After dispatching with Cal Poly and North Florida in the campus half of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational, Creighton heads west to the desert for the main event. They’ll begin Thanksgiving Night against San Diego State, and play Friday against either Iowa or Texas Tech.
The Aztecs are 6-0 entering Thursday’s matchup, including a 76-71 road win at BYU (#68 KenPom). Picked second in the preseason Mountain West poll, SDSU starts two seniors, two juniors and a sophomore, so they’re an experienced team — just not at SDSU. 6’10”, 240 pound Yanni Wetzell is a grad transfer from Vanderbilt. 6’1″ guard KJ Feagin is a grad transfer from Santa Clara. And leading scorer Malachi Flynn is a 6’1″ transfer from Washington State. Off the bench they have another transfer guard, Trey Pulliam from JuCo Navarro College, who hasn’t contributed a ton yet but is expected to make an impact.
There’s a distinct mercenary feeling to the team, in other words, like a professional franchise signing a bunch of free agents to one-year contracts as they go “all in” for this season. The newcomers supplement a roster that returns six of their top nine scorers from a team that won 21 games a year ago and advanced to the title game of the Mountain West Tournament. So their high expectations are warranted.
It’s a big roster, too. They have four players who stand 6’10” or taller, and they’ve outrebounded opponents by nearly nine boards per game so far this year. That will be Job One for the Bluejays in this game: look no further than Sunday’s first half against North Florida for an example of how a game goes when CU’s opponent goes nuts on the glass. If San Diego State cleans up a majority of their missed shots, not only does it create high-percentage second chances, it prevents Creighton from running (and scoring) in transition.
Individually, Malachi Flynn was selected by the media as the preseason conference newcomer of the year after transferring from Washington State. He leads SDSU in scoring (13.3 ppg) and assists (6.2) and is second in steals (8). He’s is shooting 39.7% from the field and has made 13-of-31 three-point attempts (41.9%). Flynn’s primarily a jump shooter, with 81% of his 73 total shot attempts this year coming away from the rim. That was true at Wazzu, too: 80% of his 392 shots during his last season there were jumpers, as well.
Flynn is a really good three-point shooter. But if you can get him to put the ball on the floor and drive a few steps closer, strangely, he becomes a much worse shooter — MUCH worse. His shooting percentage drops from 40% to 28% when he takes a two-point jumper.
Another of the transfers, Yanni Wetzell is averaging 10.2 points and 7.2 rebounds through six games. Earlier this year against San Diego, he recorded career-highs with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Wetzell will test Creighton’s bigs, because he’s a really efficient scorer around the rim, a decent shot blocker, and a technically sound rebounder. He has been turnover prone, however, with nine giveaways in six games.
Junior guard Jordan Schakel also averages in double figures, at 10.2 points through six games. He’s done it by scorching the nets from beyond the arc — after making 41.5 percent of his threes last season, he’s made 15-of-30 three-point attempts (50.0 percent) this year. A whopping 77% of his shots come from behind the arc, consistent with his career average of 75%, and nearly every single one of them has been assisted. Of his 15 made three-pointers, 13 had an assist. A year ago, 42 of his 44 made threes were assisted. So he’s a catch-and-shoot player, in the truest sense of the word.
Grad transfer KJ Feagin averaged over 17 points per game a year ago at Santa Clara. Shifting from a role as their top scoring option to a secondary scorer, he’s seen his numbers decline — he’s scored in double figures just twice through six games and is averaging 9.0 points, 2.8 assists and 2.0 rebounds in his six games as an Aztec. The decline is also due to struggles from three-point range, though. A 38% shooter his last full year at Santa Clara, he’s just 8-for-27 so far this year (29%).
Matt Mitchell is their sixth man, playing 122 minutes all off the bench this year, and averages 10.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists. The 6’6″ junior does most of his damage with a tough mid-range game; six of every ten shots he takes are two-point jumpers, and he makes 44.4% of them.
San Diego State presents some challenges for the Jays with their height, their depth in the post, and their physicality on the boards. Creighton’s probably going to need a repeat of their second half against North Florida to advance in this tourney. And they’re a challenging team to prep for this early in the year for anyone because so much of their roster is comprised of newcomers.
The Jays do have an ace in the hole on that last point, though. Late Tuesday they announced the hiring of a new assistant coach to replace Preston Murphy, who resigned Friday evening. Terrence Rencher will join the Jays’ staff immediately, and be on the bench with them in Las Vegas. He was an assistant at the Aztecs’ crosstown rival, the University of San Diego, the last 2-1/2 years and is familiar with their roster both from geographic proximity and from playing them last week.
- Tip: 9:30pm Central
- Venue: Orleans Arena, Las Vegas, NV
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Jeff Levering and Casey Jacobsen
- 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 Tyler Clement
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters
- Omaha South grad Aguek Arop (6’6″, 220 pound sophomore) is off to a decent start in his second year as an Aztec. Arop is averaging 4.3 points and 3.2 rebounds in nearly 12 minutes a game off the bench.
- 6’10”, 220 pound sophomore Nathan Mensah has started all six games, and is averaging 7.0 points and 8.0 rebounds in 20 minutes. Joel Mensah — no relation, despite also being a native of Ghana — averages 3.6 points and 2.0 rebounds in a smaller role off the bench.
- San Diego State is off to just its fourth 6-0 start since the program moved to Division I 51 years ago. The other instances were in 1982-83 (7-0 start), 1984-85 (8-0 start & NCAA appearance) and 2010-11 (20-0 start and Sweet 16 appearance for a team led by Kawhi Leonard).
- This is Creighton’s seventh trip all-time to Las Vegas, and first since November of 2015 when it won the 2015 Men Who Speak Up Main Event. The Bluejays are 8-2 all-time in Las Vegas, including six wins in a row, and are a perfect 4-0 at Orleans Arena (with wins over Wisconsin and Arizona State in 2012, and wins over Fresno State and DePaul in 2008).
- Creighton is 31-5 in regular-season tournament action with five titles in 10 (including this year) events under Greg McDermott.
- In 36 total MTE games under Greg McDermott, the Bluejays have made 376-of-893 three-point attempts, connecting at a 42.1 percent clip while making an average of 10.44 treys per contest.
Technically, the last time these teams met was an 86-80 win in the 2014 Wooden Legacy semifinals. That’s a game where Doug McDermott scored 30 points, Ethan Wragge made five 3’s, and the Jays still managed to lose.
So instead let’s look back at a much more entertaining matchup from the past — the teams’ 2011 battle in the MVC/MWC Challenge. It’s a game that is often thought of as the turning point in Greg McDermott’s early tenure at Creighton, with the Jays falling behind 31-14 early in front of a rowdy Viejas Arena crowd.
But they rallied to tie the game at 69, and then scored on all eight of their final possessions to win 85-83. Ott recapped it like this on WBR:
“A year ago — actually, any CU season in recent memory — the Jays would have folded. The Aztecs’ individual talents, their coaching ability, and the building itself lead me to believe SDSU is the toughest team the Jays will face this season outside of Koch Arena. But instead of giving in, Greg McDermott’s team followed the lead of their senior point guard, their sensational sophomore, their Glue Guy, and their sharpshooter en route to a 25-12 run over the next 8-plus minutes.
The blue-clad fans scattered throughout the sections immediately behind the Creighton bench fought to be heard, but as the Jays took the lead and built a 6-point margin with 2 minutes to play these CU backers received far less resistance from The Show and the other Aztec fans. Seemingly almost on script, SDSU’s Jamaal Franklin hit two three-pointers, which bookended a triple by James Rahon, keeping the Aztecs in the game and forcing Greg McDermott’s team to keep executing at a high level offensively. They did, with Doug McDermott answering Franklin’s first three with a quick layup off a remarkable pass from Grant Gibbs (see below). Young answered Rahon’s bomb with a remarkable and-one opportunity, but the senior guard missed the free throw. Franklin calmly sank another three, and the not-so-calm Viejas Arena crowd joined as one to serenade McDermott’s team in a timeout huddle. Leading 82-81 with less than a minute to play, three-point specialist Wragge caught a pass from a penetrating Jahenns Manigat and drained a jumper to give the Jays a three-point lead. Two free throws by SDSU’s Xavier Thames cut the margin to one again, and Manigat could convert only one of two free throws with less than 10 seconds left. But he tracked down his own miss during a wild scrum, diving for the ball while Aztec Chase Tapley merely reached down to make a play. Game over.”
On the latest edition of the Aztec Breakdown, they talked to the World-Herald’s Jon Nyatawa to preview the game.
On November 28, 2013, Creighton blew out Arizona State 88-60 in the Wooden Legacy. From Ott’s Thoughts:
“Creighton’s win was a vintage showing of exceptional ball movement and offensive execution, beginning with Doug McDermott. But from my couch, it didn’t seem like Doug was having one of his better games. Crazy how spoiled I’ve become, huh? He missed four of his five three-point attempts against Arizona State but made 7 of 13 attempts from within the arc. Coupled with a perfect 10 for 10 from the free throw line, McDermott led all scorers with 27 points and added 6 rebounds.
Creighton’s star might have shot below 50% from the field, but the team hit at a 53% clip for the game and made nearly half of its three-point attempts (12-25, 48%).
Newcomer Brooks buoyed some of those shooting percentages with a breakthrough performance, going 9 of 11 from the field and making all four of his three-point attempts en route to 23 points. While Austin Chatman was busy relatively locking down ASU stud guard Jahii Carson, Brooks did damage on the offensive end.”
What’s better than an old Elvis song? An old Elvis song covered by ZZ Top. Vegas, baby, yeah!
The Bottom Line:
KenPom favors Creighton by two in a slow, low-possession war of attrition 68-66. I’m not sure Creighton can win that sort of game at this point in the season. I do think they win, just not in a game played in the mid-60s.
Bluejays 74, Aztecs 70