Creighton’s last non-conference tuneup before Big East play will almost certainly take place in front of a smaller than usual crowd tonight thanks to Winter Storm Goliath. Expected to bring lots of snow and lots of wind, the storm will likely keep a lot of folks home in front of the fireplace watching FS1 instead of driving downtown in treacherous conditions.
It doesn’t help that the opponent is the Coppin State Eagles, a team that hasn’t beaten a D1 team this season and is ranked 342nd out of 351 Division 1 teams by KenPom. The Eagles are 2-11 on the year, but those two wins were against Goldey Beacom (real name) 80-73 and Chestnut Hill 92-75, both DII schools. In going 0-11 vs D1 opponents, they’ve been clobbered by Iowa, Kansas State, Fordham, and Cal, among others, and have lost by an average of 15 points a game. Sounds pretty bad, but the margin of loss is skewed by three OT games (an 81-77 loss to Towson, a 74-71 loss to Hampton, and a 96-93 loss to San Francisco). In their other eight games, the average margin of defeat is a staggering 24.5 points.
As you’d expect with a bottom-half MEAC team, Coppin State is one of the worst teams in Division 1 in almost any category you look at. Let’s start with the advanced metrics: Their adjusted offensive efficiency ranks 325th out of 352 teams (93.7, a full nine points lower than the D1 average) and their adjusted defensive efficiency is 111.2, which is 8.9 points higher than the D1 average and ranks 332nd. Their effective field goal percentage of 39.1% ranks 350th — better than just two teams. Their effective defensive field goal percentage is 56.4% (which, HOLY CRAP) is 334th.
Traditional metrics aren’t any kinder to them. The Eagles shoot just 27.4% from three-point range (342nd, or better than just 10 teams in D1) and 38.1% from two-point range (345th, or better than just seven teams), illustrating their struggles to score. Defensively, they allow opponents to shoot 38.2% from three-point range (300th in D1), and 55.9% from two-point range (329th).
They have three players averaging double figures in points, led by Terry Harris Jr. (12.8 points per game), who also leads them in rebounding at 6.3 boards per game. Harris, a 6’8″ junior, is 57-147 from the floor (38.8%) and 8-31 from three-point range (25.8%). He opened the season with five double-doubles in seven games, but as the schedule toughened, his numbers fell and he’s not had one since.
Christian Kessee is second on the team in scoring (11.7 ppg.) and assists (1.6 apg.), and the 6’2″ junior guard shoots 33% from the floor (48-144) and 30.8% from three-point range (24-78). He’s also one of just two rotation players with a non-negative assist-to-turnover ratio, with the same number of each (20 assists and 20 turnovers).
6’0″ guard James Sylvester is their best shooter, and plays starter-level minutes despite coming off the bench. He’s 44-108 from the floor (40.7%) and 16-33 from three-point range (48.5%) for the year, and though he’s attempted the most free throws on the team, he’s the only rotational player shooting worse than 65% from the stripe (37-60, 61.7%). Sylvester also averages 4.4 rebounds and just under 2 assists a game.
The Eagles are one of the worst teams in America defensively, which sets up an interesting sub-plot tonight if you’re into obscure historical feats. Creighton hasn’t topped the 100-point mark in consecutive games since 1966, doing it against Idaho State and Memphis that season. They average 86.2 points per game, the Eagles’ defense averages 85.1 points allowed per game, and the Jays scored 105 their last time out. It seems to be a reasonable goal to crack the century mark again tonight, and if the game is the blowout everyone expects, that might be the only “drama” in the second half of the contest.
Quick Notes on the Eagles:
- Trevon Seymore, a 6’4″ junior who’s started 11 of their 12 games, is averaging 11.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.3 steals, and made 13-of-14 from the free throw line over the last three games — losses to San Francisco, Cal, and Eastern Michigan.
- Coppin State’s challenging schedule includes games against teams from 10 different leagues, and six games against teams that played in the postseason in 2015.
- The Eagles have already played one conference game, losing at home 88-56 to Norfolk State on December 7.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Creighton has 149 fast break points already this season, after having a total of 143 fast break points (4.3 per game) all of last season, and never more than 11 in any contest. They’ve also had 27 dunks in 12 regular-season games, after recording 29 dunks in 33 games last year. Leading the pack? Khyri Thomas, who has 10 slams already this year.
- Creighton has outscored the opposition 15,995 to 13,495 in 13 years at CenturyLink Center, and will surpass the 16,000 point mark tonight. They’re 14-1 all-time in games where they pass a 1,000 point milestone, with the only loss coming in the game they surpassed the 2,000 point mark — a 79-71 loss to Missouri State in February of 2005.
- Creighton’s last win without making a three-point basket came on March 3, 1991 when the Jays went 0-for-2 from three-point range in a 71-66 win over Southern Illinois in the championship game of the MVC Tournament. Their streak of games with at least 15 attempts from behind the arc stands at 88, which is second-longest nationally. The only team with a longer streak? Coppin State, who’s done it in 147 straight games.
The Series / The Last Time They Played:
Once upon a time, Coppin State was a proud basketball program that had a sustained run of success — they won the MEAC regular season title every year in the 1990s except for one (1992), and parlayed that into three NCAA Tournaments and two NITs in the decade. In the 1997 NCAA tourney, they upset #2 seed South Carolina 78-65, and then came one point shy of a Sweet 16 berth when they lost 82-81 to Texas in the round of 32. They won a game in the 1995 NIT, too, defeating Saint Joseph’s.
The 1989-90 squad, Coppin State’s finest, finished 26-7 including a 66-60 win over Creighton in the season opener. The Eagles held the Jays scoreless for the first 6:30 of the game and to just 25% shooting in the first half (7-28). The defending MVC champs, picked to repeat, missed their first eight shots and committed five turnovers before Bob Harstad made the season’s first points — on a free throw — with 13:30 to go.
The loss in front of just over 3,000 fans at the Civic left coach Tony Barone at a metaphorical loss for words. In a literal sense, he had plenty to say, as usual. In the next day’s World-Herald, he said, “Sometimes in this business you sit back and you don’t actually believe what you’re seeing. I had a tough time believing what I saw tonight. I was just waiting for us to make a basket to get us rolling a little bit. I might have waited too long and didn’t take a timeout early enough. But I didn’t think in any way, shape or form that we were going to go almost seven minutes without scoring. I’m flabbergasted at the way we played. I have to take the entire blame for it. We didn’t look like we knew what we were doing, and that’s my fault. I’m not doing a good job of coaching when we come out and play like that.”
That 66-60 loss is the only meeting between the two schools.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On December 28, 2004, Creighton beat Bradley 71-62 to open the home conference schedule and halt a two-game losing streak. They’d dropped games to Wyoming and at Evansville before Christmas, and behind Nate Funk’s then-career high 22 points, they avoided becoming the first CU team of the Altman Era to start 0-2 in the league. Funk scored five straight in a deciding 12-5 run coming out of halftime, turning a 30-30 tie into a 42-35 lead. The game was never closer than five points the rest of the way.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
The Bottom Line:
Creighton gets free pizza for season ticket holders by the under-12 timeout, and tops the century mark for the second straight game.
Jays 107, Coppin State 75