Inside the Box Score:
Creighton was better than you might think from three-point range in the two Las Vegas games. They were 21-of-54 (38.9%) overall, making 11-of-27 against ASU (40.7%) and 10-of-27 (37.0%) against BYU. Sure, that’s not torching-the-nets hot, but keep in mind the D1 average this season is 33.5%. So if you’re blaming three-point shooting for these two losses you’re looking in the wrong place.
Specifically, the attention should be on what should be the highest percentage shot on the court — layups at or near the rim. CU was 13-of-45 (28.9%) on those shots against BYU and Arizona State. That’s an unacceptable rate, and one that has to be significantly better for them to make any sort of serious push over the next three months.
“We told the guys at halftime, it appeared we were avoiding contact instead of going through the contact at the rim. It was disheartening,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio interview. “It’s OK to get your shot blocked every once in awhile. We need to go through their chin and at the rim, use a shot fake, and then take the thing up. We did a much better job with that in the second half.”
Indeed, after a first half where they were 8-of-31 on shots inside the arc, they were 15-of-31 in the second. That’s still not great, but it’s an improvement, and when you’re riding a five-game losing streak and the walls are closing in on you from every side, any sign of improvement is worth pointing out.
The reality is it’s going to be hard to win when two of your most important scorers struggle this badly. Arthur Kaluma was 3-for-13 (and 0-for-7 inside the arc), while Ryan Nembhard was 1-for-9 (0-for-4 inside, 1-for-5 outside). Throw in Trey Alexander shooting just 3-for-8 and Francisco Farabello going 0-for-5, and it’s fair to wonder how they managed to get 71 points.
Fredrick King is how. After a frustrating night against BYU on Saturday and an equally frustrating first half, something clicked for the freshman at halftime on Monday. In 14 minutes after the break, he had 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting, six rebounds (two offensive), one assist and three blocks. He changed the game on both ends of the floor with his size and presence, and much like Ryan Kalkbrenner, opened things up for his teammates because Arizona State had to account for him.
“He was really frustrated with how he played the other night,” McDermott said. “He talked in the media room about how much you have to think as a freshman. Nothing is a habit yet. You don’t know all the plays and you have to think your way through everything. You can paralyze your feet when your mind is running like that. Tonight he played basketball. He made great plays on both ends of the floor. And he gave us everything he had.”
For the game, he had 16 points, 11 rebounds (five offensive) and five blocks, becoming just the third player in the McDermott Era to have a line like that. Gregory Echenique had a 18/14/5 line against Houston Christian in 2011, and Kalkbrenner had 20/12/4 against Marquette on New Years Day 2022.
King was a big reason — maybe the reason — the Jays weren’t destroyed on the glass the way they were against BYU. Arizona State outrebounded them 42-35, including 12-10 on the offensive glass, but after giving up 21 second-chance points to the Cougars the Sun Devils only had 10 in this game.
That makes it all the more mysterious that King subbed out at the 2:42 mark and never returned, spending the decisive moments of the game on the bench. It was a strange coaching decision not to get him back on the floor after he’d changed the complexion of the game. You can’t help but wonder if, on the game’s last play, having a guy like King under the rim might have been useful when the play that was drawn up for Scheierman got blown up. An entry pass to King might be risky, but I’d take my chances with that over a contested desperation 35-footer from Nembhard at the buzzer.
The end result is another close loss to the Sun Devils. Arizona State’s last three wins over Creighton have come by a combined five points, with the Jays missing a game-winning shot in the final seconds each time. If they don’t see ASU on the schedule for awhile, my hunch is it would be OK with most Jays fans.
Recap:
For the second time in as many games in Vegas, Creighton had a shot to the win the game on their final possession. Saturday night, they opted to play it out without taking a timeout, and wound up with their worst statistical shooter taking the would-be game winner. On Monday, they opted to take a timeout to set their lineup and make sure everyone was on the same page. But the result was the same.
Intended to be a play for Baylor Scheierman, he bobbled the inbounds pass and the split-second it took to secure the ball gave ASU time to react. From there, a desperation shot was all they could salvage.
“I thought Baylor had enough room to shoot it. Unfortunately, he just didn’t feel good about it when he caught it,” McDermott said. “And then he got caught in the middle of the floor and didn’t really have anywhere to go, so he pitched it to R2 and at least we got a shot off. We executed the play pretty well, it’s just for whatever reason he didn’t feel good about it.”
Unlike the BYU game, where the Jays staged a furious rally to give themselves a chance, on this night it was their opponent staging the rally. Trailing 35-29 at the half, CU ripped off an 18-3 run to start the second half that included a 16-0 sequence. It gave them a 47-38 lead, and some of the swagger that they had in Maui was beginning to return.
Fredrick King had three dunks, including the same lob pass that Nembhard has perfected to Kalkbrenner, and this one in transition:
And one where he followed a teammate’s miss with this thunderous putback:
Trey Alexander scored seven straight, starting with this three on the break:
After a Desmond Cambridge Jr. basket ended ASU’s drought, Arthur Kaluma answered with a three of his own and it gave Creighton their largest lead at 50-40. But then four 3-pointers by the Cambridge brothers (three by Desmond, one by Devan) keyed a 13-3 run in the span of three minutes to tie it at 53.
“We got up by 10, and Cambridge hit a couple of really difficult shots. Then we botched a switch on a backscreen and gave him an easy one,” McDermott said of that sequence. “I watched their Michigan game and they made tough shot after tough shot and really dominated a good Michigan team. You can’t control whether guys are gonna make tough shots. It’s the other things that we could’ve controlled that we came up a little short.”
Shereef Mitchell, who’d given the Jays a great defensive effort off the bench in the second half, was then rewarded with his first three of the season to break the tie. A layup by King pushed the lead back out to five, 65-60, with five minutes to go.
But Arizona State outscored them the rest of the way 13-6, with the only Jays baskets coming on a three by Kaluma and a layup by Scheierman. In need of a basket from someone, no one stepped up.
“Our margin for error is really slim right now. Without Ryan, we have to play close to perfect to beat a good basketball team,” McDermott said. “We all have to look in the mirror and find ways to help this team. It starts with me and all the members of my coaching staff, and then each of the players. What can we do? How can we put ourselves in better positions to finish these games?”
In October when the hype train was at full steam for the Creighton Bluejays, you could have predicted the Jays to have five losses total and not gotten laughed out of the room. Instead, they’ve now lost five in a row before conference play, and haven’t won a game in 21 days.
The last Creighton team to lose five straight was the 2014-15 team, who lost nine in a row between December 21-January 25 and started Big East play 0-8. If you’re going by won-loss record, that makes this the worst stretch of basketball the Jays have played since McDermott’s worst Creighton team hit their lowest point. For a team widely expected to be his best Creighton team, that’s a shocking sentence to type.
With a NET ranking of #50 in the updated list on Tuesday morning, the Jays might very well be on the outside looking in among NCAA Tournament bubble teams if the season ended today. The fact that this team is in the same sentence with “bubble” after their performance in Maui is a similarly shocking sentence to type.
“The schedule ended up taking a toll on us,” McDermott said. “More than we thought it would. And you hope that it’ll pay off later, that some of the lessons that we’ve learned from playing this stretch and as much we’ve been away from home, that we can grow from it. But nobody is gonna feel sorry for us. So we’ve gotta clean it up and get ready for Friday.”
If there’s good news, it’s this: a new season begins on Friday. There’s 20 games, or two-thirds of the regular season, still to play. With a strong showing in Big East play, Creighton can get themselves back where they were expected to be.
