Key Stats:
Creighton holds Xavier to 54 points. The last — and only — time they held a Big East opponent to fewer than that and won the game? Their first-ever conference game, a 67-49 win over Marquette on December 31, 2013. In other words, they haven’t done it since.
For the record, they’ve held two other Big East opponents to fewer than 54 points, but lost both games — 50-48 to Providence on January 12, 2016 and 53-52 at Marquette on January 14, 2015.
CU’s first three-point attempt came at the 10:47 mark, the latest they’ve gone into a game this season before taking a three. Their four 3-point attempts in the first half were also a season-low; their 15 three-point attempts for the game matched a season-low. How dedicated were they to the paint? Rob Anderson shared an amusing stat during the under-12 timeout stating that at that point, Creighton had zero 3-point attempts of their nine shots. At that same point Wednesday against St. John’s, 11 of their 15 shot attempts were threes. Here’s the wildest stat of all, though:
Matt also had this little nugget:
Recap:
Martin Krampelj matched his career-high with 23 points, stuffing the stat sheet with six rebounds, two assists, four steals and a perfect 7-of-7 from the foul stripe in 24 minutes. Creighton intended to feed him in the post early and often to establish themselves offensively, and take advantage of what they believed to be a mismatch.
“It’s obviously a different look for us,” sophomore Mitch Ballock said. “This game, we took advantage of mismatches. We threw it in and we just went to work inside-out. We went to what was working.”
“We took what the defense gave us,” Greg McDermott added on his postgame radio interview. “They switched ball screens, they really pushed out on our three-point shooters, and then they left Martin one-on-one in the post. We were able to get the ball in there, and let Martin and Christian and Sam go to work. Over time, that loosened up what we were doing on the perimeter, and got us some open looks there.”
He converted a three-point play early on to break a 2-2 tie — the only time the entire afternoon the game was even — and after the under-16 timeout he scored six straight points to give Creighton a 15-8 lead. He stuck a pair of free throws, broke free for a lob dunk, and posted up a smaller defender for a layup.
Late in the half, Krampelj even took a defender off the dribble to score at the rim:
Their first three-point attempt of the afternoon, nearly ten minutes into the game, came largely as a result of a post-touch, as well, with Christian Bishop drawing a collapsing defense on him near the rim and kicking it out to Marcus Zegarowski for the triple:
Xavier’s defense was off-balance all afternoon, unable to stop dribble penetration and consistently bad on rotations. CU took advantage, with Kaleb Joseph driving amidst four defenders to score:
And Mitch Ballock throwing a cross-court pass that confused the entire Musketeer defense about what was happening:
CU took a 41-26 lead into the break, with their defense holding Xavier to five points over their final 10 possessions to help put separation between the teams. Leading scorer Paul Scruggs had just three points on 1-of-4 shooting for the Musketeers, while the Jays’ focus on the paint showed in Krampelj’s 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting, Zegarowski’s 11 points on 3-of-4 inside the arc, and Kaleb Joseph’s six points on 2-of-3 at the rim.
“It all starts with effort,” Krampelj said of the Jays’ first half. “And our effort was better today than it was against St. John’s. No doubt.”
“I’m really proud of the way we competed today,” McDermott concurred. “We hustled and got on the floor against St. John’s, too, we just didn’t make shots. Today, we made Xavier’s life difficult because we were active and forced turnovers. That made them rethink their gameplan in terms of getting the ball inside. That also allowed us to get out in transition and get a few easy opportunities.”
It was a costly first half, though, as freshman phenom Zegarowski suffered a broken shooting hand.
“We were going to shut him down at halftime,” Greg McDermott told the media afterward, “but we talked with him and actually had his folks come to the locker room. They’re some tough, hard-nosed people.”
Zegarowski opted to play through the injury — again, we’re talking a broken shooting hand here! — which is a different level of toughness. And though he was visibly in pain at various times in the second half, he gutted through 12 minutes where he was not nearly as effective as he’d normally be but more effective than anyone should be with a broken hand.
“The severity of the break will lead us down a path as to whether he can get through the season or have surgery and be shut down for the year,” McDermott said in his postgame radio interview, before they knew the exact diagnosis. “But you’d have to almost cut his arm off for that guy to not play. So we have a responsibility to him as well to have his best long-term interests in mind. He’s on his way to get x-rays, but it’s probably broken, it’s just a matter of how severe it is.”
Those x-rays confirmed their suspicion to be true: a fifth metacarpal fracture in his right hand. The official word is he’ll be re-evaluated in a week, which means he’s out for the road games at Villanova and at Seton Hall, and after that, it depends on his pain tolerance and whether there’s any long-term damage (or risk of further injury) that might come from playing through it.
The second half began much as the first half had ended, with CU scoring the first four points on shots at the rim — a lob dunk to Krampelj and a layup from Ty-Shon Alexander:
With a 19-point lead against a tired, struggling Xavier team who had arrived in Omaha merely 12 hours beforehand — their inbound flight was diverted twice, ultimately sending them to Grand Island where they bussed into Omaha — it looked like the game might be one or two possessions away from getting out of hand. The Musketeers weren’t ready to concede just yet, though. A 9-0 Xavier run created some uneasy energy in the arena, cutting the lead in half and bringing back memories of previous halftime leads lost.
Christian Bishop wasn’t having any of it. He ended the run with this dunk, and then swatted away a shot moments later to send the game into the under-16 timeout with CU holding a 12-point lead.
They held Xavier at bay with a tough shot by Krampelj inside, and another swat by Bishop:
The lead stayed in double-digits the rest of the way, with Creighton eventually pulling away for a convincing 76-54 win.
It moves them into a three-way tie for third place in the Big East as they embark on a three-game road trip that will at least begin with just a seven-man rotation — Jacob Epperson, Damien Jefferson, Connor Cashaw, and now Marcus Zegarowski are now all out with injuries.
Despite that, Creighton has confidence as they head out on the road.
“I think there’s a little bit more belief in our locker room now, after the Butler game, and after this game, in what we’re capable of defensively,” McDermott said. “As we go through the league, especially the second time around, teams will do a pretty good job taking away your strengths. You have to figure out easier ways to score. So defensively you better be on point. We were good against Butler, we were good again today, and we’re going to need that fight on this road trip.”