UMass is off to a 4-0 start, a good start for a team picked to finish 10th in the 14-team Atlantic 10. The first three wins — over Howard (286th in KenPom) and Central Arkansas (297), on the road over Harvard (199) — weren’t anything to brag about given the level of opposition. Clubbing Clemson in the first game in Las Vegas is. The Tigers aren’t a contender in the ACC, but they should be a Top 100 team this year (they’re currently 54th in KenPom) and building off a 16-win season last year, they have legit postseason goals.
The Minutemen doubled them up at halftime, 44-22, with an early barrage of three-pointers. For the second straight game, they made 16 three-pointers, a feat they’d accomplished just once before in program history before this week. That’s a bit of an anomaly, as they made just 10 combined three-pointers in the season’s first two games, and aren’t known for being prolific long-range shooters — they were 29% for the season a year ago, and in their best game they made nine (vs Duquesne). As a matter of fact, many UMass observers point to offensive futility as their biggest negative a year ago, and their inability to make baskets had Coach Derek Kellogg answering time after time why their shooting was so dreadful. In this article on MassLive.com, Kellogg attributes the sudden change of fortunes on something as simple as his shooters gaining confidence.
Given Creighton’s problems guarding the perimeter and struggles to gel as a defensive unit early on this season, playing UMass as they come off those two games is bad timing. Simply put, the Jays team that showed up in the first half against Rutgers can’t be present tonight. Rutgers is horrible, and the Jays turned them into an offensive force in the first half; against a more talented team with better and more plentiful weapons, that sort of defensive effort will make this an awfully tough game to win. Unless they’re prepared to match the Minutemen basket for basket, they need a more cohesive defensive gameplan tonight, and need to play with a greater sense of purpose and pride on that end of the floor.
Coach Greg McDermott has been trying to get that point across to his team as they prepare for this game. On the 1620AM postgame show Monday night, he said “It’s been awhile since I’ve seen a starting guard court get 71 points like UMass did. I told our guys after the game, I’ve got nowhere to hide any of you defensively on Wednesday. Those three guys are very talented.”
The three guys he’s talking about are Trey Davis, Donte Clark and Jabarie Hinds, who combined to score 71 of the team’s 82 points in that win over Clemson. Clark scored 25 points with 6 three-pointers. Davis had 25 points on 7 three-pointers. And Hinds had 21 points with 3 three-pointers. If there’s good news, it’s that those three guys make up the bulk of their offense — on Monday, hey attempted 26 of the team’s 31 three-pointers, 43 of their 57 shots overall, 10 of their 17 free-throws, and scored 71 of their 82 points. For the season, they’ve scored 71% of their team’s points.
Hinds is averaging 22.0 points for the season, scoring 19 against Howard, 24 against Harvard, 24 against Central Arkansas and 21 against Clemson. He’s 31-54 from the floor (53%), 14-29 from three-point range (48.3%), and 12-15 from the free-throw line, meaning he’s been impossible to stop no matter where he shoots from. He’s also dished out 24 assists while turning it over just 7 times, making up for those TO’s with 11 steals. The 6’0″ senior will likely be the top priority defensively for the Bluejays.
Davis, also a 6’0″ senior, has been nearly as good, averaging 18.5 points a game. He’s 24-53 from the field (45%), 13-29 from three-point range (44%) and 13-17 from the line. Another sure-handed guard, Davis has 14 assists and just eight turnovers. And Clark, a 6’4″ sophomore, is averaging 17.3 points while shooting 45% from the floor and 40% from three, though he is the only one of the three with a negative A:T ratio with five assists and 10 turnovers.
They get very little offensive production from their big men; Rashaan Holloway, a 6’11” freshman center, starts in the middle and averages 4.0 points and 3.8 rebounds a game. Zach Coleman, a 6’7″ redshirt sophomore, starts at the forward and averages 8.3 points and 7.3 rebounds. Junior Seth Berger gets a ton of minutes off the bench, and the 6’7″ forward is averaging 5.8 points and 4.8 rebounds off the bench.
As a result, or perhaps in spite of that, 38.8% of their scoring comes via the three-pointer, which is 37th highest in D1. Some Creighton fans mock the “Let it Fly” style, but even the Jays score just 32% of their points on threes and were at 35% a year ago. As Creighton fans know all too well, with those sort of numbers, UMass is a team that lives by the three, and will die by the three.
To ensure UMass dies by the three, the Jays need to communicate better on screens than they’ve been doing, and chase Davis, Clark, and Hinds everywhere they go. All three play heavy minutes (30+), so wearing them out when the Jays are on offense by running every chance they get could pay dividends late in the game. There doesn’t seem to be much point to sagging off the perimeter to help underneath; UMass has players that can score in the paint, but where they’ll kill you is on the three-pointer.
These are two teams that have been wildly inconsistent through four games, making this a tough game to predict. It really comes down to which teams show up tonight. If it’s the UMass team that made 10 combined three-pointers in their first two games and gave up 79 points to Howard, they’re probably not going to compete. But if it’s the team that torched Central Arkansas and Clemson while playing improved defense, they’ll give the Jays all they can handle. On the flip side, if the Jays who played fast and under control in their first two games show up, they should emerge victorious. But if the team that could barely defend Indiana and Rutgers shows up, all bets are off.
Your guess is as good as mine as to how this goes.
Quick Notes on the Minutemen:
- UMass’ incoming recruiting class ranks among the most highly touted nationally during the 2015 early signing period. Chris Baldwin, Brison Gresham, DeJon Jarreau and Unique McLean give the Minutemen the top class in the A-10 according to 247Sports, ESPN and Rivals, and ranking 22nd nationally according to 247Sports and 25th via ESPN and Rivals.
- Jabarie Hinds tallied a career-best 24 points (8-16 FG, 4-8 3FG, 4-4 FT) and led UMass in its 69-63 victory at Harvard. Hinds’ previous high came at West Virginia when he poured in 20 points against Iowa State on January 16, 2013. His 24-point game at Harvard marks the second 20-plus point performance of his career. His previous UMass best was the 19 points he scored against Howard in the 2015-16 season-opener.
- Donte Clark has picked up where he left off, as he scored in double figures during each of the final five games of his true freshman season in 2014-15 and averaged 14.4 points per game in the span. He started the 2015-16 campaign on a similar note as Clark finished 8-of-12 on field goal attempts for 16 points during the win over Howard.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Freshman Marlon Stewart made his Creighton debut on Monday, playing the final 74 seconds. There had been strong speculation that Stewart was headed for a redshirt given his preseason injury, so it was surprising to see him enter the game. He gives the Bluejays another option in the backcourt who can play either guard position, so it will be interesting to see what his role is now that he’s an active member of the roster.
- Junior center Zach Hanson continued his torrid shooting on Monday when he made 4-5 field goal attempts vs. Rutgers, making him 12-14 from the floor (85.7 percent) this year. In his career, Hanson has drained 85-of-139 field goal attempts, good for 61.2 percent.
- Greg McDermott will attempt to win his 125th game on the CU sideline on Wednesday night vs. UMass. If he does so, he’d need fewer games than all but one coach in school history to reach that mark. McDermott is currently 124-58 on the Bluejay sideline. Only Arthur A. Schabinger (175 games) reached that milestone in fewer games. By comparison, Tom Apke needed 188 games, Eddie Hickey 196 games, Dana Altman 211 games and Red McManus 222 games to win their 125th contest at CU.
The Series / The Last Time They Played:
Creighton and UMass have never met, and Greg McDermott has never faced UMass. However, McDermott is 4-2 on the Creighton sideline against teams currently in the Atlantic-10.
What the Other Side is Saying:
“UMass wins if it makes another 16 3-point baskets, clearly. It’s tough to stop any team that’s shooting at that high a level of efficiency. That said, the Minutemen will need some auxiliary scorers, whether it’s Zach Coleman or one of the freshmen centers, to step up and help shoulder the scoring load a bit more. UMass loses if those shots aren’t falling so freely and there’s no safety net to catch a falling offense. It seems unlikely that all three of Donte Clark, Jabarie Hinds and Trey Davis would have ice cold nights from the floor at the same time, but against a team that will run the floor and score points at an equally high level, anything less than peak efficiency probably won’t be enough to take home the championship belt.”
-Daniel Malone, “Hot-shooting Minutemen look to grab Las Vegas championship belt”, MassLive.com
Gratuitous Linkage:
I know this is the third article from MassLive.com I’ve linked to, but they have terrific coverage of the Minutemen. Anyway, here’s their breakdown of the win over Clemson.
Gratuitous Linkage Part II:
Here’s an up-close photo of the Championship Belt the teams are playing for tonight. Yep, that’s right — instead of a trophy, it’s a boxing-style title belt. Awesome.
Gratuitous Linkage Part III:
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On November 25, 2000, Creighton defeated Providence 63-51 in the semifinals of the Energia Systems Thanksgiving Tournament at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City. The Jays trailed by seven at halftime, as the Friars — typically a man-to-man team that year — confounded them with a zone defense they’d not run in any of their previous games. But the Jays struck first in the second half when Livan Pyfrom threw down a ferocious dunk, which sparked an 8-0 run to give them the lead.
Providence would tie it once more at 41, but a stifling Bluejay defense shut the Friars down. PC made just three baskets in the first 19 minutes of the second half, while Ryan Sears and Kyle Korver combined for five 3-pointers in the half.
“We hit a couple of easy shots in the second half and that got our energy up and allowed us to get the press going,” Coach Dana Altman said after the game. “They missed a couple of good looks that they had. Once we got the lead, the emotions of the game changed. I thought they stopped being aggressive.”
The Jays would go on to lose to Toledo, 61-57, in the championship game the next night.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
The Jays are playing for an actual title belt in the boxing capital of the world, and you expected something other than a montage from Rocky IV? C’mon now.
The Bottom Line:
I think the Jays will defend better, and shoot well enough to win a squeaker.
KenPom prediction: Creighton 81, UMass 79
WBR prediction: Creighton 83, UMass 77