After beating Loyola-Chicago on Tuesday night, Creighton’s next opponent in the NIT is Memphis, a team that seems on the surface to play a style well-suited to the Bluejays because unlike Loyola, they like to play fast. The faster the better.
Beneath the surface, there’s reason for concern in this matchup, though. The Tigers own a 21.4% opponent turnover rate, which is 34th best in the country. St. John’s, a team the Jays struggled IMMENSELY against, was a very similar 21.2% (38th in the country). The Tigers aren’t nearly as long as the Johnnies, but they’re just as active, and they’re quick enough to extend their defense well beyond the three-point line without worrying about being too spread out. And they’re skilled at blocking shots, reminiscent more of the 2017-18 St. John’s team than this year’s version — the Tigers have five separate players with 20 or more blocked shots on the season, and as a team they average 4.0 blocks per game.
If the Tiger defense causes the sort of havoc that St. John’s caused against Creighton — forcing bad decisions with the ball, or knocking the ball away when players hesitate a half-second because they’re trying not to make bad decisions — they have the ability to turn this game into a series of runout dunks much like St. John’s did in Omaha. Yikes.
The Tigers are actually a faster-paced team than Creighton, with the 7th-fastest adjusted tempo and the 10th-shortest average possession length. And they score primarily off of dribble penetration and at the line — just 27.3% of their points have been on three-pointers, ranking 297th in the country and way below the D1 average of 32.0%. By comparison, Creighton has scored 40.5% of their points on threes. They also grab a huge number of offensive rebounds. 33.7% of their missed shots have turned into offensive boards, to be exact, which ranks 29th in the country.
And they’re playing their best basketball of the season. The Tigers have won seven of nine games with the losses coming to NCAA Tourney teams — nationally ranked Houston in the American Athletic Conference Championship semifinals and to Cincinnati, the AAC tournament champion.
Senior guard Jeremiah Martin averages 19.7 points on the season, but has been ridiculous over the last month — he’s averaged 26.5 points since February 2 when he hung 41 on South Florida. He scored 31 against East Carolina, 37 against Wichita State, and 43 against Tulane during that span, too. What do all those games have in common? He was 12-of-15 on free throws in the Cincinnati game, 14-of-14 at the line against the Shockers, and 12-of-15 at the line against Tulane. He can shoot the three, but his bread and butter is putting the ball on the floor and driving into the teeth of the defense. He has been hard for anyone to stop over the last six weeks, and last weekend in the AAC Tournament he put on a clinic for how to draw fouls — he attempted 41 free throws in three games and made 35.
Kyvon Davenport, a senior forward, is a 6’8″ wing with long arms that allow him to play bigger than his height. He averages 13.3 points a game and is their leading rebounder, but is extremely streaky — he’s just as likely to score six points with four rebounds as he is to score 16 points with eight rebounds. When he’s engaged, aggressive and locked in it makes Memphis hard to beat — Martin and Davenport are one of the better inside-out combos in the country. But he’s not always those things, and his enigmatic nature is a big reason for Memphis’ unpredictability.
Tyler Harris also scores in double figures at 10.8 points per game, and has come off the bench since early January. Primarily a threat from behind the arc, Harris is like a lot of three-point shooters — he’s either really on (4-of-7 against San Diego on Tuesday, 4-of-9 against Tulane in the AAC Tourney) or really off (0-for-5 against Houston, 1-for-6 against UCF in the other two games of the AAC Tourney, 3-for-11 in the season finale against Tulsa). And at 5’8″, he has neither the size nor the athleticism to put the ball on the floor so his looks come primarily from defenses having to devote so much attention to Martin and Davenport.
Stylistically, Memphis is a better matchup than Loyola was. But Creighton will have to be strong and decisive with the ball at all times, be committed to defending in transition, and block out to cut down on the number of second-chance opportunities Memphis gets. It will be a challenge, but with the home court advantage, Creighton has a slight edge.
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: ESPNU
- Announcers: Jordan Bernfield and Kevin Lehman
- In Omaha: Cox channel 220 (SD), 1220 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 605 (SD), 1605 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: Check your local listings
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 208, Dish Network channel 141
- Streaming on WatchESPN
- Radio: 1620AM and 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- For Cord Cutters:
- Memphis (22-13) won its opening-round game, 74-60, Tuesday night at FedExForum against San Diego behind 21 points and seven rebounds from Jeremiah Martin and 16 points each from Kyvon Davenport and Tyler Harris.
- Each of the Tigers’ last four opponents – Tulane, UCF, Houston and San Diego – have shot less than 40 percent. Tulane shot 39.1 percent, UCF shot 35.8, Houston 36.8 and San Diego 36.7.
- Memphis is coached by Penny Hardaway, a two-time All-American and two-time Great Midwest Conference Player of the Year for Memphis State (as they were called in his playing days). Hardaway remains the only Memphis player to have two career triple-doubles and his 1,319 points (in only two seasons) rank 17th on the school’s career scoring list. The 729 points he scored during the 1992-93 season are the most by a junior in Tigers history. In his two seasons, Hardaway led the team to a 43-23 record – including eight wins over nationally ranked schools — and directed the Tigers to two NCAA Tournament appearances, including an Elite Eight trip in 1992.
- Martin Krampelj tied Creighton’s NIT record with four 3-pointers made in the win over Loyola on Tuesday. It’s a mark shared with six others: Pierce Hibma, Johnny Mathies, Jimmy Motz, P’Allen Stinnett, Booker Woodfox, and James Milliken each made four 3’s in an NIT game for the Jays.
- If past years are any indication, having the home-court advantage during the NIT is a tremendous factor. Since the NIT was trimmed to 32 teams and taken over by the NCAA in 2007, home-court teams are a combined 256-96 in the event, through games of Wednesday. In the last 13 years (including games through Wednesday this spring), home teams are 158-50 in the first round, 69-27 in the second round and 29-19 in the quarterfinals.
- This year’s bid to the NIT is the eighth postseason bid for Greg McDermott at Creighton. Only Dana Altman (13) has taken the Bluejays to more postseason men’s basketball appearances. McDermott’s 10 postseason wins at Creighton are the most in school history, three more than Altman’s seven.
Creighton and Memphis have split six all-time meetings, including two games in Omaha.
The teams first met in the 1962 NCAA Tournament in Dallas (an 87-83 Creighton win), then met the following five seasons. The teams have not met since 1967. The last time Memphis came to Omaha saw the Bluejays pick up a 115-82 win on Feb. 2, 1966.
On March 22, 2010 Creighton defeated Fairfield 73-55 in the second round of the CollegeInsider Tournament (CIT). It would be the final game Dana Altman coached in Omaha as the Creighton coach, ironically ending at the same place it began — the game was played at the Civic Auditorium, and after a loss at Missouri State two nights later he left for Oregon.
And the coach of the visiting Stags?
Ed Cooley. Wearing a comically oversized suit that led to people in my section behind the visitors bench lovingly heckling him all night long with the name “Big Suit”. As in “Sit down, Big Suit!!” or “Way to coach’em up Big Suit!”. It was hilarious, I have to admit. And because Cooley was then and remains now the best, he found the humor in it as well and turned around to acknowledge his hecklers with a smile and a wave. Good clean profanity-free fun.
As for the game? Creighton’s Justin Carter once again did his damnedest to make sure his career didn’t end in a loss, leading the team with 16 points and 10 rebounds. It was the third consecutive game Carter grabbed double-digit rebounds, which if you can believe it, was the ONLY TIME that ever happened in the Altman Era. The last time it happened at Creighton was in the deepest depths of the Rick Johnson Era, the winter of 1994, when Nate King did it.
The offense was not at all efficient. Antoine Young had 11 points, but needed 14 shot attempts to make four buckets. Kenny Lawson scored 17, but was 7-14 from the floor. Ethan Wragge (yes, a pre-beard, pre-Wragge-Bomb Wragge played in that game!!) was 1-4 from three-point range. Josh Jones was 2-4 from deep.
WBR’s Patrick Marshall had the recap the next day if you want to read more about the CIT Experience(TM).
The Bottom Line:
KenPom lists Creighton as four-point favorites, 80-76. Vegas odds are in line with that. And ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton a 74.5% chance of victory. Given Memphis’ style of play and Creighton’s difficulty against teams built the way the Tigers are, I have less confidence. But it’s March, and I’m not predicting a loss.
Bluejays 85, Memphis 81