[dropcap]When[/dropcap] you play in tournaments other than the Big Dance, the hope (beyond winning games, obviously) is the additional practices and games give you an opportunity to experiment and grow, and to build confidence for your young players as they head into the offseason. That certainly was the case for the Bluejays Tuesday night, as freshman Khyri Thomas had his best game since mid-December against IUPUI. He scored 13 points in that game, and bested it with a 15-point, 8-rebound, 3-steal game against the Crimson Tide.
It was his best game by far since the non-conference schedule ended; Thomas was an early standout this season but slumped badly in the first part of Big East play and was taken out of the starting lineup after a handful of games. Against Alabama, he played with a confidence and swagger he’d lacked in Big East games, and was a completely different player from the one who was a role player off the bench through most of February. In short, he was the Khyri Thomas we saw in November and December, and if that continues as the Jays move on in the NIT, that’s a very promising development.
“My mental approach defensively has always been the same,” Thomas noted on the 1620AM postgame show following the game. “Never let them shoot, never let them score. (Retin) Obasohan had a few baskets on me, but D-Rock kept on me to stay aggressive, and not to let him get anything easy. In the SEC he got anything he wanted and he was killing it. I was like, ‘Yo, I’m starting tonight, I’ve got to prove a point. I gotta bring it.'”
Even if nothing else comes out of this NIT berth, giving the freshman a huge jolt of confidence heading into his first offseason has made it an invaluable experience. Hilariously, part of that jolt of confidence came from some unorthodox advice from his head coach.
As Thomas relayed on the postgame, “Making that first free throw tonight was a HUGE confidence booster. I said to myself, ‘Do what Coach Mac taught me. Go up there and think about a beautiful girl.’ So I said alright, I can do that and I went up there and knocked it down. Obviously I’ve psyched myself out a bit too much in the past, so that worked!”
“When a guy is struggling as much from the line as Khyri was,” Coach Greg McDermott said while holding back laughter on his postgame show, “you have to reach into the depths of your coaching knowledge, and sometimes just give him something he can relate to. Beautiful girls is obviously something he can relate to. He was so good tonight defensively, and just to see him attack the rim, even on the dunk that he missed, that’s the Khyri that was playing in November. And that’s the Khyri we need moving forward.”
Creighton had less than two days to prepare for Alabama, and put together a gameplan that led them to as comfortable of a win as you can get in March. The Bluejays outrebounded them 45-32, outscored them 19-9 on second chance points, and dominated them on points in the paint 38-16, as their big men were simply too much for the Crimson Tide to handle. And their defense was as good as it’s been all year, holding Alabama to 7-29 from the floor in the first half, with the Tide having as many turnovers (7) as they had made field goals. Oh, and they closed the period making just one of their last 15 attempts from the field, a stretch where the Jays built a double-digit lead and created some separation.
“The staff did an incredible job of scouting for this game,” McDermott said on his postgame show. “D-Rock, Preston and I split up some film on Sunday night and all of us were up most of the night watching film. Merf started on St. Bonaventure and someone else started on Wagner. And then the rest of the basketball staff worked on getting as much paper scouting reports on those opponents from their non-conference games, working the phones. It takes a lot of work and we had to put it all together really by the 2:15pm film session on Monday. Our staff did a good job of getting it ready, and then I thought our guys were locked in.”
That decision to begin early prep for Wagner came in handy when the Seahawks, a #8 seed, upset a heavily favored St. Bonaventure team that most expected the Jays to be playing in the second round. (Including yours truly, who had written 90% of a Primer for that game only to have to trash it when the Seahawks won!) Wagner winning that game was completely and wholly unexpected; it was the only game in the first round of this year’s NIT where the lower seed won.
The NEC ranked 30th out of 32 leagues in KenPom’s conference rankings, ahead of only the SWAC and MEAC, and the seeds for their two teams that made postseason play reflect that. Wagner was an auto-bid into the NIT after losing in their conference tourney title game, and were given a #8 seed and the task of playing perhaps the top #1 seed, St. Bonaventure, who many thought should have been given an at-large in the NCAA’s. And the team that beat Wagner in the NEC title game, Fairleigh Dickinson, wound up as one of the bottom two #16 seeds in the NCAA’s, and were blown out by Florida Gulf Coast in the “First Four” 96-65.
Wagner comes into Saturday’s game with a 23-10 record, but their first-round game against St. Bonaventure was only the third time all season they played an opponent with a KenPom rating higher than 200; they lost 69-59 to Seton Hall in November, and 73-54 to Monmouth in the other two. As a result, their overall schedule strength was the second worst in all of Division 1 according to KenPom, coming in at 350th out of 351. Yikes.
Schedule strength isn’t everything, of course, but you’d expect it to be reflected in their stats *somewhere* if this was a great team flying under the radar. And statistically, they’re pretty much the same team you see when you watch them on film: an offensively challenged team that rebounds well and plays scrappy, fundamentally sound defense.
They rank in the bottom third of D1 teams in offense, both in advanced metrics (217th in adjusted offensive efficiency, 252nd in effective field goal percentage) and traditional counting stats (230th in field goal percentage, 232nd in scoring offense). They play at one of the slowest tempos in the country, ranking 291st in adjusted tempo and 294th in average possession length. They turn it over on nearly 20% of their possessions, they’ve attempted nearly 100 fewer free throws than their opponents, and they have a net-zero assist-to-turnover ratio as a team (442 assists:443 turnovers). It’s not all bad news, though; they grab an offensive rebound 37.5% of the time they miss a shot, which is 16th best in the country.
Defensively, they rank 124th in adjusted defensive efficiency, and hold opponents to an effective field goal percentage of 46.3% which ranks 29th best in the country. They’ve outrebounded opponents by 7.5 boards per game, including a +4 edge on offensive rebounds.
Their three tallest players are 6’8″, with just two in the regular rotation, and only one of those played in the win over St. Bonaventure making an already small team even smaller. Henry Brooks, a 6’8″, 215-pound senior who averages 5.4 points and 2.9 rebounds, missed the game and it’s unclear whether he’ll play Saturday or not. That leaves Mike Aaman as the only other big man, such as it is; Aaman is a 6’8″, 210-pound senior who averages 8.2 points and 5.5 rebounds. He’ll be matched up with Geoff Groselle, and give up four inches and nearly 30 pounds to the Bluejay center — the Jays will undoubtedly try to exploit that mismatch early and often, especially if Brooks doesn’t go, as Aaman’s aggressiveness will be limited without a true backup. Wagner’s best hope here is for the game to be officiated tight; Bluejay fans undoubtedly remember how Missouri Valley refs often took Gregory Echenique out of the game, mentally and physically, against the smaller players he was often matched up with.
Despite being undersized, they’ve rebounded well even against bigger teams. They outrebounded St. John’s 42-38, were even with Seton Hall 37-37 and grabbed 17 (!) offensive boards against the Pirates, and outrebounded St. Bonaventure 38-33. That’s a testament to fundamentals and toughness.
Schematically, Wagner gets just 25.8% of their points from three-pointers and 19.4% of their points on free throws, both ranking in the bottom-third of D1 teams. What does that mean? For their offense to function, they have to get dribble penetration and score in the paint, and against teams in the NEC that are similarly sized, they’ve been able to do that. Against teams with big men closer in size to what they’ll see against Creighton, they’ve had all kinds of trouble. Against St. John’s, they were 11-48 on two-pointers and because of their inability to get good looks inside, took a much higher percentage of shots from outside than normal (22) without making more than normal (8). Against Seton Hall, it was the same song with a different verse, as they made 17-41 from two-point range and 6-20 from outside.
When they’re able to score in the paint, they take fewer threes, and their offense is more efficient. That’s true for most teams, but especially for Wagner, and in the win over St. Bonaventure Wednesday night, they attempted just 18 three-pointers, and were 23-44 on two-point shots.
Corey Henson, a 6’3″, 175-pound sophomore guard, leads Wagner in points (13.5 per game), assists (2.9 per game) and steals (1.2), while also draining a team-best 74 three-pointers (74-181, 40.9%). He scored nine points in 27 minutes against St. Bonaventure, committed six turnovers with only two assists, and he was in foul trouble most of the game before fouling out late.
Their second-leading scorer is Michael Carey, a 6’5″ junior who averages 12.6 points and 9.3 rebounds per game. Carey is an efficient player, connecting on 50.9% of his shots overall (147-289), but has limited range; he’s attempted 51 threes, but is only a 25.5% shooter from out there. Given that stat, if there’s a player likely to have a career performance and burn the Jays for playing the percentages on the perimeter, it’s Carey. He scored 13 points with 8 rebounds in the win over St. Bonaventure, while playing 38 minutes.
The third Wagner player in double-figures is Romone Saunders, who scores 10.0 points per game and is second with 43 three-pointers. Saunders takes more than half of his shots from outside (109 of his 197 attempts) and shoots 39.4% from there. Saunders scored 21 points on 7-13 shooting, including 4-7 from three-point range, in the win over St. Bonaventure, adding seven rebounds and four assists.
On paper, this has the looks of a mismatch, particularly with the game being played on Creighton’s home floor. The Seahawks will need to control the tempo to have a chance, because if this game gets into the 70s or 80s they’re not going to outscore the Jays. Creighton’s keys to a win? Get defensive stops, rebound the ball, and push the tempo as fast as they can as often as they can. That not only will speed the game up faster than Wagner wants to play, it will give Creighton easy transition scoring opportunities, which negates Wagner’s solid halfcourt defense.
Quick Notes on the Wagner Seahawks:
- Wagner College is a private, co-educational, national liberal arts college founded in 1883 with an enrollment of approximately 2,500 total students located atop Grymes Hill in the New York City borough of Staten Island. They’re the seventh-smallest college in the country that plays Division 1 athletics.
- This is Wagner’s fourth trip to the postseason as a D1 member, and the first time they’ve won a game. They made the NIT in 1979 and 2002, losing in the first round both times, and the NCAA Tournament in 2003, where they lost 87-61 to Pitt. They’ve won 20 or more games seven times in their history, including this year.
- Head coach Bashir Mason will be making his second trip to CenturyLink Center Omaha, as his Drexel Dragons team played at Creighton on February 17, 2007. Mason shot 2-of-9 and had six points, five assists and three rebounds in 39 minutes as Drexel stunned the hosts, 64-58.
Bluejay Bytes:
- Creighton has 12 all-time wins in 19 NCAA Tournament appearances and six wins in 11 NIT appearances (including this year), but the Bluejays have never won consecutive postseason games in the same year in either of those tournaments. The only time Creighton’s ever won consecutive postseason games came in 2011, when Creighton won its first four games of the College Basketball Invitational.
- Greg McDermott has taken six teams to the NCAA Tournament and one to the CBI, but this is his first time coaching a team in the NIT. McDermott is 8-8 in his Division I career in the postseason, including a 1-0 NIT mark. He was 0-3 at Northern Iowa and is 8-5 at Creighton.
- This year’s bid to the NIT is the fifth postseason bid for Greg McDermott at Creighton. Only Dana Altman (13) has taken the Bluejays to more postseason appearances. McDermott’s eight postseason wins at Creighton are the most in school history, one more than Altman’s seven. McDermott (8-5) is one of two coaches in program history with a winning record in postseason play, joining Eddie Sutton (2-1).
The Series / The Last Time They Played:
Wagner and Creighton have never met. For that matter, the Bluejays don’t even have much history with current members of the Northeast Conference. They’re 0-3 against St. Francis (NY) with the most recent game coming in 1956, 4-4 against St. Francis (PA) with the most recent game in 1973, and have never played any other team in the league: Fairleigh Dickinson, Sacred Heart, Mount St. Mary’s, LIU Brooklyn, Robert Morris, Bryant, or Central Connecticut.
However, Greg McDermott has played Wagner once, beating them 86-56 in December of 2004 while he was the coach at Northern Iowa.
Gratuitous Linkage:
Our friends at NYCBuckets published this feature on Michael Carey last week. A former Top 100 recruit who took a circuitous (and quite interesting) route to Staten Island and Wagner, he’s now perhaps their most indispensable player.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
Creighton has never played a game on March 19. So instead, let’s look back at the last time Creighton played a home game that started this early in the morning: the very first BracketBuster game, way back in 2003. That was a rowdy crowd at the Civic, as Kyle Korver led the Jays to victory over Fresno State.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
When else will we have such a perfect excuse to embed Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”? Never, that’s when. You bet.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton played one of their best defensive games of the year on Tuesday in beating Alabama, taking inspiration from their seniors. “Thinking about every game potentially being Geoff and James’ last game is tough. It’s real tough,” Khyri Thomas commented on the 1620AM postgame that night. “Geoff especially, he got real quiet after we lost in New York, and after we got the call for the NIT Sunday night he cheered up a lot. He was so happy that loss wasn’t his last game. And I think everyone noticed at practice before this one how excited James was. He said ‘I never thought I’d see this place again from the court.’ He was extremely intense. So the rest of us said, alright, we need to come out with the same energy as these two guys. A loss at home isn’t how we wanted our seniors to go out, so we made it count.”
Groselle echoed those sentiments. “After losing to Seton Hall, it hurt so bad to think that my Creighton career might be over. I was convinced that we were done after that one. I was really nervous going into that NIT Selection Show, so luckily we were like the first team they unveiled. That was such a relief. I was so, so excited to still be playing. I feel very blessed to be able to play in front of these fans, and it was amazing to get to play in front of them one more time.”
They get another chance to play in front of their fans on Saturday, in what is almost assuredly the final time, and against a team Groselle ought to be able to have a field day against. KenPom has the Bluejays as 12-point favorites, and while part of me feels like that’s too low, this is March, so that sounds about right.