It seems like an eternity ago because in basketball terms it has been: Creighton and Xavier’s first meeting of the 2020-21 season came over two months ago, on December 23. Heading into that game, Xavier was off to a surprising 8-0 start and ranked 22nd. Since losing 66-61 to the Jays, they’re 4-5 and endured a three-week COVID pause that has resulted in them playing just 10 Big East games so far. They’re still in the periphery of the NCAA Tournament discussion — they appear in 90 of the 116 brackets tracked by BracketMatrix.com, with an average seed of 11 — but they’re hanging on by a thread after losing to Providence midweek.
“We’re going to see a desperate, desperate team on Saturday that’s fighting for their NCAA Tournament lives,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show after the Jays win against DePaul. “I think they should be in, but that’s somebody else’s decision. And then we’re fighting to keep ourselves in the hunt for a conference title. To do that, we’ve gotta go win Saturday. Every game’s gonna be tough from here on out.”
Entering the final week of the regular season, you’d expect nothing less from Creighton and Xavier than a game with major implications on both sides. Neither team can afford another loss, but for different reasons. Xavier needs as many wins as they can get. Creighton, on the other hand, will win a share of the Big East regular season title for the second straight year if they win out.
Back in December, Xavier was a high-scoring team who was heavily reliant on jump shooting. They came in averaging 84.1 points per game on 51.2 percent shooting from the floor and 41.5 percent marksmanship from three-point range. We wrote in the Primer at the time that it was a small sample size of eight games, and with the transformation from 2019-20 to then so radical, it was natural to be skeptical.
The Musketeers enter the rematch averaging nearly nine fewer points per game than they were in December. They’ve only scored 75 or more points once since then. And after shooting 63-for-159 (39.6%) from three-point range in non-conference play, Xavier has made just 29.4% from deep in league play. They’ve made just 25.2% of their threes over their last four games, three of them losses. However you want to refer to it — regression to the mean, falling back to Earth, turning back into a pumpkin — this is not the offensive team it was when they first met. Combined with a defense that has gone from giving up 0.99 points per game through their first six league games to 1.18 over the last four, it’s a Xavier team with some serious problems to correct and not much time to do it.
And now those problems have been compounded by their best three-point threat, Nate Johnson, listed as questionable for Saturday after missing the Providence game earlier this week with a leg injury. Head coach Travis Steele said that their game plan will necessarily change.
“I watched our team play Creighton in the first game and I felt like we could run with Creighton,” Steele said on Thursday in his weekly media session. “I thought we had the offensive firepower to run with Creighton and Nate’s a big piece of that, because he’s the best shooter on our team and he provides a lot of space out there on the floor for our guys to operate. Not knowing where Nate’s gonna be at, I just think we gotta play a little slower, we gotta play a little more methodical. Are we gonna be able to get to 80 (points)? I don’t know. I don’t think so, and that’s OK.”
Zach Freemantle, their 6’9″, 225-pound center, leads the team in scoring (16.9 points) and rebounding (8.9 boards). He’s upped his per-game rebound average to 9.6 in conference games, ranking first. He’s hit a respectable 29% of his threes this year, and 49.4% on midrange jumpers, but don’t be surprised if he focuses on trying to score on the block against Creighton’s smaller front line. Especially if Xavier does try to slow the game down as Steele alluded to. Freemantle was in foul trouble most of the game in Omaha, ultimately playing just 22 minutes and scoring seven points (3-of-8 shooting) with five boards. It was his worst game of the season, so you can bet he’ll be motivated in the rematch.
Plus, he’s coming in on fire. Freemantle has posted four straight double-doubles: career highs and game highs for scoring (30) and rebounding (15) vs. UConn on Feb. 13, 22 points with 10 rebounds at St. John’s on Feb. 16, 17 points and 10 rebounds vs. Butler on Feb. 21 and 24 points with 12 rebounds at Providence on Feb. 24.
Paul Scruggs is second on the team in scoring at 13.9 points per game, and creates offense in a variety of ways. He’s made 64.6% of his shots at the rim and 35% of his threes. He averages 6.2 assists per game with a stellar 2.3 assist-to-turnover ratio. Scruggs is a big reason why Xavier has assisted on 63.6% of their made baskets — sixth best in D1 — but he’s not alone. The entire rotation is comprised of good passers, and the only two players among the nine that average double-digit minutes with a negative assist-to-turnover ratio are their two bigs (Freemantle and his backup, Bryan Griffin).
If Johnson can’t go, that will open up playing time for KyKy Tandy (6.9 points per game, 38% three-point shooter) and Adam Kunkel (the Belmont transfer who started out hot and hit a game-winning three in his third game as a Musketeer; he’s settled in as a solid role player averaging 6.2 points a game while shooting 27% from three). Neither replace what Johnson provides — he’s the fourth-most productive three-point shooter in the Big East, after all, making an average of 2.63 threes a game and shooting an absurd 45.2% from behind the perimeter.
The Cincinnati Enquirer calls this the “biggest game of the season” for Xavier. It’s not exactly a win-or-go-home scenario, but it’s close, and Creighton will not win if they fail to match the urgency that Xavier is certain to bring to the court from the tip.
Bracket Watch:
The Jays have a NET ranking of 20 entering the final week, and are a ‘5’ seed in almost every bracket including CBS’ Jerry Palm, who upgraded them with a backhanded compliment. “Teams with four bad losses do not often make the tournament, let alone get good seeds,” he writes, “Yet, the top of their resume dictates that they should be in the top half somewhere and are a No. 5 seed in the latest bracket.”
There’s potential for three of those four losses to look a bit better when Selection Sunday rolls around. Voice of the Bluejays John Bishop compiled this list and shared it on Twitter; we’ll expand upon it a bit.
Providence currently has a NET of 79. If they move up four spots by next Sunday, the Jays’ road win becomes a Q1 win and the home loss will no longer have the Q3 scarlet letter that it does now — it will be classified as a Q2 loss. The Friars have two games remaining: at St. John’s and Villanova at home. They could easily lose both.
Marquette currently is #85 in the NET. Similar to Providence, if they manage to move up 10 spots, the Jays’ home loss leaves the Q3 column and their road win moves into the Q1 column. They end the season at UConn, at DePaul, and against Xavier at home, and with the momentum of a big road win at North Carolina they might do it.
Butler’s story is a bit different. Their NET is currently 131, meaning they’re four spots away from the Jays’ road loss turning into a Q3 loss instead of the Q2 it currently is. They finish against Villanova and Creighton. They’re probably not going to win either game, so they’re probably going to finish lower than 135.
There is one other team on the edge of moving — St. John’s sits at #76 right now, meaning if they can move up just one spot the Jays’ home win goes up to Q2 and their road win moves into the Q1 column. They end the season with a pair of home games against Providence and Seton Hall, so there’s a good chance they finish higher than 75.
- Tip: 4:00pm
- Venue: Cintas Center, Cincinnati, OH
- TV: FOX
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: Cox channel 10 (SD), 1010 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 42 (SD), 1042 (HD); DirecTV 42; Dish Network 42 or 5203
- Outside Omaha: Your local FOX affiliate
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Xavier will honor its four senior student-athletes before the game as part of Senior Day, including four-year standout Paul Scruggs and three players who came to Xavier via transfer: Jason Carter, Bryan Griffin and Nate Johnson.
- Xavier leads the Big East in assists (and is sixth in the nation at 18.1 apg.). They’re second in the Big East (and sixth in the nation) in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.57, too.
- Freshman Colby Jones was named Big East Freshman of the Week for a second time last week. Jones averaged 16.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 3.0 steals for Xavier’s games at St. John’s (2-16) and vs. Butler (2-21), while shooting 64.7 percent. Fellow freshman Dwon Odom scored 11 points on 5-6 shooting at Providence, and is first in the Big East and 10th in the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio at 3.50. Odom is second on the team and 12th in the Big East in assists at 3.3 apg.
- Some approaching milestones: Christian Bishop is one block shy of 76 in his career, which would move him into the top ten in Creighton history. Mitch Ballock is nine 3-pointers away from becoming just the third Bluejay to record 300 career threes, and the first ever to have 300 threes and 300 assists.
- Saturday will mark the fifth time in seven weeks that Creighton will play in the Saturday afternoon window on FOX. They’ve won six straight on the network, and will play on FOX again next week against Butler.
- Creighton owns a 35-36 record in Big East road games since the league’s 2013-14 realignment. Those 35 victories trail only Villanova’s 50. Since the start of the 2018-19 campaign, Creighton’s 16 Big East road wins lead the league.
Xavier owns a 17-16 lead in the series with Creighton, including a 9-7 mark in Cincinnati. Creighton has won each of the past three meetings vs. Xavier, tying its longest winning streak ever against the Musketeers. They won 66-61 in December, rallying from an early 17-5 deficit.
On February 27, 2013, Creighton defeated Bradley 80-62 in Peoria to set up a one game, winner-take-all Championship Saturday in Omaha against Wichita State for the MVC regular season crown. From the Morning After:
“Doug McDermott has had big games before, but the one he came up with on Wednesday — when his team desperately needed it — might have been one of his best. He scored 32 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, went 12-17 from the floor and a perfect 7-7 from the free throw line. From the outset, he had a look of fire and determination in his eyes that seemed to tell his teammates he was not going to allow them to lose this game; and the very first play he made showed he meant it — after missing a three-pointer, he followed his shot, grabbed the rebound, and made a layup. He’d score Creighton’s first eight points of the game, and 16 of their 32 in the first half…
Bradley tied it at 35 just two minutes into the half, and then Creighton — like the Jays of November and December — took offense to the Braves foolish belief that they might actually be able to win. Over the next eight minutes, the Jays outscored Bradley 26-7, forcing the Braves into bad shots while setting up great shots for themselves. The decisive stretch, which saw the 35-35 tie at the 17:58 mark grow to a 61-42 lead with 9:59 to play, turned what many expected to be a close game into a blowout.”
Meanwhile Ott looked toward that Saturday Showdown:
“Creighton will host Wichita State Saturday afternoon for the MVC regular season championship. Winner takes all. No ties. Playing for an outright regular season championship in front of a sold-out crowd and a national television audience via ESPN2. If there is a better road team in the Valley during the past few seasons than the Jays, it is Gregg Marshall’s Shockers. Wichita State is 10-4 in road/neutral games this season after going 12-5 in such games last year.
The Bluejays haven’t beaten the Shox in Omaha since Dana Altman’s final year on the Hilltop. Getting dominated by WSU last season in Omaha cost Creighton any real chance at winning the regular season title. But right now those games don’t matter. “White Outs for Wichita” don’t matter. BracketBusters disappointments don’t matter. Bubble status doesn’t matter. The Big East (!) doesn’t matter.
All that matters is hanging a banner.”
The Bottom Line:
KenPom predicts that Creighton wins a four-point squeaker, 77-73. ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton a 66.1% chance of victory. If they can match Xavier’s desperation and push the pace even a little bit, I don’t think Xavier will be able to score enough to keep up. So I’ll put the score a bit higher.
Creighton 79, Xavier 69