Saturday morning, Creighton tries for their second straight win — and a season sweep of St. John’s — when they play the Red Storm at Madison Square Garden. The Bluejays are coming off one of their best games of the season, while the Red Storm are coming off one of their most forgettable.
Tuesday night, St. John’s lost 85-62 to Butler in Indianapolis, and played most of the game without two of their best players. D’Angelo Harrison picked up two quick fouls and spent most of the first half on the bench, while Chris Obekpa was ejected with 8:26 to play in the half after being whistled for a Flagrant-Two. The big man had been trading verbal barbs with Butler’s Tyler Wideman on the way down the court, and when they got under the Butler basket, Obekpa threw his elbow out and blasted Wideman in the head, who stayed down on the court for several minutes.
Obekpa’s loss was a big one, as he ranks third in the country with a league-leading 3.4 blocks per game and is a big part of their defensive gameplan as his shot-blocking prowess renders most shots at the rim a moot point. He’s a helluva rebounder, too; the junior pulled down a career-high 16 boards at Syracuse (Dec. 6) and ranks fourth in the Big East in rebounding at 7.6 per contest. Obekpa has two double-doubles this season and has grabbed at least 10 rebounds in six contests.
Harrison being limited to 28 minutes, and ultimately fouling out, was also costly. He ranks second in the Big East and is tied for 38th nationally with 18.5 points per game. The senior has six Big East weekly honors on the season, including two Player of the Week awards. Harrison has reached double-figures in 99-of-114 career games played and has scored at least 20 points in 49 games, including a career-high 36-point effort as a sophomore. The first team Preseason All-BIG EAST choice ranks sixth with 2.0 3s made per game and 18th with 5.5 rebounds. He played all 40 minutes in the meeting in Omaha last month, scoring 18 points on 4-15 shooting from the floor and 6-7 from the free throw line, and nearly tied the game at the buzzer when his long three-pointer clanged off the rim.
They were led in that game by Sir’Dominic Pointer, who scored 19 points on 7-15 shooting to go along with six rebounds. He also had perhaps the most ridiculous flop in college basketball this season — and has been rightly ridiculed all week for it. I mean…just look for yourself:
Pointer has five double-doubles this season, and is averaging a career-best 12.5 points per game for the season. He’s shooting 51.5 percent from the floor, good for sixth in the league, while ranking fifth with 7.4 rebounds and 12th with 3.3 assists. He also ranks third in the league with 2.1 steals per game. Last month in Omaha, Pointer had a monster game, scoring 13 points, grabbing 10 rebounds, dishing out 6 dimes, blocking three shots, and coming up with three steals. And he played 37 minutes, so there was scarcely a moment when he wasn’t being a one-man wrecking crew.
Their second leading scorer, Rysheed Jordan, played just seven minutes in that game in Omaha, leaving early with an injury. He’s scored double-figures in six of the last seven games, which includes his 17-point performance on Tuesday at Butler. Excluding his brief appearance versus the Bluejays, the sophomore guard has averaged 16.3 points while shooting 44.6 percent (33-of-74) to go with 3.3 assists in his last six full games.
The fourth Red Storm player averaging in double figures is senior Phil Greene IV, who’s averaging a career-best 12.3 points and has reached double-figures in 14 games this season, including nine of the past 10 contests. Greene has averaged 13.7 points in nine Big East games this season.
Senior Jamal Branch had a season-high 17 points at Creighton last month, one of just four times he’s scored in double figures this season. Branch has averaged 2.5 assists per game
and has a 2.5 assist-to-turnover ratio, while averaging 4.8 points and shooting 45.9 percent (39-of-85) from the floor.
On paper, St. John’s and Creighton is a huge mismatch. The Johnnies are long, athletic, supremely talented and probably have the better player at all five starting positions. In reality, it hasn’t worked out that way; the Jays have won two of three meetings since joining the Big East, including a week ago in Omaha, and St. John’s has underachieved, again. The Johnnies were ranked at one point this year, and now find themselves on the NCAA Tournament bubble — if not out entirely — with a 3-6 Big East record. They’re scuffling, and need a win badly.
St. John’s should win. If there’s anything the 2015 Big East has taught us, though, it’s to not expect the expected. Ask Xavier and our friends over at Banners on the Parkway how expecting a double-digit win over the Jays worked out for them.
Quick Notes on the Red Storm:
- The Red Storm has won seven of its last nine Big East regular-season games at “The World’s Most Famous Arena”. In the last two Big East games at MSG, St. John’s has limited its opponents to a 36.6 field goal percentage and 26.2 3-point field goal percentage. St. John’s is 4-3 at Madison Square Garden this season and has won three of its last five contests there. The Red Storm’s three setbacks came against AP Top-10 teams
(Duke, Gonzaga, Villanova). - D’Angelo Harrison became the third player in St. John’s history to score 2,000-points earlier this week. He reached the milestone with a free-throw at 3:51 in the first half of Tuesday’s contest versus Butler at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Harrison will be presented a commemorative 2,000-point ball at the 5:00 mark on the pregame clock.
- The Maui Invitational will deliver an eight-foot, hand-crafted, authentic surfboard to the St. John’s men’s basketball team during its game against Creighton on Saturday. Each winter, the Tournament presents a surfboard to each participating team of the 2015 Maui Invitational in anticipation of their trip to the beautiful island of Maui. St. John’s will make its first appearance in the Maui Invitational this November. Red Storm coach Steve Lavin has coached in two previous Tournaments as a member of the UCLA staff, once as an assistant in 1995 and later as the Bruins’ head coach in 2001. UCLA will also be participating in the 2015 Maui Invitational. Indiana, Kansas, Vanderbilt, UNLV, Wake Forest and tournament host Chaminade round out the field.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Creighton became the fourth visiting team ever to post multiple victories at Cintas Center (which opened in 2000) during Wednesday’s win at Xavier, joining Saint Joseph’s, Saint Louis and Richmond.
- Creighton had five men score 12 points or more on Wednesday at Xavier, as Rick Kreklow (17 points), Geoffrey Groselle (15), Devin Brooks (13), Austin Chatman (12) and James Milliken (12) all reached double-figures. It was the first time since Creighton’s season-opening Nov. 14 win over Central Arkansas with five men in double-figures.
- Through games of February 4th, Creighton was tied with Butler for the national lead with 12 games this season against Top 50 RPI teams. The three teams to face 11 Top 50 teams were Kansas, Oklahoma and Marquette. Creighton is 3-9 in its games vs. Top 50 competition, with wins over St. John’s, Xavier and Oklahoma.
The Series:
St. John’s is 6-4 in its series with Creighton which dates back to 1961. The Bluejays have a 2-1 advantage in Big East competition. St. John’s is a perfect 5-0 against the Jays in NYC, however.
Greg McDermott is 2-1 against St. John’s and Steve Lavin, while Lavin is 1-2 versus Creighton.
The Last Time They Played:
Creighton knocked down 13 3-pointers as a team and shot 43.3% from beyond the arc in a 77-74 victory over St. John’s on January 28, snapping a nine game losing streak. Creighton freshman forward Toby Hegner led all players with a career-high 21 points, hitting 5-of-6 from three-point territory to pace the Bluejays’ resurgent long range shooting.
Gratuitous Linkage:
Butler coach Chris Holtmann got a phone apology from Steve Lavin after the Red Storm’s Chris Obekpa was ejected from Wednesday’s game for a flagrant foul. The Indianapolis Star’s Michael Pointer has the details.
What the Other Side is Saying:
“I typed this exact sentence just over one week ago, and I will do the same here today. A tournament team would have no trouble dismantling a subpar opponent like Creighton. Since then St. John’s has done plenty to prove to the nation that they are not in fact a tournament team, but some around the program, including myself, still believe that there is some fight left in this veteran team.
The Red Storm really only have two or three more games that they can afford to lose in the regular season if they want to be considered come selection Sunday, and a loss to Creighton should not be one of them.”
-St Johns Returns Home Facing a Must-Win, Rumble in the Garden
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
Creighton has played Evansville three times on February 7 in the past decade, twice in the not-so-friendly confines of southern Indiana. Now they’re in NYC on that date. Juuuuust a slight difference in locale, there.
CU won two of those three games, incidentally: a 60-56 win in 2006, a 79-74 win in 2007, and a 65-57 loss in 2012.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
Dokken worked like a charm on Wednesday. It’ll work again on Saturday.
The Bottom Line:
Picking the Jays to get blown out worked like a charm on Wednesday, too. So let’s do that again!
St. John’s 78, Creighton 61