[dropcap]It’s[/dropcap] been nearly two weeks since the Bluejays’ last home game, and though the four-game road trip started off rough, they wound up with a 2-2 record in the four games and by virtue of knocking off Nebraska on Sunday night, ensured that they would return home as conquering heroes worthy of a standing ovation when they come out of the tunnel on Tuesday night.
The opponent in the unusual 8:15pm tip is South Dakota, a team that comes into the game with a 3-6 record and a ranking of #256 by KenPom. This after going 12-18 a year ago, and winning just twice away from the cavernous confines of the DakotaDome — which is saying something because they play a lot of games on the road.
A once-solid team in DII, the Coyotes have steadily gone downhill since joining D1; after winning the Great West Conference with an 11-1 mark in their second year in D1, they’ve gone 10-18, 10-20, and 12-18 the past three years. Longtime coach Dave Boots, who compiled over 500 wins at USD and had 23 consecutive winning seasons (including three straight after the move to D1), retired in September of 2013, and the late exit left them little choice but to name long-time assistant Joey James as interim replacement.
James lasted just one year, and after a national search, USD hired longtime Tim Miles assistant Craig Smith as their new coach. Smith had worked with Miles at four different schools; his only head coaching experience came at the NAIA level, where he guided a Mayville State program that had gone 1-25 the year before he left into a consistent power. He compiled a 72-29 record in three seasons, all of which ended with trips to the NAIA national tournament, and in his final season, he took them to the NAIA national championship game.
Smith’s first USD team has a non-conference schedule filled with sub-250 teams, and so far it has not yielded much success, statistically or on the scoreboard. Of the nine games they’ve played so far, just two have been at home — a win over DII Wayne State, and a loss to Youngstown State. Among the losses? Such heavyweights as Utah Valley, Sam Houston State, and Fairfield (although to be fair, they’ve also lost to a pair of Top 100 squads in Stanford and Wofford).
Among the individual players to keep an eye on, senior guard Brandon Bos is the best — he’s a preseason second team All-Summit League pick, after leading the Coyotes in scoring at 11.9 points per game a year ago. He’s bumped that average up significantly so far this year, and averages 16.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.5 assists a game. The 6’1″ guard was the Summit League Player of the Week on December 1 after scoring 21 points in a win at Cal State-Bakersfield, and 22 points in a win over Wayne State.
Tyler Larson, a 6’3″ senior guard, is second on the team in scoring at 15.1 points per game, and leads the team in both rebounding (7.9 boards) and assists (3.5) per game. He’ll take threes, but he prefers to drive to the rim and shoot higher-percentage shots. The third cog in their backcourt is Casey Kasperbauer, a 6’1″ junior, who averages 10.1 points and 2.8 rebounds a game. He’s their best long-range threat, and has made 16 three-pointers in their last three games. The trio of Bos, Larson, and Kasperbauer have accounted for 57% of the team’s points, 50% of their assists and 40% of their rebounds.
USD is a much deeper team than the usual Summit League opponent, and has 10 players that average 10+ minutes a game (and two others that average more than 7 minutes). The 12-man rotation is rare for teams at their level, especially because there’s some nice players among that depth. Chief among them is Trey Norris, a 6’0″ guard, who started 28 games at point guard a year ago and led the team in minutes played (29.2/game). He’s been their sixth man in all nine games this season, and coming off the bench, he has solid averages across the board, with 4.7 points, 1.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.2 steals a game.
Currently 7-2, the Jays have a chance to be 8-2 (or better) after 10 games for a fourth straight season, which has been a very good barometer for how a season finishes. Creighton has made the NCAA or NIT in each of the last 11 times it has started 8-2 or better after 10 games, dating clear back to Willis Reed’s 1984-85 club that started 8-2 and missed the postseason. Since that collapse, every CU team that started 8-2 has made either the NCAA’s or the NIT.
If they get to one of those two tourneys, it’s becoming increasingly obvious — if it wasn’t already — that it will come on the shoulders of Austin Chatman. He had identical stat lines in two games last week at Tulsa and Nebraska, with 19 points, seven rebounds and six assists in both games. Before Chatman did it twice in as many games, the last time a Creighton player had even ONE game with at least 19/7/6 or more in each category was Ryan Sears at Southern Illinois on Jan. 8, 2000 — and the last player with two games of 19/7/6 in the same season was Rodney Buford, who did it in 1998-99. Buford didn’t do it in consecutive games, though.
For those still not impressed, on Sunday night Chatman also became the first Creighton player to own at least a share of the team in lead in points/rebounds/assists in consecutive games since Kyle Korver on Dec. 7 and 14, 2002.
Chatman led the team in rebounds just twice in his first three seasons (106 games) with the Bluejays, but he’s led them in rebounds in six of the last seven games. He owns a 43/12 assist/turnover ratio (3.58) so far, a figure that ranks second in the Big East, a marked improvement over even last year’s stellar mark, when he finished third in the Big East with a 2.6 assist/turnover ratio, good for 29th nationally. In his career, he has 415 assists and just 189 turnovers, a 2.20 ratio. For comparison, the player generally considered to be the Gold Standard of CU point guards over the last 20 years, Ryan Sears, finished his career with a 2.26 assist/turnover ratio.
If you didn’t know it already, Chatman is stud who has only gotten better each season he’s been here — especially this season, when the Jays need him most.
About the Coyotes:
South Dakota enters Tuesday’s road trip to Creighton having won three of its last four games following an 0-5 start under new head coach Craig Smith. The team is averaging 75 points and shooting 40 percent from three point range (34 of 85) in its last four games … Guards Brandon Bos, Tyler Larson and Casey Kasperbauer have combined to score 206 of the team’s 301 points in that span, and have combined to make 68 of 140 shots (48.5 percent) including 29 of 62 three-point attempts (46.7 percent) … South Dakota leads the Summit League and ranks 75th nationally in offensive rebounding, averaging 13 offensive rebounds and nearly 14 second chance points per game. The team had a season-high 22 second-chance points last time out against Youngstown State.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™:
Creighton has scored 75 points or more in each of the last 12 meetings with South Dakota, which is important because Creighton has won 91 straight games when scoring 75 points or more at home, dating back to a 2005 loss to Illinois State … Even more interesting, Creighton has scored 100 or more in three of its last six match-ups with the Coyotes, and the Bluejays are 49-2 all-time when scoring 100 or more points, including 21 straight wins dating to a 1977 setback … Creighton was 26-0 last year when leading at halftime, but just 1-8 when trailing at intermission. This year’s team is 5-1 when leading at half and 2-1 when trailing at halftime … With Sunday’s win, Creighton now owns 13 victories under Greg McDermott after trailing by double-figures at some point, including seven such comebacks away from home.
The Last Time They Played:
Creighton beat South Dakota 89-78 in the first round of the 2010 CIT. The game marked CU’s return to the Civic Auditorium due to scheduling conflicts at the CLink, which wasn’t the worst thing from a marketing perspective; a tourney that would otherwise have been met with a blase attitude after a disappointing (to be gentle) season was instead met with some intrigue by fans curious to see the Jays play one more time at the Civic.
I went back and read my postgame writeup from that game, and it’s a fun — and frustrating — read. A snippet:
The Dayton Wayne Runnels was back, getting 15 points, 9 rebounds and 2 assists, while showing an ability to put the ball on the floor and create a shot that we haven’t seen from him since, well, the Dayton game. Funny what playing against guys your own size, as opposed to playing out of position and trying to post up a guy six-inches taller than you in the paint can do.
The Michigan Darryl Ashford returned, and had 13 points and 5 rebounds, with most of his contributions coming in the first half. He made the sort of athletic plays around the rim that we haven’t seen from him since at least the early part of the MVC schedule, and probably since the Michigan game in Orlando.
The Bradley 2008 Cavel Witter returned, nailing four three-pointers and 15 points, the sort of shooting display we haven’t seen from Witter since Senior Night in 2008.
Ethan Wragge made 4-6 three-pointers and had 14 points, the sort of shooting we haven’t seen from him since, well, since the last time he played. This kid is a freshman and he’s going to awfully good before he’s done.
Yes, that’s right — though it seems like an eternity-and-a-half ago and you’ve probably forgotten it, The Lumberjack played in that tourney back when he was just a freshman from Minnesota that couldn’t stay out of foul trouble long enough to stay on the court.
It was the second-to-last win for Dana Altman as head coach. They’d beat Fairfield back at the Civic a few days later, then bow out of the CIT with a loss at Missouri State the following week. Shortly thereafter, Altman accepted the Oregon job, The McDermott’s moved to Omaha, and, well…you know the rest.
(Just for fun, here’s a photo gallery from that game that WBR’s Adam Streur shot — it’s kind of bizarre to see a baby-faced Wragge shooting threes in the Civic, like some sort of collision of galaxies or something.)
The Series:
Creighton and South Dakota are old foes from back in the day — they’ve met a whopping 59 times, with near-annual games from 1918 through 1968. Eddie Sutton stopped the series upon taking over at Creighton as he ratcheted up the non-conference slate, and the schools have met just once since, the aforementioned 2010 matchup in the CIT. CU leads the all-time series 48-11, and has lost just once in Omaha.
Gratuitous Linkage:
Coverage of Coyote basketball is tough to track down, but here’s a recap of their last game.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On December 9, 2007, the Bluejays defeated St. Joseph’s 90-84 in overtime at the CLink. In the first of what would become a staple on the non-conference schedule for a few seasons, the Jays and Hawks played a spirited contest that saw three Bluejay seniors — Nick Bahe, Dane Watts, and Pierce Hibma — combine for 60 points.
The Jays trailed 67-63 with 1:09 to play, but rallied to force OT thanks to a lay-up from Watts, a three-point pointer from Bahe and two free throws by Watts with 14.2 seconds left that tied it. In the extra period, Watts took control, scoring four straight points to open OT, and Bahe followed with two free throws to give CU a 76-70 lead just 50 seconds into the extra session.
It was a game of individual star turns. Watts had 29 points, hitting 8-of-9 from the field and 12-of-15 at the line with eight rebounds. Hibma had not scored more than six points all season, but had 17 points and was 6-of-10 from the field, including three treys, in 26 minutes. Bahe added four three-pointers with three steals, and scored 14 points.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
The Bottom Line:
Creighton rolls, and gives Austin Chatman a much-deserved rest.
Jays 83, South Dakota 58
