Jon Nyatawa of the Omaha World-Herald shared an interesting stat on Twitter the other day: Creighton has held a Big East opponent below 36% shooting just 12 times since joining the league in 2013 (an arbitrary cut-off, granted, but stick with me here). They’ve done it three straight games entering Wednesday night’s showdown with Seton Hall, as UConn shot 35.8% on December 20, Xavier shot 35.3% on December 23, and Providence shot 33.8% on Saturday. That’s a pretty notable achievement, arbitrariness of the 36% cutoff line or not.
The Jays won those three games by a combined nine points: UConn and Providence by two, and Xavier by five. It’s the first time since February of 2002 that the Jays have done that. They haven’t won four straight by five points or less in 53 years — since 1967. That staunch defense has been the key, as the Jays have not necessarily been sharp in other areas, at least not consistently. And now they play host to Seton Hall, a team whose size and versatility will require another really good defensive effort to neutralize.
Departed senior stars Myles Powell, Quincy McKnight and Romaro Gill broke the Jays’ backs twice in 2018-19, with Powell twice hitting game-winning shots in the final 90 seconds. Creighton paid them back with two nail-biting wins in 2019-20. The last four meetings have been spirited, intense, high drama affairs.
Those three are gone, yes, but Sandro Mamukelashvili, whose temper got the best of him in the final minute of that March game, is still around and is still a handful. So are Jared Rhoden, Myles Cale and Shavar Reynolds, role players a year ago who are thriving in bigger roles this year. And surrounding them are a cast of talented players that Kevin Willard has playing as well as anyone in the league.
Seton Hall began the year 1-3, with losses to Louisville, Rhode Island and Oregon, the latter coming at CHI Health Center in a neutral court game against Dana Altman’s Ducks. Since then, they’ve lost just once — an 80-77 overtime loss to Providence — and enter Wednesday’s game with a 5-1 record in the Big East.
Mamukelashvili was a great player a year ago, and is somehow even better this year. He’s averaging a team-best 18.7 points, and scores from just about everywhere — on the block, off the dribble, and on jump shots. He draws tons of fouls and has made 75.0% of his free throws (51-of-68). And his passing has improved dramatically, doubling his per-game assist average from a year ago to 3.4. He had seven assists in a road win at Marquette, and six in the loss to Providence.
“Mamu” is one of only four players in the Power Six conferences to register multiple 30-point games this season, a list that includes some of the sport’s biggest names: Illinois’ Ayo Dosunmu, Iowa’s Luke Garza and Minnesota’s Marcus Carr. Those games? 32 against St. John’s on 12-of-18 shooting with nine rebounds, and 30 at Penn State with 22 of them in the second half.
His non-30 point games have arguably been more complete. Against Xavier, he had 18 points, seven rebounds and three steals. Against Butler, he had 24 points, nine rebounds and six assists. But no matter how you look at it, the 6’11” senior has been too much for anyone to handle this year, and he’ll be a tough matchup for the Jays too.
6’6″ junior Jared Rhoden didn’t play huge roles in the two games against CU a year ago, scoring 20 combined points, but has emerged from the shadows of Seton Hall’s departing seniors to put up big numbers this year. He’s scored in double figures in all but one game, and ranks in the top 10 in the Big East in scoring (10th, 15.8 points per game), rebounding (5th, 7.6 rpg), free-throw percentage (6th, 81.0) and minutes (5th, 34.5 mpg).
He struggled a bit from three-point range earlier in the season, but has upped his shooting percentage to 35% from deep thanks to making 7-of-14 in his last three games. He’s a well-rounded player who gets to the rim, draws fouls, knocks down jumpers and crashes the glass. It’s no wonder coaches around the league consider him a favorite for the Big East’s Most Improved Player.
Point guard Shavar Reynolds quietly does a lot of things really well for the Pirates — 4.9 assists and 1.8 steals a game, making 51% of his threes, and a 2.6 assist-to-turnover ratio. He also does a lot of things not-so-quietly, like burying two game-winning shots in the final minute already this year. His three with 50 seconds to go in overtime against Penn State proved to be the deciding points, and his go-ahead three with 43 seconds left against Marquette similarly won them the game.
Myles Cale has started all 12 games, and been a much more consistent performer than his up-and-down junior campaign a year ago. He had nine combined points in two games against the Jays; this year, he’s just outside the top 10 in the league in scoring at 14 points per game in Big East games, and has made 46.7% of his three-pointers in league games (14-of-30). All totaled, Cale has scored in double figures in five of the last six games and has eight double figure scoring games this season, already two more than his final total from all of last year.
7’2″, 270-pound Ike Obiagu barely had a role at all on last year’s team, but with the departure of Big East Defensive Player of the Year Romaro Gill — who was also 7’2″ — Obiagu has thrived. He leads the Big East and ranks second in all of D1 with 39 blocked shots, averaging an absurd 3.3 per game. He’s grabbed an average of 2.3 offensive boards per game. And thanks to those skills, he nearly had a most untraditional double-double — he had nine rebounds and nine blocks against Georgetown.
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Kevin Fitzgerald, Bill Raftery
- 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
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio:
- Creighton broadcast: Sirius channel 132, XM channel 201
- Seton Hall broadcast: XM channel 385
- Three Pirates rank in the top 15 in the conference in free throw shooting percentage; Shavar Reynolds, Jr. (1st, 89.3), Jared Rhoden (6th, 81.0) and Myles Cale (14th, 77.4). The Pirates are 31-for-34 from the charity stripe (96.7 pct.) over the last two games.
- Seton Hall ranks third in the country behind Florida State and USC in KenPom’s average height rating (79.3 inches).
- With a loss, Seton Hall would suffer its third loss since March 7th inside CHI Health Center Omaha.
- Damien Jefferson had six steals in Creighton’s win at Providence, matching the most by any Bluejay under Greg McDermott. He joins Ty-Shon Alexander (Jan. 1, 2020 vs. Marquette) and Davion Mintz (March 3, 2019 at. Marquette) in that elite group. His 2.40 steals per league games tops the Big East.
- On Saturday, Zegarowski and Ballock combined for a season-best 10 triples, tied for their second-most as teammates. Creighton is 18-4 all-time when they combine for seven or more trifectas in a game.
- This week marks the 17th time in program history that the Bluejays have spent in the top-10, with all but one of those coming under Greg McDermott. The No. 7 AP ranking equals the best mark in program history, which was also done on Jan. 16, 2017, March 9, 2020 and March 16, 2020. And the No. 5 ranking in the Coaches poll is the best mark in program history, two spots better than the No. 7 slotting on Jan. 16, 2017 and Dec. 7, 2020.
Seton Hall leads the all-time series with Creighton 14-8, though Creighton owns a 4-3 edge in Omaha. The last time the teams met was March 7, 2020, when Creighton earned a share of its first Big East title with a 77-60 victory over the Pirates on the final day of the regular-season.
On January 6, 2010, Dana Altman’s final Bluejay squad beat Drake 73-69. A massive blizzard kept most of the fans at home, and at the under-12 timeout, PA Announcer Jake Ryan invited fans in the upper bowl to move down to open seats in the lower bowl — creating a gold rush of sorts. The atmosphere went from quiet to rowdy in a big hurry. From our recap the next day:
“The offense, once again, stalled at the exact same time the defense started giving up easy baskets. With 8:56 to play, Creighton led 60-48. Over the next five minutes, Drake chipped away, slowly cutting into the lead, and with 3:21 to go it was 64-60 Creighton. A maddening series of missed free throws allowed Drake to further chip away, and the lead was just 71-67 with 17 seconds to play. What happened next was completely inexplicable, but I’ll do my best to explain it.
Drake inbounded the ball, and came upcourt. Josh Young drove into the lane and hit a layup to make it 71-69, and instead of handing the ball to Creighton to inbound, the referee under the basket blew his whistle. Timeout Drake, right? Well, Drake didn’t have any timeouts to call. When the refs didn’t immediately whistle their bench for a Technical Foul, the fans blew up into an uproar. How can you call a timeout you don’t have and not get T’d up?
Apparently, the referee under the basket anticipated Drake would WANT to call a timeout given the time and score, so he blew his whistle. Except Drake coach Mark Phelps, knowing they didn’t have a timeout, didn’t call one. So…it was an inadvertent whistle. Wait, it gets better.
There were several players waiting at the scorers table to check in on the next dead ball, and upon hearing the whistle, the scorers table sent them into the game. Problem was, without an actual timeout being called, the players couldn’t check in. So now the refs are trying not only to explain their inadvertent whistle to the coaches, they’re trying to sort out the mess of players who were now in the game who shouldn’t be. Meanwhile, the fans are in an uproar, not realizing it was an inadvertent whistle at the heart of this fiasco, not understanding why a T wasn’t called. And in the midst of this circus, Drake is getting the full two-minute timeout the refs assumed they wanted in the first place, but couldn’t grant them. But wait, it gets better yet.
Upon sorting out the mess, Dana Altman realizes he doesn’t have Cavel Witter, a superior free throw shooter, in the game for Antoine Young, who’s been struggling, because the refs had called off the subs (of which Witter was one). So he calls a :30 timeout to get Cavel in.
And with that finally sorted out, Creighton inbounds the ball with 11 seconds remaining, but their primary ballhandlers are well-covered so the pass goes to Kenny Lawson…who immediately finds himself trapped in the corner. Instead of calling timeout, he panics and throws the ball toward the other end of the court, where it is intercepted by Drake’s Ryan Wedel, who shoots and misses a layup. Josh Young rebounds the ball and HE misses a layup. Finally Cavel Witter grabs the rebound for Creighton and is fouled. Witter sinks both free throws, and Creighton wins 73-69.
Underrated moment: Dana Altman calling the :30 timeout after the referee fiasco to get Cavel into the game. Why is that important? All he did was grab the game-clinching rebound AND sink the game-clinching free throws.”
The Bottom Line:
Seton Hall is in search of revenge. Creighton can’t afford to lose a second Big East home game. This should be another exciting nail-biter in a series full of them in recent years. ESPN’s BPI and KenPom both favor the Jays; if they can duplicate the success they had with their small-ball lineups against the Hall’s size, I like their chances. They neutralized Romaro Gill and Sandro Mamukelashvili a year ago by making them run for 40 minutes, guard the perimeter, fight through multiple screens every possession, and just generally making them move more than they were comfortable doing. I think they do it again.
#7 Creighton 76, Seton Hall 71