With 5:47 to play, Creighton trimmed what had once been an 18-point deficit to eight — as close as they’d been since early in the game. They’d gotten there after five quick points from freshman Jackson McAndrew (on a three-pointer and a pair of free throws), and after their defense forced two straight turnovers, the opportunity to put real pressure on Nebraska was right in front of them.
Instead, they missed three consecutive three-pointers, with two of them on the same possession. And after the third miss, Steven Ashworth landed awkwardly and appeared to injure his ankle. After writhing around for a moment in obvious pain, he couldn’t walk off the floor under his own power and needed help to get to the locker room.
The extent of the injury to Ashworth won’t be known for a day or two, but Greg McDermott’s comment that he’ll “be out for some time” is ominous. It added injury to insult after a game where the Bluejays couldn’t execute much of anything, and watched their in-state rival celebrate a win on their home floor for the second straight matchup.
Creighton scored 13 points in the first 17 minutes of the game, a stretch of 29 possessions, and trailed 31-13. They had two more turnovers (7) than made baskets (5) at that point, and had endured two separate scoring droughts of more than four minutes each. And while Nebraska’s game plan of trying to take Kalkbrenner out of the game was successful — fronting him to prevent him from getting the ball, throwing double-and-triple teams at him when he did get the ball, and being hyper-focused on knowing where he was every second — Creighton missed opportunities for flip-ups on pick-and-rolls and multiple deep seals when Nebraska did have a momentary lapse.
Mostly, the Jays just never forced the issue. Instead, they bizarrely seemed to accept that their All-American was just not going to be a factor, and settled for hoisting a school-record number of three-pointers.
“That’s all you can really ask for out of those post-ups, is you get an open 3. Some nights they just don’t fall,” Kalkbrenner said. “They just kept committing a lot of people to the paint. If you’re getting open shots, you live with it. I mean, they can commit five people to me. If they’re giving up wide-open 3s, I don’t care if I shoot the ball. We’ve just gotta knock ’em down next time, and we will.”
Kalkbrenner’s first shot attempt came 12 minutes into the game. It was a three-pointer, and it missed. His first touch near the rim — not shot, touch — came with 2:09 left in the first half. He got another on the next possession, and drew fouls both times, as the Huskers showed the next piece of their strategy was to use all 15 fouls their three primary big men were allowed, and foul Kalkbrenner rather than give up an easy bucket at the rim.
Then Creighton almost stopped looking for it, and while he drew five fouls the rest of the game, he never attempted another shot and split the only two free throws he took.
“There’s a risk to what they do if you can shoot it well,” McDermott said, “but this was about more than just poor shooting. We had too many turnovers, and you know, you can’t do both. You can’t not shoot it well and turn it over too. I mean, come on, we had 13 points the first 29 possessions of the game. We’re lucky to even have a chance to get back in it with that kind of offensive performance.”
The loss drops them to 4-1, and exposed the Jays as potentially one-dimensional if they can’t improve their three-point shooting or get more shot creation off the dribble. Through five games, they’re making 30.7% of their threes, which if it holds would be the lowest since the introduction of the shot clock in 1985. The previous low? A tie between the 2021-22 and 1993-94 Jays who both made 30.8% for the season. The former advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The latter marked an unceremonious end to the Rick Johnson Era.
And now they’re going to have to regroup without point guard Steven Ashworth, potentially for some time — with a bevy of ranked opponents between them and the Big East opener on December 18.
“I think that what this team has shown so far is not what its ceiling is,” Kalkbrenner said quietly, almost mumbling, in the postgame press conference. “I know we have a lot more in us than what we’ve shown.”
Inside the Box:
Creighton’s 42 three-point attempts set a school record, breaking a tie with the last two seasons’ games against Nebraska — they attempted 40 in both games. Those 42 attempts represented 81% of their total shots, which sounds absurd because it is. Of the more than 75,000 Division 1 college basketball games played over the last 15 seasons, there’s only been one other game where a team took more than 81% of their shots from three. One! One out of over 75,000!
(That game? North Florida at Syracuse, 2019. North Florida took 46 of 55 shots from outside, or 83.6%. They also did not win.)
Only two players attempted a two-pointer for the Jays, and while no one’s tortured themself enough to do this research, it wouldn’t be surprising if that was the first time it had happened since the three-point shot was introduced. Especially given the extreme rarity of taking this many threes in a game. It’s an ignominious stat, regardless.
Kalkbrenner had his nation-leading streak of 62 straight game with eight or more points snapped, and his four points were his fewest since scoring four on Christmas Day 2022 against DePaul — his second game back after missing six games due to mono. That game is also the last time he took fewer than five shots in a game, as he attempted three shots.
The last time he took fewer than three? Against Ohio in the second round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament, when he was a freshman backing up Christian Bishop and playing around 13 minutes a game. That’s also the last time he didn’t make a shot in a game.
His streak of 41 straight games with three fouls or less was also snapped, as he had four fouls.
Nebraska essentially abandoned the offensive glass to get back on defense, which combined with a CU defense that forces few live ball turnovers, left the Jays with little to no transition game. The Huskers grabbed on offensive board on just 19% of their missed shots, almost half their average through the first four games. They turned it into a grinder of a game with 41 combined fouls and 53 free throw attempts, playing right into Nebraska’s hands.
“We knew this was the only way we were gonna do it,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said. “We weren’t gonna come here and out-finesse them and we weren’t gonna come out here and be more pretty than Creighton.”
It was a carbon copy of the gameplan Nebraska used the last two years against the Bluejays. In 2022, it succeeded — Creighton shot 10-of-40 from three and lost by 10. In 2023, the Jays made 14-of-40 and won by 29. What changed is CU’s efficiency at the rim. In 2022, the Jays made 10-of-25 on two-pointers and 8-of-15 at the rim. In ’23, they were 18-of-29 on twos and 15-of-19 at the rim.
In this one, they were 12-of-42 from three — bad, but not very different from either of the last two meetings. The difference? They only took 10 shots inside the arc, and made five.
Turnovers also made a big difference, with Creighton turning it over 17 times (on 23.6% of their possessions.) Last year, they had just 12 turnovers, or 16.7% of their possessions. Two years ago, they had a turnover on 21.1% of their possessions, or 15 total.
“You name it, we did it,” McDermott said. “We really had some crazy ones, and at times I think they were they were so frustrated with their inability to get it to Kalkbrenner that they probably forced the issue a few times when it wasn’t there. We had offensive possessions where I don’t even recognize what we were doing. We made some mistakes that are uncharacteristic, and as soon as the guys watch it on film they’re going to say what the heck am I doing?”
Combined with being whistled for 19 fouls that led to 30 free throw attempts for Nebraska, Creighton’s avenues for victory were closed off.
Press Conference:
Highlights: