After a season-stabilizing road win over #16 Butler, Creighton returns home with a chance to cap a big week by sweeping the season series against both Butler and Xavier. As the season heads into the homestretch, those are the two teams most likely to compete with the Jays for second place in the Big East, so owning the outright tie-breaker over both would be a massive, massive advantage.
The Jays enter Saturday’s game on network FOX with a 20-3 record (7-3 in the Big East), and appear to have figured out their post-Mo Watson point guard rotation. Xavier, on the other hand, is still in the midst of that adjustment period, as the Musketeers lost All-Big East point guard Edmond Sumner to a torn ACL last week. With Myles Davis departing the team a couple of weeks before, that leaves them just eight scholarship players, and really only one option at point guard: freshman Quentin Goodin.
Goodin acquitted himself well in his first start Wednesday against Seton Hall, playing 35 minutes and dishing out seven assists against only two turnovers. His shooting was poor, as he went 2-11 from the floor, but he showed all the signs of a player ready to seize the opportunity. He’ll need to if Xavier is going to go anywhere from here, because they don’t really have any backup options — he played 35 minutes out of necessity, not because they preferred to have him out there for nearly the entire game.
He’s not alone in having to play huge minutes; they played four players 30+ minutes and two others 20+ in the Seton Hall win. They start the only four guards on their roster (Goodin, Malcolm Bernard, J.P. Macura and Trevon Bluiett), and the result of having just four other scholarship players — all of them 6’8″ or taller — means any time one of those four guards takes a quick breather, the X-Men have to do what they can to slow down the pace because they’ll be playing two bigs at once.
What happens if they get into a foulfest like the first game against Creighton, where 42 combined fouls are whistled? You know that’s bound to happen at some point in the Big East, so it will interesting to watch coach Chris Mack play musical chairs with his lineup when it does, how it effects their spacing offensively, and what they do to compensate defensively. The numbers game won’t be kind to them in that sort of affair.
Depth issues aside, the Musketeers remain a team loaded with talent at the top of their rotation. Junior Trevon Bluiett leads the Big East in scoring at 18.7 points per game, is second in 3-point field goals made per game (2.6), and ninth in rebounding at 5.9 rpg. Bluiett has 12 games with 20 or more points so far this year, and hit the game-winning basket Wednesday night against Seton Hall:
He’s averaged 27.3 points and 6.5 rebounds over Xavier’s last four games, while shooting 59.6% from the field, including 62.1% from 3-point range. By those standards, Creighton basically shut him down by holding him to “only” 17 points in the first meeting. It’ll be tough to replicate that feat, but Khyri Thomas has been the Jays’ lockdown defender all year long and will draw the assignment on Bluiett at least part of the game.
Sumner had been their second-leading scorer (15.0 points per game), and had twice as many assists as any other Musketeer (105 for the year, an average of 4.7 per game). The freshman taking his place, Goodin, had played an average of nearly 16 minutes a game prior to Sumner’s injury and all that early experience paid off when he assumed the starting role this week. He’s a big 6’4” guard that was the top recruit out of the state of Kentucky last year, and though he’ll be prone to mistakes (as all freshmen are), Xavier will likely be in good hands with Goodin by the time the NCAA Tournament rolls around.
In Sumner’s absence, J.P. Macura is now their top scoring option behind Bluiett. Macura averages 14.2 points per game, but was pretty quiet in the first game against the Bluejays with eight points on 1-4 shooting in 31 minutes. That continued a career trend for Macura — he’s scored 25 total points in five career meetings with CU, and has made just 4-12 three-pointers (and 7-21 from the floor overall) in his career against the Jays.
Xavier’s big men have been tougher for the Jays to contend with. As a team they outrebound opponents by 7.2 boards a game, and 6’9” center RaShid Gaston pulled in an absurd 17 — yes, 17 — rebounds in the first game against Creighton. Nine of them came on the offensive end, which was nearly as many as CU’s entire team (10). Gaston is, remarkably, their third-leading scorer now that Sumner is gone despite averaging just 6.8 points per game; he averages a team-best 6.4 rebounds per game, including just under three offensive boards.
Quick Notes on the Musketeers:
- In Xavier’s 72-70 win over Seton Hall earlier this week, sophomore Kaiser Gates scored 13 points with a team-high eight rebounds, and had eight points during a 16-3 run midway through the second half. Gates scored nine in the first game versus Creighton, to go along with seven boards.
- Xavier has compiled a 4-1 record in games decided by four points or less. They had only two of their 34 games last season decided by four points or less: the last-second 66-63 loss to Wisconsin in the 2016 NCAA Second Round and the 87-83 loss to Seton Hall in the Big East Tournament Semifinals. In fact, XU had only one of its 30 regular season games last season decided by less than seven points: the 98-93 win over Creighton at Cintas Center.
- Xavier is unranked in the AP Top 25 for the first time this week, but remains ranked 25th in the USA Today Coaches Poll. They’re the second team “also receiving votes” in the AP poll, making them unofficially 27th
Bluejay Bytes:
- In Creighton’s last two games televised on network FOX, they lost 98-93 last March at Xavier and 102-94 to Marquette in January of this year. Those are the only two times in Greg McDermott’s 16-year Division 1 coaching career (516 games) that his team lost when scoring 90 or more.
- Seven of the eight meetings since Creighton and Xavier both joined the Big East have been decided by eight points or less. The one exception to that came in Creighton’s 70-56 win over Xavier on February 9, 2016, the last time the teams met in Omaha. Creighton never trailed in that game, using an early 16-0 run to race to a 21-4 lead in the first eight minutes. Maurice Watson Jr. scored or assisted on 15 of those 21 points for the Bluejays and finished the night with a career-high 32 points, seven rebounds, five assists and two steals. Xavier’s Trevon Bluiett was held to four points on 2-of-10 shooting, as the Musketeers shot 1-for-21 from three-point range and 21-of-70 from the field overall.
- Creighton was leading the nation in three-point percentage (45.3 percent) when it took the floor to open Big East play on December 28th. CU shot better than 36 percent from deep in just two of its first nine league games before converting a season-best 61.9 percent (13-21) in Tuesday’s victory at Butler. That was the ninth different game this season that Creighton has made 10 or more treys in a single game, and fifth contest with 13 or more.
The Series:
Xavier owns a 12-11 lead in the series with Creighton, but Creighton owns a 4-3 edge in Omaha. The teams have split the season series each of the previous two years, with the road teams winning both games in 2014-15 and the home teams taking both contests a year ago.
The Last Time They Played:
Creighton’s 72-67 win in Cincinnati on January 16th made them the first visiting team to ever beat Xavier three times at Cintas Center.
Gratuitous Linkage:
Following the game in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Butler’s entire team signed a card for Maurice Watson.
The inscription reads, “Maurice, we were all saddened to learn about your knee injury. You were such a tough player to prepare for and one heck of a competitor. The league will miss having you in it. We wish you all the best in a speedy recovery.”
Classy gesture from the Bulldogs!
What the Other Side is Saying:
Our friends at Banners On The Parkway ask the question “How will Creighton attack Quentin Goodin?”
“Quentin Goodin entered the Seton Hall game with no starts under his belt and the possibility of the 30 minutes staring him in the face. 35 minutes later, he emerged from the first crucible with seven assists and only two turnovers in a performance that was extremely encouraging. The Pirates aren’t a team predicated on turning opponents over, though, and figured to be a good first matchup. Will Creighton be any different?”
This Date in Creighton Hoops History:
On February 4, 1988, Creighton defeated Tulsa 94-92 in a double-OT thriller at the Civic. Senior Rod Mason scored a career-high 33 points, including a three-pointer with 26 seconds left in regulation to tie the game and four free throws in the final eight seconds of the second overtime to clinch the win.
Tulsa led by five with 1:03 to play in regulation, but missed the front end of three straight one-and-ones, giving CU the opportunity to mount a comeback. First freshman Chad Gallagher hit a bucket to make it 68-65, then fellow freshman Bob Harstad tipped in a missed jumper to cut the deficit to 68-67. Tulsa finally hit a pair of free throws on the next possession, but Mason’s three send the game to OT.
The tables turned in the first overtime. Leading 81-79, CU’s James Farr missed the front end of a one-and-one with seven seconds left to give Tulsa a chance. Then Farr compounded the mistake by fouling the Golden Hurricane’s Tracy Moore with one second to play, and he made both free throws — the second a high-bouncing shot that added a flair of drama to the moment — to send the game to a second overtime.
Duan Cole started the second OT with a strip-steal and fast break layup to put CU ahead, where they’d stay. In the final minute, Mason hit a pair of free throws and following a quick basket from Tulsa’s Brian Loyd, they called a timeout they didn’t have. The technical foul gave CU two more free throws, which Mason hit to give them a 92-89 lead. Cole followed with a pair of free throws to make it 94-89, and they’d need both as Moore nailed a three at the buzzer to make the final score 94-92.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day:
Earlier this week, I was shopping at HyVee, and whoever was in control of the store music had it turned to a classic rock mix. My first thought was how the store I worked at in high school played a steady diet of cheesy, inoffensive, mellow tunes from the likes of Air Supply, Toto, and Boz Scaggs. My second thought, as AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” blared over the store’s speaker system, was how when I was growing up a rock station in my hometown wouldn’t play that song for the longest time because it had the word “Hell” in the title, and now it’s playing at HyVee.
The Bottom Line:
In the first meeting between these two, Creighton shot relatively poor, making just 28-63 overall and 5-19 from three-point range. They were outrebounded by 10, and were minus-eight on the offensive glass. They won with defense, and mostly without Watson, as his injury occurred early on; they goaded Xavier into taking a three-pointer on one out of every four shot attempts, and the Musketeers made even fewer of them than their terrible season percentage would indicate they’d probably make (3-15 for the game, 33% for the season to that point — worth noting because they’re no better three weeks later at 34.2%). Oh, and the Jays’ defense forced a turnover on 23% of X’s possessions.
The Jays are at home in this one, they broke out of their shooting slump at Butler, and it’s not likely that they’ll attempt 17 fewer free throws than Xavier this time around. For all of those reasons, I like Creighton on Saturday.
Bluejays 81, Xavier 74