Creighton led 61-38 at the half Sunday night. A 23-point lead is nothing to scoff at, but Greg McDermott was displeased with how his defense looked. Drury did present some schematic problems for the Bluejays — their five-out, small lineup was constantly in motion and forced the Jays’ big men (especially Ryan Kalkbrenner) to chase people around — and the switching-heavy defensive gameplan they implemented the day before in practice wasn’t going well.
On his postgame radio show, McDermott said it “looked like we’d practiced that gameplan for 15 minutes, because we had.”
The tandem of Kalkbrenner and Frederick King did a much better job of switching screens in the second half, allowing them to better stay in front of people. A lot of the credit for that goes to Trey Alexander, whose communication in calling out screens was crucial to the gameplan.
“The first thing Mac told me after we lost in the NCAA Tournament last year was that I was going to need to be more vocal,” Alexander said on the postgame radio show.
“He said he knew I wasn’t used to talking on the court and having that type of leadership role on my shoulders, but that if I wanted the team to be as successful as I want it to be, I was going to have to be that leader. At halftime tonight, he said he noticed I was more vocal than a year ago but that I needed to talk even more on the defensive end especially — talk through everything that you see. And after the game, he told me that’s what got us those 12 stops in a row. If I can do that all year it will help our team tremendously.”
While Creighton was scoring on 18 of its first 20 possessions in the second half, they were nearly pitching a shutout defensively — they got 12 consecutive stops to begin the half, and over the first ten minutes outscored Drury 32-4. That 61-38 lead was now 93-42.
Baylor Scheierman’s passing impresses in debut
Scheierman had four points, four assists and four rebounds in that 10-minute span. He nearly logged a triple-double with 14 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists (and likely would have in a closer game, as he did all of that in just 18 minutes). It was his court vision that drew all the attention after the game.
Trey Alexander said his flashy passes — like this highlight-reel over-the-shoulder pass to Kalkbrenner — reminded him of something you’d see in a Magic Johnson “Showtime” era clip.
Greg McDermott called his vision “elite”, and noted that it’s one thing to see an opportunity to create a shot for a teammate — and another to get them the ball in creative, unexpected ways that the defense isn’t prepared for.
“He’s a little bit like Grant Gibbs in that way,” McDermott said, “because he’s got size — Grant was 6’5” or 6’6” and could see over top of some of the defense, like Baylor can. He was a high school quarterback, and today when we were working on full-court stuff he was out there throwing BB’s. He’s really, really talented.”
Trey Alexander’s dunk
Alexander has done an awful lot in one year as a Bluejay, but one thing he hadn’t done is dunked the ball in a game. Five minutes into the second half, he changed that.
“The last time I dunked in a game was senior year of high school,” Alexander recounted on the postgame radio show. “Everybody on the team was clowning me. I’m the only guy who plays significant minutes that hadn’t dunked yet. I was like ‘This year I got y’all.’ What’s crazy is one of the GA’s was like ‘Can you do something on defense, can you get a steal or something?’ So I stole the ball and all I could hear was someone on the bench yelling ‘Dunk it!’ because I was about to just lay it in off the glass. And I thought, OK, I’m just gonna go ahead and dunk this. I didn’t know the defender was going to jump and try to defend it, though.”
That defender? Brady O’Connell, younger brother and doppelgänger for recently graduated Bluejay Alex O’Connell.
While the dunk led all of the highlight packages, it was his jump-shooting that should get noticed. He shot 3-of-4 from three-point range after making 18-of-64 as a freshman (28.1%). And to his credit, he identified that as a weakness in his game and set out to improve upon it.
“I felt like a lot of teams last year would close out late on me. It hurt our team,” Alexander said on the postgame show. “When R2 or Kalk would drive, the defense could help off of me because I wasn’t enough of a threat to shoot a jumper. Basically, I was letting my team down. So I knew I had to work on my shot a lot. Throughout the whole summer, that was what I worked on.”
Bench impresses
With a huge lead, McDermott was able to get extended minutes for the second unit — Mason Miller, Fredrick King, Ben Shtolzberg, and John Christofolis all played 16+ minutes, and Jasen Green saw the court for 10.
True freshman Shtolzberg scored 13 second-half points on 4-of-6 shooting and 4-of-5 from the line, with two boards and a steal. He looked confident on both ends of the floor, and while there aren’t a ton of minutes up for grabs in the backcourt, Shtolzberg seems ready to play a meaningful role immediately.
Speaking of confidence, sophomore Christofolis looked like a different player. Heralded as a three-point sharpshooter coming out of high school, he struggled immensely in his first collegiate year — in 13 games he shot 1-of-11 from long range and 3-of-15 overall. Sunday night he was more decisive, made more aggressive moves with the ball, and was in better position defensively.
After the game, McDermott reminded everyone that Mitch Ballock shot just 29% as a freshman.
“The speed of the game, the pace, the length of the defenses — you have so many things to think about when you’re a freshman, because they aren’t habits yet,” McDermott noted. “Your mind is constantly testing you. ‘Where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do next?’ You just don’t shoot the ball as well — there have been very few guys who have stepped in as freshmen and shot the ball lights-out. I think there’s natural progression from going through it, but the work ethic that all of these guys have is a big reason they’re going to shoot it better this year. They spent a lot of time on it.”
As for Fredrick King, he looked capable of being a solid backup to Kalkbrenner immediately and showed that the future of the center position is in good hands. King had 10 points and six rebounds, shooting 5-of-9 from the floor.
“You’re going to see with Fredrick, similar to Kalkbrenner his freshman year, that he’s pretty good for a couple of minutes at a time. And then he gets tired,” McDermott said. “I told him tonight after the first timeout, listen, it should be a blur of you running down the floor every single time. You’re only going to be out there for a couple of minutes while Kalkbrenner gets rest. Wear yourself out with energy. Sometimes when the opposing center sees Kalkbrenner go to the bench, he goes ‘Whew’ thinking he can take advantage, and Fred’s got to wear him out. I think he can. And he’s physical at the rim, he does some good things defensively, and he’s going to be a really, really good player. He’s going to help us this year.”
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