[dropcap]As[/dropcap] they return home for a regular season closing two game homestand, Creighton’s licking their wounds from a 91-71 loss at St. John’s. While it was (surprisingly, perhaps) not all that damaging to their NCAA seed projections, as we wrote about in the Morning After recap yesterday, it was incredibly damaging in terms of their Big East title hopes. Losing to St. John’s took the Jays from a final week where they totally controlled their own destiny to a week where they must root for Villanova to beat Seton Hall on Wednesday night in order to have a chance at hanging a banner. That game is scheduled to tip at 7:30 central time as the second part of a FS1 doubleheader (which Big East fans know means it will really tip close to 7:45, regardless of the posted time)…so Creighton will not know their fate until well after their own game ends.
For any of that to matter, Creighton has to take care of their own business on the court, which means dispatching with the Georgetown Hoyas. Despite injuries and defections and drama everywhere you look, Patrick Ewing’s squad somehow, someway worked themselves onto the NCAA Tourney bubble in February after three wins in four games moved them to 15-10 overall and 5-7 in the Big East.
But they haven’t won since. And the Hoyas finish with Creighton and Villanova, meaning there’s pretty strong odds they won’t win again prior to the Big East tourney. That’s especially true if their injury woes don’t disappear overnight — starters Mac McClung and Omer Yurtseven are questionable and perhaps even doubtful for the game in Omaha. McClung watched Sunday’s loss to Xavier on the bench in a walking boot after missing six of the prior seven games with the same injury. Yurtseven is battling an ankle injury and has missed four of the last five.
McClung and Yurtseven have been Georgetown’s most productive players in conference play, and they combined to score 39 of the Hoyas’ 83 points in the first game against Creighton. McClung had 19, making a very efficient 6-of-10 inside the arc and 4-of-6 from the line, while grabbing five rebounds and dishing out five assists. He did have his struggles, with six turnovers against the Jays’ defense and four fouls that limited him to 28 minutes.
The seven-foot Yurtseven was borderline unstoppable. 20 points. 13 rebounds, five of them offensive. 9-of-14 from the floor. 3 assists. 2 blocks. He was everywhere and affected every facet of the game — defensively, his rim protection changed the shots that Creighton took inside, and sped them up outside. Offensively, his sheer size and skill was simply too much for the Jays to handle, and when they adjusted to stop him from scoring at will inside, it opened up things on the perimeter for others. The World-Herald’s Jon Nyatawa compiled a video with some of the ways Yurtseven shredded CU’s ball screen defense, and it’s a horror show.
There were other factors at play, too. Kelvin Jones was not much of a match for his athleticism and re-injured his ankle early in the game. Christian Bishop was not much of a match for his size, and picked up fouls early and often.
“Yurtseven is a load in there,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio interview after that game. “But some of our rotations to Yurtseven out of our ball screens were late. We were there, but at his size we talked in practice about how we had to be there at the catch. We were only there to challenge tonight, not to provide enough of a challenge by being there when he caught it. Those are things we have to look at. Why weren’t those executed better? I just felt all night that the game had a feeling, to me, of ‘we think we can outscore these guys.’ That’s a bad recipe for us.”
If McClung can’t go, there’s capable, experienced options to pick up the scoring slack. Senior guard Jagan Mosely’s reputation has been made on the defensive end, where he’s really good at drawing charges and typically defends an opponent’s best guard. Mosely has started every game this season, and has embraced a larger role offensively in McClung’s absence. He’s scored in double figures in three straight games, largely through efficient scoring inside and through drawing fouls — then making his free throws. In fact, he’s 21-for-24 from the line in the last four games. Mosely scored 13 in the first game against CU, following exactly that prescription: he made 3-of-4 shots inside and 4-of-4 from the line.
Junior guard Jahvon Blair replaced McClung in the starting lineup after his injury, and has been better than anyone could have hoped; in eight games since becoming a starter and playing increased minutes, he’s averaging 18.375 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.2 assists while scored 15+ in all but one game. And he’s played an average of 38.5 minutes over that stretch — with four games where he never left the floor.
There’s little choice. Between departures and injuries, Georgetown’s roster is down to five players who figured to get anything more than garbage time minutes coming into the season, with a litany of freshmen and scout teamers thrust into fairly significant roles. Freshmen Qudus Wahab and Timothy Ighoefe have split up Yurtseven’s minutes, with Wahab taking on a larger role and Ighoefe playing more minutes against Xavier on Sunday (20) than he had the entire season prior to February (14). It’s gotten so bad that 6’9″ senior George Muresan, who played 12 total games in three seasons prior to 2019-20 and scored three total points has been asked to play in games while the outcome was in doubt; he didn’t log a single minute this year in their first nine games, and has now played important minutes for most of February.
The scouting report could not possibly be different if Yurtseven plays compared to if he does not. If he plays and he’s anywhere close to 100%, Creighton’s entire defensive scheme probably revolves around keeping him from shredding them. If Wahab and Ighoefe are the primary centers, the Jays will do what they’ve done to most opponents’ bigs this year — make them move their feet, chase shooters around the perimeter, and sprint in transition.
- Tip: 7:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: Fox Sports Midwest (in Nebraska)
- Announcers: Wayne Randazzo and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: Cox channel 47 (SD), 1047 (HD); CenturyLink Prism 748 (SD), 1748 (HD); DirecTV channel 671; Dish Network channel 418
- Outside of Omaha: Varies depending on region. Check GoCreighton.com for a full listing of channels, times and geographic restrictions
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO, with regional restrictions
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Forward Jamorko Pinkett averages 9.6 points and 6.4 rebounds a game. At 6’8″, he’s dangerous both inside and from behind the perimeter. Creighton held him scoreless from three point range in January (0-for-4) but he scored nine points with six rebounds.
- Terrell Allen, the Hoyas’ 6’3″ guard, has also been tasked with a larger role in the absence of other key players. He’s raised his numbers substantially since February began, and had big games — including 22 points on 9-of-14 shooting in an upset at Butler, and 21 in a loss to DePaul.
- Georgetown trailed by nine late in Sunday’s game at Xavier, only to rally and tie the game. They lost on the final possession when Naji Marshall nailed a three-pointer with 4.5 seconds to play.
- With a victory, Creighton would have victories over all nine Big East opponents in the same season for just the second time since joining the league (2013-14)
- Creighton can finish as high as a tie for first place in the Big East standings, but could also drop to as low as fourth place depending on results this week. The Jays can still be the first, second, third or fourth seed in next week’s Big East Tournament.
- Creighton has scored 80 points or more in each of its last six games against Georgetown, with five of those games ending in a Bluejay victory. In 15 all-time meetings against the Hoyas, Creighton is 8-1 when scoring 74 points or more against Georgetown, but 0-6 when scoring 73 points or less.
Creighton is 8-7 all-time against Georgetown and has won five of the last six meetings in the series. Creighton is 5-1 at home against the Hoyas, including four straight victories.
In the last meeting, Georgetown won 83-80 in D.C. The Hoyas made 51.7% of their shots, including 56.3% in the second half, and did it primarily inside the arc. They scored 52 (!) points on 45 two-point attempts despite attempting only 14 layups.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On March 4, Creighton has won three MVC Tournament titles, two against Southern Illinois and one against Illinois State. The first came on March 4, 2002, a 84-76 victory over SIU in which Terrell Taylor led the way with 20 points. Junior Kyle Korver added 18 along with nine rebounds and five assists. Trailing 36-33 at halftime, Creighton opened the second half on an 11-2 run to take a 44-38 lead. Over the second half’s first 12 minutes, the Bluejays shot 60% (12-for-20), while Southern Illinois mustered only 26%, missing 14 of 19 shots in falling behind 64-53. During that stretch, the Salukis had seven turnovers.
Then on March 4, 2007, the Jays toppled top-seeded and 11th ranked SIU 67-61 in front of 22,612 fans at Scottrade Center in St. Louis. Their seniors led the way, as tournament most outstanding player Nate Funk scored 19 points, while Anthony Tolliver recorded his sixth double-double of the season with 15 points and 13 rebounds and Nick Porter had 15 points and a team-best six assists. The Bluejays snapped an eight-game losing streak to SIU, topping the Salukis for the first time since the 2003 MVC Championship game. They controlled the game throughout, owning a 32-28 halftime lead and pushing ahead by as many as 14 in the second half.
Most recently, they defeated the Redbirds on March 4, 2012, 83-79 in overtime to capture the first MVC Tournament title of the Greg McDermott Era. Doug McDermott scored 33 points, and senior Antoine Young had 14 — including eight in an overtime period where he literally put the team on his back.
March 4 has been pretty good to the Bluejays over the years, no?
The Bottom Line:
The conventional wisdom holds that playing a Top 10 team on the road, immediately after that team was handed an embarrassing loss, is bad timing. Sometimes conventional wisdom is conventional because it’s true.
A determined, ticked off Creighton team steamrolls Georgetown on Wednesday night — the Big East’s worst defensive team according to KenPom, who surrendered 80 points to the Jays in D.C., will be no match for them in Omaha.
#11 Creighton 93, Georgetown 72
