Bishop joked with Dix about that.

“We tried!” Dix said, laughing. “We didn’t play a lot (of defense), but we tried.”

“We’ve made big strides with helping each other. You know, it’s not one-on-one out there,” Dix added. “Everyone’s guarding the ball. I think part of that is just knowing that the guy behind you has your back. You can be a little bit more aggressive on the ball, you know, and go for steals knowing that the guy behind you has your back. And I feel like we’re talking better on the defensive end.”

Dix had 17 points on 4-of-6 shooting (and 3-of-5 from three), with six rebounds, five assists, five steals, and after drawing four fouls, went a perfect 6-of-6 from the line. What a night. He’s Creighton’s only player in the last 20 seasons to have a game with:

15+ points
5+ rebounds
5+ assists
5+ steals
0 turnovers

Isaac Traudt added 13 points, including three more made 3’s, which isn’t surprising.

It was the other two baskets that were: Traudt put the ball on the floor and drove to the rim. Traudt was a three-level scorer in high school at Grand Island, and that’s what made him a hot recruit who initially opted to play for Tony Bennett at Virginia. Through two-plus seasons at Creighton, he’s mostly been a catch-and-shoot guy from the perimeter. In the last two weeks, he’s looked more like the player CU thought they were getting when he transferred home.

Asked if he could remember the last time he scored back-to-back two point shots, Traudt said “Not in college ever. I don’t think so.”

The Jays had 23 assists on 34 made baskets; in their three-game winning streak they’ve had an assist on 67% of their makes. It’s one of plethora of areas where they’ve made a marked improvement over the last two weeks. Those two weeks have changed the outlook on the season in a hurry.

Press Conference:

Highlights:

0
Share
Newsletter
Never Miss a Story

Sign up for WBR's email newsletter, and get the best
Bluejay coverage delivered to your inbox FREE.


Sign up for WBR's email newsletter, and get the best
Bluejay coverage delivered to your inbox FREE.