Creighton righted the ship somewhat before heading into an eight-day holiday break, beating Butler in their return to their home floor and handling DePaul in a Christmas Day game that drew nearly three million viewers to rank as FOX’s highest-rated college basketball game ever (thanks, NFL lead-in!). Those two wins are vitally important, because the next 14 days feature five games that will go a long way toward determining the course of the season.
There’s Saturday’s trip to UConn, a team that has not only been the Big East’s best through two months of the season but has looked incredible in doing so. Combined with the fact that they’ve had the Bluejays’ trip to Storrs circled for months, CU is walking into a proverbial hornets nest. They’ll follow it up with a mid-week game at Xavier, who’s asserted themselves among the league’s top teams as well and just handed UConn their first loss. They will be decided underdogs in both games.
When they return from that road trip, a resurgent Providence team that has currently won seven straight will be waiting for them. And then it’s back on the road to their House of Horrors, Hinkle Fieldhouse, for a Tuesday night game against Butler.
The stretch begins tonight at home with Seton Hall, who started Big East play 0-3 including a four-point loss to Providence and a three-point loss at Xavier. New coach Shaheen Holloway — who piloted 15-seed St. Peter’s to the Elite 8 a year ago — picked up his first league victory over the weekend with a 88-66 blowout of St. John’s.
The Pirates have been near-elite defensively in a bunch of areas. Their adjusted defensive efficiency is 92.2, ranking 29th in D1. Their length at the rim (where they block 12.5% of opponent’s shots, ranking 43rd) and aggressiveness in the guard corps (they’ve come up with a steal on 11.0% of opponent’s possessions, 75th most) has generally forced opponents to take a lot of contested threes. And on those shots, they’ve held opponents to 27.7% shooting (17th best).
That’s all really, really good. Borderline elite. But one problem area that Creighton is well-positioned to exploit has been their pick-and-roll defense; Marquette exploited this big time in their 83-69 win last week, getting 21 assists on 33 made baskets. Seton Hall’s aggressiveness often causes them to over-commit, and a patient offense can carve them up. Marquette’s Tyler Kolek had eight assists to their big men for easy baskets at the rim last week, something you know Greg McDermott has spotted on film.
They’ve also been poor at preventing offensive rebounds and second-chance points. Seton Hall’s opponents have grabbed a rebound on a whopping 29.9% of their missed shots (220th in D1), a figure that has led to 14.0% of their opponent’s total shot attempts coming on second-chance opportunities. That’s an area where Ryan Kalkbrenner can potentially make a big impact.
The trend lines for Seton Hall are also not promising. Though it’s a small sample size of four games, their defensive numbers in Big East games have been among the league’s worst. It’s fair to wonder if opposing coaches have noticed their flaws and begun to exploit them. Their first four league opponents have grabbed an offensive rebound 28.9% of the time and shot 53.0% on two-point shots (including 58.3% on second-chance putbacks). Those opponents have had an assist on two-thirds (66.3%) of made baskets, ranking 10th out of 11 teams, while turning it over less than their non-conference opponents did (16.7% of possessions, 7th in the Big East, and 8.9% of possessions ending in a steal to rank 8th).
Add it all up, and the Pirates rank eighth in adjusted defensive efficiency (104.1, or 12 points worse than they were in non-conference games).
Meanwhile on offense, they’ve been a mess all season long. They shoot poorly from three-point range (30.8%, 290th in D1) but take a lot of threes (35.6% of their total shots). They draw a ton of fouls, attempting 25.6 free throws per game, 10th most in D1 — but shoot poorly from the line (66.8%, 295th). They’re careless with the ball, turning it over on 21.8% of possessions (326th) and getting the ball stolen on 12.0% of possessions (342nd) while having 11.9% of their shots blocked (320th).
Individually, the Pirates play a lot of guys a lot of minutes; five players average double-figure minutes off the bench, with nearly 40% of their total minutes coming from bench players. That depth is also on display with the fact that four Pirates average in double figures for points.
Of the returning players from the Kevin Willard Era, the best is 6’10” senior Tyrese Samuel. After three years coming off the bench, he’s thrived in a bigger role, averaging 10.6 points and 6.4 rebounds. Samuel had productive games against the Jays a year ago, scoring 11 points with four boards in Newark on a perfect 5-of-5 shooting, and 13 points with five boards in Omaha on 5-of-9 shooting including one of his only threes of the season.
Samuel is joined in the starting frontcourt by 6’7” grad transfer KC Ndefo, who played for Holloway at St. Peter’s. A three-time MAAC DPOY, Ndefo is the NCAA’s active career leader in blocks with 346 and has averaged 3.9 blocks per game over his last seven contests. For the year, Ndefo averages 7.7 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.
The backcourt is led by another returnee, 6’6” junior Kadary Richmond, who’s having a fantastic season in year two in Newark after transferring from Syracuse. He’s averaging 10.3 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.8 assists a game while shooting 49.0% overall and 36.8% from three. He’s coming off a great performance against St. John’s that showcased his ceiling — Richmond had 19 points, nine rebounds and six assists in their win.
The Jays know all about Richmond’s ceiling, as he was the MVP of the Pirates’ blowout win in Newark a year ago — Richmond had 14 points on 3-of-6 shooting inside the arc, 2-of-3 shooting outside, with three boards and seven assists.
Joining him in the backcourt is 6’2” senior Al-Amir Dawes, a transfer from Clemson. He’s made 36 of the team’s 87 three pointers this season, and leads the team in scoring at 11.3 points per game.
6-2 senior Al-Amir Dawes, a transfer who played his first three seasons at Clemson, and who is currently averaging 10.6 points and 3.2 rebounds, while connecting on 40.3% of his 5.5 three point attempts per game. 6’6” guard Femi Odukale rounds out the starting five, and the Pitt transfer is averaging 5.9 points and 4.3 boards per game. In three Big East games, Odukale has been terrific in averaging eight points, 6.7 boards, 2.3 assists and 2.3 steals.
Their deep bench includes a pair of good scoring bigs in 6’6” junior Dre Davis (10.7 points and 3.5 boards per game) and 6’10” senior Tray Jackson (7.5 points and 2.4 boards).
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Matt Schumacker and Nick Bahe
- 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
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- The Davis Brothers (junior Dre, a transfer from Louisville, and freshman Tae) were the first two members of Holloway’s initial recruiting class upon taking the Pirate job. Dre ranks second on the team in scoring with 10.7 points per game on 50% shooting, while Tae is averaging 3.5 points, 3.3 rebounds and nearly one assist per game.
- Seton Hall has held their opponent under 70 points in nine of 15 games this season; they have an 8-1 record in those games.
- The Pirates get 25.6 points per game, on average, from their bench to lead the Big East. Their bench has outscored their opponent in 11 of 15 games.
- After making just 4-of-20 three-pointers in its Big East opening loss at Marquette, Creighton has shot 50 percent or better from deep against both Butler (8-16) and DePaul (16-29). Prior to those two wins, CU had shot 50 percent from deep just once all season (7-14 in a win vs. No. 9 Arkansas).
- Trey Alexander scored a career-high 32 points against DePaul, easily surpassing his previous high of 18 points. Interestingly, he’s the first Bluejay in more than 55 years to have a game with 30 or more points before finishing a game with 20-29 points.
- Creighton’s Christmas Day victory over DePaul scored 2.99 million viewers on FOX – the network’s most-watched college hoops game ever. Per FOX Sports PR, it was the most-watched college basketball game on any network this season, far ahead of the Kentucky/Michigan State game on ESPN (2.03 million). In the last three years, the only regular-season game higher was North Carolina/Duke in Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game last March (3.98 million).
Seton Hall leads the all-time series with Creighton 16-10, but the Pirates hold a slim 10-9 edge in 19 meetings since the Jays joined the Big East a decade ago. CU is 5-4 all-time in Omaha meetings, and has won four of the last six games in the series at all sites. Those four wins include a 77-60 win in Omaha to clinch a share of the 2020 Big East regular-season title and an 89-53 dismantling in 2021 in Omaha.
On January 3, 2010, Creighton gave up a 17-2 run in the second half at Evansville to erase a big lead. Coming on the heels of a blown lead in Terre Haute two days earlier, the Jays were staring an 0-3 MVC record in the face when Justin Carter and Kenny Lawson took over the final seven minutes of the game to lead them to victory. From Ott’s recap:
Two free throws by Ned Cox (seriously?! Ned?!) gave the Aces a 2-point lead with just under 7 minutes to play. Much grumbling and negative flashbacking ensued, thinking about how predictable yet another Bluejays collapse might be.
But then something borderline miraculous happened. The Jays hit a few free throws. Lawson converted a 3-point play. Then Lawson added a layup, and P’Allen Stinnett hit his only shot of the day — a 3 — to give the Jays a 6-point lead, one they would never relinquish. And just like that, instead of folding and taking a 0-3 MVC record back to Omaha, the Bluejays battled on the road and won at Evansville for the second straight season.
Jays fans can thank Lawson in large part for the win. He scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds against the Purple Aces, while blocking a career-high 7 shots. Seriously … 3 swats away from being the first Bluejay since who knows when to record a triple-double. Huge. Simply huge.
No highlight reel exists from this game because, as with many road games at Evansville over the years, it was broadcast back to Omaha via unreliable webcast. Most followed along by listening on the radio to the dulcet tones of T. Scott Marr.
2010 seems like an eternity ago.
In Ott’s recap of that trip through Indiana, he embedded this classic Bone Thugs N’ Harmony track. And now the damn thing is stuck in my head!
The Bottom Line:
ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton an 85.6% chance of victory, while KenPom predicts an eight-point win and the initial Vegas line of -8 has gone up to 8.5.
I think the Jays win by 10, exploiting the pick-and-roll and taking advantage of Seton Hall’s poor ball-handling to run in transition.
Creighton 75, Seton Hall 65
