After 10 league games, Creighton has played everyone else in the league once and has an 8-2 record. Their first rematch comes on Saturday in Philadelphia against Villanova, who has also played everyone once and owns a 5-5 mark. The Wildcats are 4-1 at home, including a 68-66 win over UConn; conversely, they’re 1-4 on the road.
It’s the start of a brutal five-game stretch for the Bluejays, where they’ll play at Villanova, Providence and St. John’s, with home games against Marquette and UConn sandwiched in the middle — all in the span of 15 days. If they come out of that with three or more wins, they’ll not only cement themselves as threats to win the Big East regular season title, but likely move up a seed line or two in NCAA Tournament projections. And the final five games of the regular season include home games against Butler and DePaul, plus a Georgetown team they’ll be ready to exact revenge on. Oh, and a road game at last-place Seton Hall is sitting out there, too.
That makes the next two weeks the pivot point for the season.
“This stretch is difficult,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show after Wednesday’s game. “The good news is, you know, Villanova is relatively simple in what they do. Doesn’t mean it’s easy to stop — it’s very difficult to stop with Eric Dixon running around. So we’re gonna have to be locked into our plan. We shot the ball really well and were able to create some threes against them the first time, and we’re gonna have to duplicate that if we expect to be successful.”
Ah yes, Eric Dixon. He’s the one puzzle Ryan Kalkbrenner has never been able to solve, the best version of the exact type of player who gives them the most trouble: a mobile big man who’s comfortable shooting midrange jumpers and threes. On December 21 when these teams met in Omaha — Kalkbrenner’s ninth game against Dixon — Creighton decided to try something new. They stuck the 6’8” Jasen Green on him instead, hoping Green’s quickness and athleticism would be better suited for chasing Dixon off the line. And if it worked, it would free up Kalkbrenner to stay home near the rim and keep other Wildcats from getting easy shots.
He scored 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting, including 4-of-7 from three. No one could call that a success and be taken seriously. But keeping Kalkbrenner inside did help them make everyone else’s jobs harder. Here’s the shot chart from that game; Villanova had some success at the rim, and almost no success from anywhere else in the paint. The rest of their two-pointers were mid-range jumpers. McDermott’s comments after the game made the same observations.
“I thought Jasen made Eric Dixon’s life really hard and we shortened the bench a little bit tonight for that reason. We wanted Jasen on him as much as possible,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show that night. “But you have to stay connected to Dixon. He’s gotten so good at reading. If you switch and you’re on top, he’ll roll to the basket. If you’re under, he’s going to post you, and now you’ve got a smaller guy on him, and he backs him in. We were staying attached to him, but as a result, the other guys hit some mid-range stuff.”
Dixon is averaging 24.6 points per game and is the nation’s leading scorer. He’s scored 183 points in nine all-time meetings against the Jays (that’s 20.3 points per game), scoring 30 or more twice. He’s scored 20 points or more in each of his last six meetings against Creighton, the longest streak by any Bluejay opponent since Evansville’s Colt Ryan did it in five straight meetings from 2010-12. Ryan is also the only opponent since 1996-97 to score more points against the Jays than Dixon has; Ryan scored 201 in a maddening career where he torched CU time after time. Dixon has made 25-of-50 three-pointers (.500) in his career against CU, 11 more makes than what he’s done against any other school.
In league games, four of the Wildcats five starters have averaged in double figures: Dixon (23.4 ppg), Jordan Longino (14.9 ppg), Wooga Poplar (13.7 ppg) and Jhamir Brickus (10.3 ppg). That quartet has scored 623 of Nova’s 742 Big East points (84%). They’ve also shouldered the heaviest load in minutes with Dixon and Longino averaging 35.7 and 35.0 minutes per game, while Poplar checks in at 30.7 mpg and Brickus is at 30.3 mpg.
But after getting out to a 4-1 start (with the only loss coming to Creighton) they’ve gone 1-4 since. They shot 50 percent or better from the field in three of its first four league games, but they’ve been held below 43.3% in all six games since. And 43 of their 90 turnovers in league games have come in the last four contests.
Poplar is shooting 38% from three-point range and averaging 13.6 points with a team-best 6.5 rebounds per game. He scored 19 in Omaha on 7-of-12 shooting, but did most of his damage inside with four made shots inside the restricted area. Poplar also had 10 of Villanova’s 28 rebounds.
Brickus added 16 points in that game, making 7-of-13 from the floor and 2-of-3 from three. He scored 10 points in the game’s first eight minutes, including a pair of threes, while Steven Ashworth was his primary defender. At the under-12 timeout the Jays shifted Jamiya Neal onto him, and shut his water off as Brickus scored just six more points the rest of the day. That bears watching in the rematch — will they start Neal on him this time? Or go back to Ashworth as his primary defender so that Neal can try to shut down Poplar? For the season, Brickus is averaging 11.0 points and 5.6 assists per game while shooting 49.4% (42-of-85) from three-point range and 50% overall (87-of-174).
Longino was the one player CU managed to hold in check in the first meeting. He scored nine points on 4-of-12 shooting, including 1-of-5 from three. He’s averaging 11.7 points and 2.7 rebounds per game, and shooting 35.9% from three (33-of-92). But he’s coming off a 27 point, seven assist game against Marquette, and over the last seven games he’s averaging 15.9 ppg. Longino is 40-of-78 from the field in that span (.513), including 16-of-33 (.485) from beyond the 3-point arc.
Defensively, Villanova doesn’t force a lot of turnovers (15.5% of opponent’s possessions, 296th in D1). That bared out in the first meeting, as CU had just seven turnovers, a season low at the time (they later equaled it at Butler). They also don’t do much to disrupt passing lanes; their opponents have had an assist on 60.4% of made baskets, 336th in D1. Creighton tied a season-high with 22 assists, and with an assist on 70.9% of their made baskets it’s their best mark of the year so far. That ball movement paid off — their 14 made three-pointers were a season high at the time (since equaled against Providence), and their 56.0% shooting percentage from three is their best of the year.
Their adjusted defensive efficiency ranks 181st at 107.2. Opponents have generally had success in the paint, shooting 48.6% on two-pointers thanks to a lack of real rim protection or the threat of a shot blocker to alter shots. But their pace is still vintage Villanova — their average possession length is over 19 seconds long, and their adjusted tempo is just 63.2 (346th slowest in D1).
Tip: 12:00pm
Venue: Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA
TV: FOX
Announcers: Tim Brando and Donny Marshall
In Omaha: Cox channel 10 (SD), 1010 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 42 (SD), 1042 (HD); DirecTV 42; Dish Network 42 or 5203
Outside Omaha: Your local FOX affiliate
Streaming Fox Sports app and website
Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
Announcer: John Bishop
Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 386 as well as on the SiriusXM App
In the first meeting, Villanova got just eight points from players outside of their big four (Dixon, Poplar, Brickus and Longino).
Only four Villanova players have averaged 20 points or more in a regular season since Tom Ingelsby averaged 25.5 points per game in 1972-73. Kerry Kittles did it in 1994-95 (21.4 ppg) and 1995-96 (20.4 ppg), Michael Bradley hit that mark in 2000-01 (20.8 ppg) and Randy Foye averaged 20.5 ppg in 2005-06. Dixon is currently averaging 24.6 points.
VU is 10-2 this season (.833) and 27-7 (.794) since the start of 2023-24 when holding teams to fewer than 70 points in a game. The Wildcats are 2-7 (.286) in 2024-25 when teams score 70 or more in a contest and 3-18 (.143) in that spot in the last two seasons.
Isaac Traudt has scored in double-figures in four of his last five games. His four gams in double-figures as a reserve during league play are tied for the Big East lead this season. Traudt and Jackson McAndrew, who typically share the minutes at the “4” for Creighton, have averaged a combined 14.0 points and 5.3 rebounds per game in 39.0 minutes per contest during CU’s six-game win streak.
In league play this season, Creighton leads the league with 10.00 three-pointers per game and is second with 37.9 percent marksmanship from deep. Villanova is second with 9.50 three-pointers per game, while the Wildcats are tops with 39.4 percent accuracy from downtown. The first time these teams met this season, Creighton made 14-of-25 trifectas (56 percent), while Villanova was 8-for-20 (40 percent). Defensively, Creighton has allowed a league-low 64 three-pointers in BIG EAST play, but Villanova’s 96 allowed are second-most.
Creighton has established a season-high by winning six games in a row, and can grow that total with a seventh straight win on Saturday. Creighton has now had at least one streak of five or more wins (including non-conference games) in 26 of the last 28 seasons (including 2024-25).
Villanova leads the all-time series with Creighton, 19-10, including an 11-3 mark in Pennsylvania. But CU is 3-2 inside Wells Fargo Center against the Wildcats, and that’s where Saturday’s game will take place.
On February 1, 2012 the 12th ranked Bluejays thumped Illinois State 102-74 to move to 21-2 and 11-1 in the Valley. From Ott’s Thoughts after the game:
“Things started well for Creighton Wednesday, and only got better as the night wore on. Grant Gibbs reached deep into his bag of playground hoops tricks, threw the ball of a defender’s turned back on an inbounds play, and laid the loose ball up for Creighton’s second hoop of the night. The evening ended with Ross Ferrarini hitting back-to-back triples to hit the century mark and fellow Bench Mob member Matt Dorwart knocking down two free throws to push CU’s total to 102 points. In between, the Bluejays treated fans to arguably the best offensive performance in recent program history.
Hyperbole? Hardly. It wasn’t just shooting 56% from the field, 52% from three-point range, and 84% from the free throw line. It was passing up good shots for great ones. It was the effectiveness of almost every lineup combination Greg McDermott put on the court. It was his son, Doug, having a monster game (again), while guards Gibbs and Antoine Young (7 assists apiece) facilitated an efficient offensive machine.
The Bluejays assisted on 22 of 31 made baskets, while committing just 9 turnovers. Led by McDermott’s 25 points (on 9-11 shooting, including a perfect 3-3 from three-point range), six CU players hit double-figures in points. Gibbs added 12 points to his 7 assists and 4 rebounds. Gregory Echenique played only 17 minutes put scored 10 points and grabbed 6 boards. Jahenns Manigat shook off some tenderness in his knee and knocked down 3 of his 4 three-pointers en route to 11 points. Josh Jones scored 10 points off the bench, and Will Artino scored 11 points without missing a shot from the field (3-3) or the charity stripe (5-5).”
The Bottom Line:
Saturday’s game is basically a toss-up; KenPom predicts a one-point Villanova win with 48% odds of victory, while ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton a slight edge with 50.6% odds of winning. There was no Vegas line at the time we hit publish.
Creighton 76, Villanova 72