[dropcap]Seton[/dropcap] Hall comes into the Big East Tournament winners of nine of their last eleven games, with both losses coming to the Butler Bulldogs. The last time they lost to a team other than Butler was clear back on January 23, when they dropped a road game at Xavier, and they’re 10-4 since being beat soundly by the Bluejays back in early January.
Maurice Watson was a one-man wrecking crew in that game, scoring 13 points with 14 assists in an 82-67 win that wasn’t nearly as close as the score would lead you to believe. The Bluejays were successful everywhere you looked on the statsheet: they had more points in the paint (42-30), more points off turnovers (12-7), more second chance points (8-7), and more fast break points (8-4). In more traditional numbers, they did what they needed to, also: the Jays had 17 assists on 29 made baskets, kept the rebound battle even (SHU had just two more offensive boards than the Jays, 12-10, and just one more rebound overall, 40-39), got the ball inside (21 of their 29 made baskets came inside the arc) and made enough three-pointers to keep the defense honest (8-19 from downtown, including 5-11 in the first half).
Khadeen Carrington led the way for Seton Hall with 17 points in that game while CU held Isaiah Whitehead to 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting. Whitehead, along with Angel Delgado and Desi Rodriguez, spent the final 13:04 on the sideline after being “rested” by coach Kevin Willard.
In the rematch, the Pirates jumped out early and led 40-27 at the half en route to a 75-65 win. They got 22 points from Whitehead and double-doubles from both Rodriguez (14 points, 10 rebounds) and Delgado (13 points, 12 rebounds) in a game where SHU came out aggressive, determined, ready to fight and armed with a solid set of adjustments from the first meeting. Meanwhile, in the first game following the historic collapse at Georgetown, the Bluejays played tight, had a passivity to everything they did, and were out-hustled and out-worked by an opponent playing with far more energy than they were.
The first half rebounding totals tell the story: Seton Hall outrebounded the Jays 24-11, and ELEVEN-TO-ZERO on the offensive glass. Yuck.
“They had a great scouting report from the first time we played,” James Milliken explained the adjustments Seton Hall made on the postgame radio show following the game. “They sat on Geoff’s left hand and wouldn’t let him do anything on that side. They played off of Maurice and dared him to shoot threes. They made him create his own shots from out there instead of letting him go towards the basket. They used their length to stop him from driving in and collapsing their defense.”
Coach Greg McDermott agreed, noting on his postgame radio interview that “I think Seton Hall was a little softer on Maurice, and plugged the lane up a little bit more. That’s why James had the shots he got, too. I think they looked at our shooting numbers and said you know what, let’s roll the dice. Maurice very rarely got to the rim tonight, fewer than any game we’ve played probably, because of how they defended him. The only way to combat that is to make shots.”
The Bluejays appeared to be caught flat-footed time after time defensively, and in the first half gave up too many easy baskets. On the shots Seton Hall missed, they gave up too many offensive rebounds and second-chance points. “I know it takes a lot of wind out of your sails when you give up offensive rebounds, you exert all that energy and focus, you get the stop, and then you have to do it again. It takes a lot out of you,” McDermott noted after the game. “They were getting throw-backs, they were getting post touches, they were getting jump shots, and we just didn’t have an answer. At times, I thought their bigger guards just drove it to six or eight feet, rose up to shoot, and then everybody else chased the miss. That made it very difficult for us to defend.”
So what to make of those two games? In the first, Seton Hall defended more or less straight-up, and Watson made them pay both with layups at the rim and assists all over the court, while Groselle made play after play in the post going left. Defensively, they weren’t terrific, but they built a big enough early lead to withstand the inevitable run from the Pirates. In the rematch, Seton Hall adjusted to make Groselle go right, and he was ineffective. They took away Watson’s driving lanes by packing the paint, daring him to beat them with jump shots, and he couldn’t. They dared Milliken, Isaiah Zierden, Cole Huff, and the other Bluejay shooters to beat them with three-pointers, and they couldn’t. Combined with an uncanny (and presumably — nay, hopefully? — hard to replicate) ability to be in the right place every damn time for an offensive rebound, the Bluejays seemingly had no answers.
What does Creighton do as a counter-punch to those adjustments in the third meeting? It seems likely that Seton Hall, at least initially, will continue what worked in Omaha until the Jays force them to do something else. You can’t blame them; looking at the Bluejays body of work over 18 conference games, they’re not a very good three-point shooting team, so the odds of catching them on one of the three or four nights where they shoot well are far less than the odds of containing Watson when he’s driving at-will to the rim or in stopping Groselle if you let him get post touches.
So it all starts tonight with making jump shots — if Cole Huff, James Milliken, and Isaiah Zierden don’t make enough three-pointers to keep the defense honest, it’s going to be very difficult for Creighton to have the spacing they need to operate offensively. The Jays also need to be at least competitive in fighting for rebounds, for two pretty obvious reasons. One, that won’t allow the Pirates the easy second-chance baskets they got in Omaha and will stop Whitehead from toying with them as he did time after time in the second half — who can forget him dribbling around to drain the shot clock after a rebound, then calmly draining a three-pointer late in the game and yelling “BOOM!” to his bench? And two, getting defensive rebounds lets the Jays run in transition, where it’s far more likely Watson can create havoc at the rim than from a halfcourt offensive set.
Seton Hall is favored tonight, as they should be; they’re the third best team in one of the toughest leagues in America and a lock for the NCAA Tournament, playing an inconsistent team fighting for an NIT bid. I think Creighton can win — you would hope they’ll come out with a better sense of purpose and with higher energy than the game in Omaha, if only because it’s, you know, the BIG EAST TOURNAMENT AT THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS ARENA, but what do I know.
Quick Notes on the Pirates:
- Sophomore Isaiah Whitehead was named a unanimous All-Big East First Team selection on Sunday after helping spur their 9-2 close to the regular season with averages of 22.1 points, 5.6 assists and 2.1 blocks during the stretch. The Brooklyn native added USBWA All-District honors on Tuesday and returns to The Garden where he delivered team-highs in points, assists and blocks in his Big East Tournament debut last season.
- Fellow sophomore Angel Delgado collected Rookie of the Year honors prior to the conference tournament last spring and was one of three to garner All-Big East Honorable Mention accolades this year after recording 13 double-doubles and averages of 10.2 points and 9.7 rebounds per contest while starting all 30 games.
- The sophomore class of Whitehead, Delgado, Khadeen Carrington, Desi Rodriguez and Ismael Sanogo has helped guide Seton Hall to its highest win total since 1999-00, starting 24 of 30 contests as a unit.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Creighton is the sixth seed in this week’s Big East Tournament. The No. 6 seed is 14-10 at the Big East Tournament in the last 10 years, but the only No. 6 seed to win the Big East Tournament was Syracuse in 1981, which won the event while playing at home in the Carrier Dome. Creighton is 0-3 all-time as a sixth seed, going 0-1 in the 1986, 1992 and 1997 Missouri Valley Conference Tournaments. Here’s a fun fact, though: Nine of the last 10 teams to be the sixth seed in the Big East Tournament would play in the NCAA Tournament, with Marquette in 2013-14 being the only exception.
- James Milliken scored a career-high 26 points on last Wednesday at Providence, then added 22 more on Saturday at Xavier. It’s the first time in the senior’s career that he’s had 20 or more points in back-to-back games. Combined with his 19-point effort on Senior Day on March 28th, he’s averaging 22.3 points per game in the past three games. Milliken has scored in double-figures in all six career games he’s played during the month of March during his Creighton career, averaging 19.3 points per game in that span. Milliken is also 22-for-38 (57.9 percent) from three-point range in March during his career.
- Maurice Watson Jr. owns 204 assists this season, a figure that already ranks fourth in program history for a single season. He’s one shy of matching Randy Eccker (1976-77) for third place, and six shy of tying for second-place with Grant Gibbs (2012-13). Ralph Bobik set the CU record with 252 in 1973-74, and that mark has never been approached.
The Series:
Seton Hall leads the all-time series with Creighton 9-4, including a 1-0 mark on neutral floors by virtue of an 81-69 win in the 1991 NCAA Tournament. They’ve never met in the Big East tourney.
Creighton is 3-2 all-time entering its third appearance at the Big East Tournament, where it went 2-1 in 2014 and lost in the finals to Providence in 2014, and went 1-1 in 2015 and fell in the quarterfinals to Georgetown.
The Last Time They Played:
Gratuitous Linkage:
Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post says the “new” Big East still takes some getting used to, but despite the seemingly-negative headline, it’s a nice piece with a couple of compliments about Creighton. Plus, it still makes me smile a little to see Creighton mentioned in the New York tabloid media in a serious, ‘they belong on the big stage’ way; sure beats a note at the bottom of a column in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. No offense to the TribStar.
What the Other Side is Saying:
“Watson (is) the heart of Greg McDermott’s offense and owner of the 9th-best assist rate in the nation, was able to score 13 and dish 14 assists in Newark but was then held to just 14 and 6 in Omaha; Creighton’s offensive efficiency is clearly contrasted between the two meetings.
In addition to the obvious importance of Seton Hall crowding the lane and playing strong defense, the production of their forwards – Angel Delgado, Desi Rodriguez & Ismael Sanogo – was a big reason why they lost in the first outing but won soundly at CenturyLink.
The trio put up a combined 39 points and 30 boards in Nebraska but just 17 and 14 in Newark. Let’s not forget how much of an impact the battle on the boards was in the second meeting.”
–“Rubber Match with Creighton Awaits Seton Hall in Quarters”, Chris McManus, SHUHoops.com
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
Creighton’s won two MVC tourney titles on March 10. In 2003, they blew out Southern Illinois 80-56, and in 2013, they beat Wichita State 68-65. The latter of those resulted in a second-straight Arch Madness title, and a fitting capstone to the Bluejays historic run of excellence in that tourney. Ott’s recap following the game is really terrific and I highly recommend taking a couple of minutes to go read it.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
Jungle, Garden, whatever. Welcome to March, baby.
The Bottom Line:
No predictions during tournament play (obviously we want Creighton to win every game here, despite the odds!). So here’s three keys to the game:
Establish the post. Get post touches early and often for Geoff Groselle and Zach Hanson, which means they need to establish position and make themselves available for post-entry passes. It’s not always the guards’ fault when the post isn’t established.
Rebound, rebound, rebound. If Seton Hall grabs every offensive rebound in sight again, it’s over.
Make jump shots. Making shots from outside, even Cole Huff’s bread-and-butter mid-range jumpers, will eventually open up the paint for Watson to create. Make it so.