Creighton and St. John’s meet Saturday night in Queens with both teams coming off of exhausting double-overtime road games on Tuesday. The Jays lost to Providence 94-86, while St. John’s won at DePaul 92-83.
The Johnnies rallied from 13 points down with seven minutes to go, and from three points down with three seconds left — after DePaul’s Jalen Terry had hit what they surely thought was a game-winning three.
But then DePaul did a very DePaul thing, and not only didn’t foul when they were up three, they let a good shooter on a hot streak get off a good look. And Dylan Addae-Wusu made them pay. He scored 11 of their final 15 points in regulation, including two baskets in the final 1:05 prior to the game-tying shot. Oh, DePaul.
Addae-Wusu hit three big free throws in the first overtime, and the game-clinching three in the second overtime, en route to 24 points. He’s scored in double figures 12 times this season, including nine times in the last 12 games. And over the last two games, both wins, he’s averaged a team-high 18.5 points to go with 8.5 rebounds, 3.0 steals and 2.5 assists. But it’s worth noting he scored 10 in the first meeting in Omaha on 5-of-11 shooting, with just three rebounds.
As for Creighton, they returned to Omaha late Tuesday night rather than stay on the east coast, hoping to get the players a couple of days back in class before heading to New York. But Mother Nature had other ideas.
“If we’re going to have a snow day, today’s a good day because we were off yesterday,” Greg McDermott said inside the warm Championship Center on Thursday while a winter storm blasted Omaha outside, shutting down most of the city. “It probably was nice for them to be able to lay around and stay off their feet today, because that was a long trip back (from Providence) after a late game. We’ve got an important stretch left, and I think the guys can see the finish line now and how important every game is going to be. And as a result how important every practice will be.”
Creighton’s starters played all but 15 minutes of a possible 250 in the double-overtime loss at Providence — 45 minutes for Kalkbrenner, 47 for Nembhard, Scheierman and Kaluma, and 49 for Alexander. It’s human nature to wonder what effect, if any, that might have on Saturday especially against an aggressive St. John’s team who plays fast.
“We manage it in practice,” McDermott said. “Guys that don’t play as many minutes in games do extra stuff in practice to make sure they’re staying sharp, and the guys that play a bunch of minutes we’re really careful with. We watch how many miles we put on their legs outside of the game.”
The first meeting between these two teams was notable for two things: defensive catalyst Posh Alexander did not play due to injury, and the Jays dominated the paint from the very first possession. CU had zero live-ball turnovers in the game’s first 10 minutes, which forced St. John’s to defend in a set quarter-court defense — and without Alexander, they looked disorganized and at times maybe even disinterested in doing it. He’s back in the lineup now, and it will be a different St. John’s team that Creighton sees this time around.
Alexander is the key to their fastbreak, leading the team and the entire Big East with 2.0 steals per game (37th most in all of D1). He’s been overshadowed by leading scorer Joel Soriano somewhat, but has continued to anchor their backcourt — Alexander averages 9.7 points and 4.4 assists per game. He scored 10 points and had nine assists in their upset of Providence last weekend.
“We made good decisions with the basketball, we didn’t turn it over. We were one of the I think a few teams to be under 10 turnovers against St John’s which doesn’t happen often, and if we want to be successful we need to try to replicate that performance,” McDermott said this week. “We’ve always had a hard time defending St. John’s. Coach Anderson’s teams play in space, they play extremely fast. I think they had 28 second chance points against us the first time and 19 transition points, so we’ve got to try to turn that part of their game off at their place because those are the kind of plays that really gets the crowd into the game.”
Soriano is their all-everything player, with the 6’11”, 260-pound big man averaging 15.4 points and 12.1 rebounds per game. Soriano has been remarkably consistent, logging a double-double in 23 of their 27 games — those 23 double-doubles lead the entire country. One of the games he didn’t get a double-double came in Omaha, though not for lack of trying: Seven of his 18 points, and four of his nine rebounds (three offensive) came in the final six minutes of garbage time after CU had pulled their main rotational players.
CU was even on the offensive glass 8-8 before Soriano’s late barrage, and in the portion of the game where CU’s rotation players were on the floor St. John’s most important player was a marginal factor with 11 points and five boards. And because they neutralized Soriano and didn’t turn it over against the Johnnies’ backcourt, they dominated the game.
Freshman AJ Storr was the star of the first game for St. John’s, scoring 23 points from everywhere — he was 6-of-11 inside the arc, 3-of-5 outside and 2-of-3 at the line. He was named Big East Freshman of the Week twice in January, and is second in the league in three-point shooting (33-of-77, 42.9%). Since moving into the starting lineup on January 7 at Providence, he’s averaged 12.1 points per game while shooting 43.2 percent (48-111 FG) from the field and 40.5 percent (17-42 3FG) from distance.
Leading assist man Andre Curbelo was benched prior to the Providence game last weekend due to what was dubbed a “coaches’ decision.” He did not play against DePaul, either. Curbelo leads the team with 4.5 assists per game (and is 8th-best in the Big East), but was ejected from a Feb. 1 loss to Seton Hall for throwing his goggles to the floor in anger and then shot a combined 8-for-24 off the bench in the next two games. His status for Saturday night is not clear.
The Jays have another big week ahead of them, with first-place Marquette coming to town on Tuesday night. But first things first: St. John’s can and will pull the upset if the Jays have any hangover from the 2OT loss to Providence, or any signs of looking past them to Marquette.
“We’ve really bounced back and put ourselves in a good position compared to where we were at Christmas time,” McDermott said. “Obviously we’d love to win a conference title and we’re going to leave it all out there. We’ve got a tough stretch here, and I think we probably have to win out to be able to do that. But you can’t win out unless you win the first game, and then you can’t win out unless you win the next game. So we really have to stay focused on the moment and what has to be done for us to get ready for St John’s. If we’re fortunate enough to go there and get a win, then we’ll turn our attention to Marquette.”
- Tip: 6:30pm
- Venue: Carnesecca Arena (5,602), Queens, N.Y.
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Tim Brando and Vin Parise
- In Omaha: Cox channel 78 (SD), 1078 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 620 (SD), 1620 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: FS1 Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 219, Dish Network channel 150
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcer: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 381 and on SXM app channel 971
- St. John’s Radio: St. John’s Sports Network from Learfield
- Announcers: John Minko, Brandon Tierney
- Streaming on St. John’s Red Storm app, The Varsity Network, TuneIn Radio and SiriusXM
- 6’6” junior David Jones averages 12.8 points and 6.8 rebounds, splitting starting time with O’Mar Stanley (4.2 points, 2.6 rebounds while shooting 70.1%). Jones missed two games in early February while grieving the loss of his father in the Dominican Republic and returned to the lineup last weekend against Providence, scoring 16 points with seven boards.
- Posh Alexander recently passed St. John’s great Mark Jackson (1983-87) for ninth on the program’s all-time steals list with 181 over his three years in Queens. Alexander, the Big East’s steals leader the last two seasons, is now two behind D.J. Kennedy (183 steals, 2007-11) who sits eighth on St. John’s all-time list.
- The Red Storm boasts an 11-4 mark at home, including a 9-3 record inside Carnesecca Arena this season. A victory on Saturday would also mark the team’s third win against a ranked opponent, having already downed then-No. 6/7 UConn, 85-74, at XL Center on Jan. 15 and No. 20/17 Providence, 73-68, at The Garden on Feb. 11.
- Tuesday’s 94-86 double-overtime loss at No. 24 Providence was Creighton’s first double-overtime game since last season’s 75-69 win at Marquette on New Year’s Day. Creighton is now 15-6 all-time in double-overtime games (not including an 0-1 record in triple-OT games). That record improves to 12-2 in double-OT since 1986-87, with both losses coming on Valentine’s Day (also 2004 at Drake).
- Of Creighton’s previous 20 double-OT games, the Bluejays played a single-overtime game in its next contest twice, most recently on Dec. 9 & 13, 2014 (a 91-88 win over South Dakota and a 71-67 loss to Saint Mary’s).
- Creighton is 4-1 this February. In the past four seasons, Creighton owns a 21-6 mark in Big East games during the month of February, including a 7-2 record against top-25 competition. That overall record ranks as the best in the Big East, through games of Feb. 16.
Creighton is 16-10 all-time against St. John’s, and 14-5 in the rivalry since joining the Big East. The Red Storm are 8-5 all-time when hosting the Bluejays, but lost 5-of-7 meetings at Carnesecca Arena in the Big East era.
Creighton has scored 81+ points in each of its last six victories vs. St. John’s and are 13-0 against the Red Storm when scoring 76 points or more.
On February 18, 2012, Creighton beat Long Beach State 81-79 in a late-night BracketBuster game. Relive highlights from the entire crazy game below; here’s an excerpt from our postgame recap:
Saturday night, Antoine Young got his chance for a signature moment, and he turned it into one of the most memorable shots in the history of Creighton basketball. In front a rowdy, rambunctious crowd and a national television audience, against an incredibly talented opponent who had led virtually the entire game and turned away Bluejay rallies time after time, Young drove the lane as he’s done hundreds of times before, making the same slightly-off-balance shot he’s made hundreds of times before, to finally give his team a lead just as the game clock read all zeroes. Creighton students rushed the court, lifting Young up on their shoulders as the conquering hero, and who could blame them?
In his second-to-last home game, the player who’s been a Bluejay since his 16th birthday when he became the youngest commit in school history finally had his moment.
Long after the records for assists and games played that he’s setting at the twilight of his collegiate career are broken by a new generation of great Bluejays, his shot just after 11PM on a Saturday in February of 2012 will be remembered.
“It’s just something that I was taught growing up. You live for moments like that,” Young said on the AM590 postgame show. “There’s players that either want to take that shot or don’t want to take that shot, and I want to take the shot. I feel like I’m confident enough that if I can get the last shot of a game, I can make it at anytime on anyone. So I just went out there relaxed, and knew I was going to make a play.”
The Bottom Line:
ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton a 67.8% chance of victory, while the Vegas spread favors CU by 7. KenPom agrees, predicting a 78-71 Bluejay win. Provided the return of Posh Alexander doesn’t totally disrupt the Jays’ offensive attack, I think the Jays will cover.
Creighton 79, St. John’s 70
