Creighton begins their defense of the 2019-20 Big East Regular Season title tonight, against the same team they began that campaign against — the Marquette Golden Eagles. In this strange COVID world, the Big East slate begins a full 18 days earlier than it did a year ago, and it’s Creighton’s first conference game before Christmas in either the MVC or the Big East since 2004.
That 2004 game was a 63-61 road loss to an Evansville Purple Aces squad coached by CU’s Director of Player Development Steve Merfeld, and featured an all-time maddening ending. Trailing 60-59, Jeffrey Day was fouled with 8 seconds left, and made two free throws to give CU the lead. But Tyler McKinney fouled Evansville’s Andre Burton with 3 seconds left; Burton made the first to tie it, missed the second…and then one of the great Bluejay villains of that era, Kyle Anslinger, grabbed the offensive rebound and made a game-winning shot at the buzzer.
Here’s hoping tonight is less frustrating.
Marquette enters the 2020 league opener with a different identity than the one Jays’ fans remember. Gone is an offense built around Markus Howard’s significant talents. In its place is the kind of team head coach Steve Wojciechowski has talked about since taking the job — they defend with length, they run offense through the post, and their guards are unselfish in creating for teammates. They’re a little unrecognizable.
The Golden Eagles are holding opponents to a 40.3% effective field goal percentage, 13th best in the country. That’s almost certainly unsustainable — the best defensive team in D1 a year ago was Memphis, their eFG% for the full season was 41.2%, and they were the only team below 43%. But even if they ultimately settle in somewhere between that and the 46.8% they finished at a year ago, Marquette will be happy.
You have to figure Marquette will try to use their length to push out on Creighton’s shooters, and to disrupt (or take away entirely) CU’s passing lanes. The Jays have struggled with defenses who do that, as recently as a week ago at Kansas. But there’s a flip side to that, too. Is Marquette’s defense quick enough to stick with CU’s guards if they’re able to get their pace-and-space offense clicking, and avoid scrambling to find open shooters?
Howard and his 27.8 points per game are gone. Stepping into that void, Koby McKewen has taken over the leading scorer role. The 6’4″ senior is averaging 15.4 points per game, and last week dropped 28 points on UW-Green Bay on 10-of-16 shooting (5-of-9 from three point range). He’s a dangerous shooter from long range (43.3% so far on the year), he can attack the basket and either finish at the rim or draw fouls, and his midrange jumper demands respect (43.8% on two-point jumpers). Both of those numbers are massive improvements over a year ago, so it remains to be seen if that’s an aberration or something more — McKewen made just 29.2% of his threes in 2019-20, and 27.8% of his two-point jumpers. In the first meeting against the Jays a year ago, he missed both of his shot attempts; in the second, he was 3-of-11 from the floor and 0-for-6 on three-pointers.
Joining McKewen in the backcourt is D.J. Carton, a transfer from Ohio State who is immediately eligible and has immediately made an impact. He’s averaging 10.3 points, 3.5 assists and 3.3 rebounds a game, and is coming off a game against UCLA where he scored 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting. There’s been some holes in his game so far, though, namely three-point shooting — nearly half of his shot attempts (45.5%) have been threes, and he’s making them at a poor rate (24.4%). It’s worth noting that he was a 40.0% three-point shooter at Ohio State a year ago (on nearly the same percentage of shots, 40.3% of his total), so he seems likely to catch fire at some point. Carton moved into the starting lineup last week when Symir Torrence was sidelined by injury; Torrence had been leading the team in assists when he went down. He’s not listed in the preliminary lineup posted by Marquette in their game notes, for what it’s worth.
Big East preseason freshman of the year Dawson Garcia has lived up to that billing so far. The 6’11”, 235-pound Garcia does a little of everything — he averages 12.7 points and 5.5 rebounds, shoots 40.3% overall and 82% from the line, has a nice post-up game (making 57.1% of his shots at the rim) and can also hit the three (he’s made 43.8% of them so far). As a stretch-four he seems to be a matchup problem for the Bluejays especially when playing alongside starters Jamal Cain and Theo John.
Cain averages 9.8 points and 6.8 rebounds a game, and ranks 12th in the Big East in boards. Through six games he already has 17 offensive rebounds, though its interesting that he’s not been terribly effective at scoring off those offensive boards — he’s made four field goals on the 17 offensive rebounds, with just a 25.0% shooting percentage when he shoots a putback. Something to keep an eye on.
As for John, he had one game against Creighton where the speed and pace were too much for him — he was benched after just eight minutes in Omaha because the game was contested at a quicker pace than he could excel at. It was the first of many times an opposing coach was forced to go with a small lineup to compete with Creighton. In the rematch in Milwaukee, the Golden Eagles were able to restrict the Jays’ free-flowing offense enough to keep him on the floor, and he thrived again the Jays’ small lineup — he tied a season-high with 10 rebounds and had 12 points on 6-of-6 shooting.
Will this game resemble the 92-75, 77-possession game in Omaha a year ago, or the 73-65, 71-possession (relatively speaking) grinder in Milwaukee? CU dictated tempo and style in the first; MU did in the rematch. The good news for Creighton is that they won both games, so whichever way the game goes they should be confident in the result.
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Brandon Gaudin and Steve Lavin
- 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 Nick Bahe
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Freshman forward Justin Lewis has only played six games for Marquette, but is already a Golden Eagle legend. Scoring the game-winning buzzer-beater against hated in-state rival Wisconsin tends to have that effect.
- Marquette ranks among the Big East leaders in several defensive categories including scoring defense (2nd, 63.2 ppg.), field goal percentage defense (1st, .354 -14th in nation), 3-point field goal percentage defense (1st, .265) and defensive rebounds (3rd, 30.0 drpg.). They’re also third in the conference in blocks per game (4.7).
- With Symir Torrence questionable for tonight’s game due to injury, Marquette’s bench is very thin. Their rotation is just seven deep, and if foul trouble forces them to go beyond that, the rest of the roster is comprised of three players who have played a combined 66 minutes, scored a combined 15 points, and grabbed a combined 8 rebounds.
Creighton is opening Big East play with a home game against Marquette for the third time in eight seasons since joining the league. On Dec. 31, 2013, Creighton never trailed in a 67-49 win that tipped at 9:07 p.m. On Jan. 1, 2020, Creighton never trailed in a 92-75 win that tipped at 8:05 p.m. Tonight’s game is scheduled for 8:01 p.m. depending on when the earlier game on FS1’s schedule wraps.
Each of Marquette’s last five wins over Creighton have been high-scoring affairs, with MU winning by scores of 102-94, 91-83, 90-86, 85-81 and 106-104. In those five MU victories, Marquette and Creighton combined to make 125 three-point attempts and shot a combined 52.2 percent of all shots (328-628) from the floor. Creighton has lost 15 straight games when allowing 90+ points, with four of those setbacks coming at the hands of the Golden Eagles.
Creighton forced Nebraska into 25 turnovers on Friday, picking up 16 steals in the process. The 25 turnovers tied the most in any of Greg McDermott’s 351 games on the Creighton sideline along with a 2012 game vs. Tulsa. Creighton’s 38 points off Nebraska’s 25 turnovers included 11 points in transition. The team’s 38 points off turnovers were the most since Creighton began tracking points off turnovers for every game starting in 2004-05.
Marquette leads the series with Creighton by a 55-35 margin, and has a 23-21 lead in Omaha. The series is tied 7-7 since the teams became conference rivals, and Creighton has won three straight in the series.
Our friends at Anonymous Eagle have an excellent preview of the game, which includes this snippet on Marquette’s struggles in two losses:
“On the other end, we will have to wait and see if Marquette’s offense decides to do Creighton’s defense some favors. MU’s two losses on the year are largely if not almost entirely because the offense just disappeared into the ether. Against Oklahoma State, the disappearance can be attributed to being confounded by the zone defense that the Cowboys deployed. On Friday night in Westwood, MU just completely forgot how to shoot three-pointers, missing all 11 attempts after halftime and thus allowing UCLA to sock the win away late.
The Golden Eagles were also incredibly fumblefingered in both losses, turning the ball over on 31% of possessions against OSU and 28% against the Bruins.”
On December 14, 1989, Creighton had a thrilling 86-83 win over Nebraska. In front of a smallish-but-rowdy crowd of 6,696 at the Civic Auditorium, and a national TV audience on ESPN, the Bluejays rallied from a nine-point deficit over the final six minutes to pull out the win.
Trailing 77-68, they rattled off an 11-0 run starting with a free throw from Chad Gallagher, and then a three from Matt Roggenburk. After a defensive stop, Duan Cole stuck a three-pointer, and moments later scored on a drive to the rim that tied the game at 77. Though Nebraska re-took the lead, Darin Plautz put the Jays on top 82-81 with a minute to play on a three-pointer. And then clinging to a 84-83 edge with just 17 seconds left, a controversial call went the Jays way to help clinch the win.
Cole was trying to ice the game at the line, but missed the front end of a one-and-one. NU’s Rich King grabbed the rebound, and Bob Harstad — who had 24 points and 13 rebounds in the win — knocked the ball loose. It flew out of bounds, but the officials ruled it had touched King last, and awarded CU the ball. Danny Nee went ballistic; King was more diplomatic, but disagreed with the call.
“I think I got fouled,” he said after the game. “I should have been shooting a one-and-one for a chance to win the game.”
Harstad disagreed. “I just hit it out of his hand,” he said. “It was just kind of a reaction. I hit the ball, and it was clean. Then he reached for the ball, and it hit his hand and it went out. I think the ref had a bird’s-eye view of the whole situation.”
The Bottom Line:
#9 Creighton uses a big second half surge to pull away from what is a close game for 30+ minutes.
Bluejays 79, Golden Eagles 70