Saturday afternoon, Creighton looks to snap a two-game losing streak when they host the DePaul Blue Demons, a team that comes to town with a 1-6 record in the Big East and is riding a three-game losing streak of their own. Despite their poor record and last-place standing, they’ve been a pesky team — they damn near beat Villanova in Philadelphia before losing 68-65, took Butler to overtime before falling 70-69 (after blowing a 25-10 lead ten minutes into the game), and knocked off Providence for their lone win.
Of course, they’ve also had the doors blown off of them by Seton Hall (87-56) and Marquette (83-58), and lost at home to both Rutgers (ouch) and Illinois-Chicago (super ouch). They had been tied with Georgetown for last place with that 1-6 mark in the league, but unlike the Hoyas, their underlying stats don’t show a team capable of being more than they are — and the makeup of their roster doesn’t present a ton of matchup problems for Creighton, at least not the way Georgetown does with length at every position to disrupt your rhythm.
DePaul shoots just 32% from three-point range (266th in D1), so they wisely don’t take very many of them. In fact, just 29% of DePaul’s shot attempts come from behind the arc; only 25 teams in D1 take fewer than that. And they don’t shoot all that well inside the arc, either — as a team they’re at 47% for the year, ranking 248th. A big reason for both numbers is that they’re not a team with players who set each other up for great shots. They get an assist on just 47% of their made baskets, which is unspeakably bad; they have two players on their entire roster with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio (Billy Garrett and Tre’Darius McCallum) and even then, just barely as Garrett has 64 assists and 61 turnovers, while McCallum is at 32 and 31.
Defensively, they’re not any better. By traditional metrics, they’re middling; they’ve given up 72.1 points per game, a full two points more than they’ve scored themselves, and allowed opponents to shoot 44% from the floor and 34.7% from three-point range while attempting 22 free throws a game. Advanced metrics paint the same picture; their opponents have an effective field goal percentage of 51.1% (yikes!) and assist on 60% of their made baskets while attempting 41% of their shots from outside (and getting nearly a third of their points on threes).
That’s all well and good, except for the small little fact that Creighton is mired in a massive, massive slump from three-point range. They shot 1-18 (5.6%) in their loss to Georgetown Wednesday night, the first time they’ve made fewer than two in a game since a 2009 win over Nebraska and the worst they’ve shot percentage-wise since the depths of the Rick Johnson Era. They were 0-5 from three-point range in a February 1993 loss to Illinois State, which is coincidentally the last time they did not make a single three-pointer in a game. How long ago was that? Creighton’s oldest current player, Maurice Watson, was born two weeks AFTER that game, and they’ve played 768 games since.
Khyri Thomas is 2-23 from outside in Big East play, and has missed 14 straight going back to the second half of the Butler game. Marcus Foster has missed nine straight, has made just three of his last 17 attempts, and is shooting just 10-49 (20.8%) from three-point range in Big East games. After starting the year 20-47 (42%) from outside, Toby Hegner has made just six of 17 in league games. Cole Huff was 36-78 in the non-conference (46.8%) and is 11-28 since. Perhaps the only bright spot is Isaiah Zierden, who’s 9-16 from outside in league games, and was 4-4 against Marquette.
Creighton’s margin for error is lower than it was two weeks ago with Maurice Watson, and it gets even slimmer if they can’t make three-pointers on a consistent basis. Here’s hoping they get back on track against DePaul, because their next two games against Butler and Xavier will require them to shoot much better for them to win.
Quick Notes on the Blue Demons:
- Eli Cain leads DePaul in scoring at 17.1 points per game, and shoots 41.9% (112-267) from the floor and 38.5% (40-104) from three point range. However, he’d been averaging just 10.5 points per game over the previous eight games before scoring 30 against Butler on Saturday.
- Billy Garrett is second with 15.0 points per game, and has continued a career-long trend of both getting to the line a ton and making almost all of them. He’s shooting 91.2% there, and 114 of his 300 points this season have come from the line.
- Junior college transfer Tre’Darius McCallum is the only other player scoring in double figures, at 10.1 points per game, and leads the team with 7.4 rebounds per contest. He’s had two straight double-doubles; McCallum logged 14 points, 10 rebounds, two blocks and two steals at St. John’s, and followed it up with 15 points, 11 rebounds, and two blocks in 42 minutes of action against Butler. He’s been a stat-stuffer all season, and narrowly missed double-doubles three other times in league play (8/8 against Providence, 14/9 against St. John’s at home, and 19/7 against Villanova).
Bluejay Bytes:
- Since Greg McDermott took over in 2010, Creighton is averaging 79.28 points per home game (9,449 points in 119 home games). And since a 92-83 loss to Southern Illinois on February 19, 2000, Creighton had been 127-0 at home (97-0 at CenturyLink Center Omaha) when scoring 78 points or more, and 107-0 at home (80-0 at CenturyLink Center Omaha) when scoring 80 points or more at home dating to that same setback, before last Saturday’s 102-94 loss to Marquette.
- Remarkably, it was also the most points that any of Greg McDermott’s teams scored in a loss in 20 years, dating to a 103-94 loss by his Wayne State (Neb.) team to Midland in 1997. McDermott’s teams are now 81-6 all-time in his head coaching career when scoring 90 points or more, including a 43-2 mark at the Division I level.
- Isaiah Zierden’s eight three-pointers at DePaul last January are tied for third-most in Creighton history for a single-game, and one shy of the record set by Kyle Korver (1/15/03 vs. Evansville) and Ethan Wragge (1/20/14 at #4 Villanova). Zierden is one of four men with exactly eight trifectas in a contest, joining Korver (12/31/02 at #19 Xavier), Tad Ackerman (1/23/95 at Drake) and Terrell Taylor (3/15/02 vs. #15 Florida).
The Series:
Saturday is the 31st all-time meeting between the two programs. with the Blue Demons holding a 16-14 advantage in the series. Creighton has won nine of the last ten, four straight, and is 7-1 against DePaul since joining the Big East.
Greg McDermott is 7-1 against DePaul. He is 2-0 against Dave Leitao, while Leitao is 0-2 against Creighton.
The Last Time They Played:
Creighton beat DePaul 88-66 last February in Omaha, a complete and thorough rout on both ends. The Jays had four players in double figures, shot 55% from the field, 38% from three, 86% from the line, and dominated (+17) on the glass. Creighton out-rebounded DePaul 43-25, including 11-5 on the offensive glass. CU had 21 assists on 30 made baskets, led by nine dimes from Maurice Watson. CU’s bench outscored DePaul’s bench 51-28, and until late in the game had outscored the entire DePaul team. Meanwhile DePaul’s Billy Garrett, Jr. has only been held scoreless twice in 86 career games, both against Creighton, including this one where he only attempted two (!!) shots.
But it was Cole Huff’s amazing offensive explosion that most remember. From the Morning After:
“On the first possession out of the media timeout, Cole Huff was knocked to the floor shooting a three-pointer. It went in, he converted the free throw, and the old-fashioned four point play was the catalyst for a stunning end to the half. On the next trip down, Huff stuck a mid-range jumper to make it 29-17. After a DePaul turnover, Huff nailed another mid-range jumper to make it 31-17. Then moments later, Huff ripped the ball away from Eli Cain and raced down the court for a fastbreak dunk to give the Jays a 33-17 lead. His personal 10-0 run had blown the game wide open, but he wasn’t done.
After the Jays and Blue Demons traded baskets the next four possessions, including another jumper from Huff and a drive to the rim from Maurice Watson, it was 37-21. With 1:27 to go, Huff swished home a three-pointer to make it 40-23. As the clock ticked down, he swished a second three-pointer, and the Jays took a 43-27 lead into the break. Huff had scored 18 points in five minutes and 14 seconds, going a perfect 7-7 from the floor and 3-3 from three-point land.”
It was another passage from that recap that particularly struck me, however.
“Creighton led wire-to-wire on Saturday, with Isaiah Zierden getting the scoring started on the first possession with a three-pointer. From the outset, they were back to playing the up-tempo, energetic, aggressive basketball they seemed to have lost over the last two games. Diving on the floor for loose balls. Defending tough. Making a concerted effort to get post touches on every single possession. Strong, crisp, decisive passes. It was a statement that whatever happened last week was over, and they’d turned the page.”
Creighton was riding a three-game losing streak when DePaul came to town last year, having lost at Georgetown, to Seton Hall at home, and at Villanova. They used that recipe to get back on the winning side last year, and it sounds very much like a recipe that would lead to a win Saturday, too, doesn’t it?
Gratuitous Linkage:
Walk-on Joe Hanel, though undersized for a center at 6’7” and 210 pounds, has started 19 games in the middle for DePaul this year. The Depaulia wrote about him last week:
““It taught me a lot too,” Hanel said. “You see the game a lot, you watch it a lot and you kind of understand what you have to do to get on the court.”
The observations would pay off. When a chance presented itself after fellow big man, senior Peter Ryckbosch, went down with a leg injury, he was ready. Although head coach David Leitao had been planning on starting Ryckbosch, who also happens to be a walk on, he knew he could trust Hanel.
“Joe was, by the time of the season, really as much as anybody, in the weight room, in the office, in the gym,” Leitao said. “(Hanel) just put himself in the mindset that he was gonna work his tail off. And there was no promise that he was gonna play a lot or whatever it’s just what he wanted to do.”
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
Younger Creighton fans always find this hard to believe, but there was a time when DePaul was one of the best programs in the country. And on this date in 1980, Creighton hosted the Blue Demons when they were ranked #1 in the AP poll. DePaul had been to the Final Four the year before — losing to Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores in the national semifinal before their famous title tilt against Michigan State — and with most of that team intact, entered the game 17-0. In front of a sold-out Civic Auditorium, All-American Mark Aguirre scored 20 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to help secure win number 18. They’d eventually get to 25-0 before losing at Notre Dame late in the season and earn the first of three consecutive #1 Seeds in the NCAA Tournament, but lost in the first round of the tourney to UCLA. The Jays finished 16-12 (9-7 in the MVC) and missed the postseason.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
Last year I intro’d the video with the cheesiest pun in the decade-long history of the Primer when DePaul visited, and because I’m nothing if not superstitious, I’m just going to go ahead and copy it verbatim.
“Creighton was born to run, so here’s hoping they defend — and rebound — well enough to get out and do it. And yes, that’s probably the cheesiest pun I’ve ever used in a Primer. I don’t care.”
The Bottom Line:
KenPom and Vegas both have this pegged as a 19 point Creighton win, which seems outrageous given the last two games, but I like it. Let’s go with it!
Bluejays 84, Blue Demons 65