13 minutes into Sunday’s game, FDU led 26-24, the second straight opponent to torch Creighton’s defense and turn what was predicted (on paper) to be a blowout into a close contest. They’d jumped out to a 10-2 lead after just two minutes, withstood a CU run to retake the lead, and gone back ahead. The Knights made 4-of-5 from three-point range in that opening salvo, scoring 1.182 points per possession.
And then the Jays took control of the game, fueled by their transition game. A 13-0 run was kickstarted by a fast break dunk by Jamiya Neal — four seconds pass from the time Ryan Kalkbrenner rebounded a missed shot and passed it to Steven Ashworth until Neal’s dunk.
After a three from Ashworth, Neal scored again in transition, and a couple of possessions later fed a pass to Kalkbrenner for a dunk. They led 38-26 after a pair of free throws by Mason Miller, and after ending the half on a 26-8 run spanning the final seven minutes, they took a 16-point lead into the break.
“While we’re not as long as we’ve been in the past, we’re faster, and you see that speed in transition,” Greg McDermott said. “We’re able to attack quick and you’ve got a willing passer in Steven, and Pop Isaacs made some great passes in transition as well. So when we can do that, I think you can wear into a team relatively quick, but you’ve got to get stops first.”
“He’s an athlete that is hard to guard in transition,” Ashworth said on the postgame radio show. “Whenever I’m on the opposite team in practice trying to get back on defense, Jamiya is one guy that I don’t want to see coming downhill at the rim against me. I know other teams feel that fear as well.”
“I think that’s where I thrive the most at,” Neal said. “I like to play in that type of situation. Just putting pressure on the defense for myself or for my teammates, I think that’s where I’ll be most effective.”
Then they put the hammer down at the start of the second half, answering an opening bucket by FDU with a 12-0 blitz that pushed the lead out to 62-37. Neal’s fingerprints were all over that run, too, first with this pass to Kalkbrenner for a dunk:
Then he had a dunk of his own, where the Jays turned a Kalkbrenner block into a fast break opportunity that Neal cashed in.
Moments later, he scored in transition again, this time slithering in between two defenders at the rim and finishing through contact for an and-one.
It’s just two games, but Neal’s ability to run the floor in transition like he’s been shot out of a cannon and then finish with an array of athletic moves has been jaw-dropping. He excelled at it while at Arizona State, too, but his overall numbers obscured it partially because of the unorganized nature of ASU’s offense, and partially because Neal’s shot selection when not in transition was often poor.
McDermott said the next step is to get Neal to use that ability to score in the half-court. As he’s still learning Creighton’s system and un-learning habits he picked up at ASU, he’s too slow with his decision making. Specifically, McDermott called out his indecisiveness on how best to attack a closeout as something holding him back.
“He’s kind of catching it and holding it,” McDermott said. “As I’ve explained to him, that delay starts them in a rotation. If you hold it, they’re allowed to reset. We’ve just got to work on that a little bit more with him, because he’s slithery getting to the rim and he has the same athletic ability when he’s attacking a closeout as he does in transition. We’ve just got to get him to do it a little bit more.”
In the middle of that big run to open the half, Kalkbrenner scored seven points to give him 24 for the game — and at the 14:28 mark, his day was over with CU ahead by 24. With their star relaxing on the bench, the Jays kept the heat on, eventually building a lead of as many as 35 points.
Freshman Jackson McAndrew was a big key as the Jays continued building their lead, scoring 11 second half points in 11 minutes on 4-of-8 shooting. The 6’10” McAndrew’s first career bucket was this three-pointer that gave CU a 81–48 lead.
He scored on a variety of moves in the paint, too, which is a dimension to his game that wasn’t expected this early in his career — his three-point shooting is his highlight skill.
“That’s something I think I can do a lot, and a lot of people don’t really know that about me,” McAndrew said. “So being able to show that in this game was good to see.”
It’s defense and rebounding that will make the difference on how much he sees the floor as a freshman, though, and McAndrew acknowledged the learning curve there is steep — both the speed of the college game and Creighton’s system.
“Staying in front of guys is tough at this level, and I’ve been working hard at that,” he said. “And rebounding, boxing out, even if I don’t get the rebound, it’s important to get my guy out of there.”
Having to battle for 40 minutes against UTRGV despite being 30-point favorites opened eyes around the country — and not in a good way. McAndrew said on the postgame radio show that the game was a wake-up call.
“We knew what we needed to do when we got to practice the next day. Mac and all the coaches remind us a lot that there’s a high standard at Creighton, especially on the defensive end,” McAndrew said. “So I think we did a really good job in practice for two days, and then we came in here today and carried over what we practiced.”
Indeed, from the moment in the first half when FDU took their last lead (26-24, 6:44) until Ashworth and Isaacs checked out for the last time (with CU ahead 81-50 at the 8:41 mark of the second), the Bluejays had held FDU to just 0.641 points per possession over nearly a full half of basketball. Stringing together stops allowed them to get out and run, and from there the game snowballed.
“You know, their bigs hit a couple shots, but we were able to play our style of defense a little bit better, keeping Kalk closer to the rim…he’s so impactful back there,” McDermott said on the postgame radio show. “Our guys are getting a better feel. I thought our activity with our hands was better. And I thought we were a little quicker to our spot than we’ve been.”
Inside the Box:
After scoring 49 points in the season opener on 20-of-22 shooting, Ryan Kalkbrenner scored 24 on 9-of-10 shooting in the follow-up — and played just 22 minutes. That’s an absurd 73 points on 29-of-32 shooting, which defies explanation.
He’s the first Bluejay to score 24 or more points in each of the first two games of a season since at least 1980-81, according to CU’s SID Rob Anderson. And he’s just the second player anywhere in D1 since 2005 — a span of 20 years — to have back-to-back games of 24+ points while shooting 90% or better in both games.
And if he hits pull-up threes off the dribble with any kind of regularity, like this one in the first half? Good night and good luck.
Asked if that’s a shot he’s seen the big man make before, McDermott laughed and said half-jokingly “Yeah, no. And you probably won’t see one again.”
Pop Isaacs saw his first action of the regular season after missing the opener. Isaacs scored 12 points on just 4-of-12 shooting and 2-of-7 from three, missing several good looks. He had 24 points on 10-of-14 shooting, including 4-of-6 from three-point range, in the exhibition win over Purdue — and the player CU can expect is probably closer to that version.
Isaacs played through a torn hip labrum last season at Texas Tech, and after offseason surgery to repair it, some soreness was to expected early in the season.
“He’s practiced two out of the last 13 or 14 days. So there’s going to be some slippage from what we saw against Purdue, and I thought he did some good things, and we got him a lot of good shots,” McDermott said. “I thought he had really good looks, and while he didn’t shoot great tonight, I’m not worried about that. Hopefully his body handles this well and he feels good tomorrow, and we’re able to have a couple more good practices leading up to Wednesday.”
Ashworth scored 15 points on 5-of-8 from three-point range, and dished out nine assists. Combined with scoring 25 in the opener with seven assists, it’s been a stellar start to Ashworth’s senior season.
“He’s confident because he puts a lot of work in, and, you know, he’s prepared himself for the shots and the moments and the reads that he’s got to make,” McDermott said. “He won’t like the four turnovers, I know that. I know him well enough to know he won’t like that, but I thought defensively when he was on Dylan Jones, he really did a good job being there on the catch where he didn’t feel comfortable being able to take a shot. And as I said on the TV interview after the game, what we see on the stat sheet really pales in comparison to the things that he does for our team from a leadership and communication standpoint, and the way that impacts everybody in our locker room. He’s incredibly valuable to what we’re doing.”
Beyond those top three players, there’s some question marks — but also some promising signs. The ‘4’ spot appears to be a bit of a committee at this stage, with Jasen Green starting the opener (four points on just one shot, four turnovers and three rebounds) and Isaac Traudt starting this one after hitting three 3’s against UTRGV. Traudt only hit one shot on Sunday, but did a lot of other good things — he had five rebounds, two assists and two blocks. McAndrew had 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting, and Mason Miller had three points with two boards and an assist.
“It’s challenging, because they all deserve to play and there’s not enough minutes to go around right now,” McDermott said. “We’re going to have to figure that out. It might be a game-by-game thing. The good news is they’ve all been really supportive of each other, they’ve really pushed each other and they bring different things to the table. So it might be what you need on that particular night, whether it’s spacing or if it’s defense or rebounding, it might be a different guy.”
Highlights:
Press Conference: