Our 2nd viewing party of the season happens MLK DAY at Scriptown Brewing Company when Creighton heads to D.C. to face Georgetown.
Join us for:
~~ FREE FOOD (while supplies last)
~~ FUN JAYS-THEMED DRINK SPECIALS
~~ and, of course, BLUEJAYS @ HOYAS!
RSVP, spread the word, bring a Jays fan or two with you — Scriptown Brewing Company will be wall-to-wall CU fans for a pivotal road tilt.
All the info is on the Facebook event page!
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Riding a four-game losing streak, Creighton’s injuries keep piling up, too. It was announced prior to the St. John’s game that Damien Jefferson will miss the next 3-6 weeks after having surgery on his ankle. And in that game, Mitch Ballock suffered a broken nose at some point, though he’s expected to play on Monday, probably with a mask.
Their next opponent, the Georgetown Hoyas, looks a lot different than the last time Creighton saw them a year ago. 6’10”, 255-pound senior Jessie Govan is still around and still terrific on both ends of the floor — he’s averaging 19.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, and nearly a block and a steal per game, so, you know, the same old Jessie Govan — but he’s surrounded by a three-man freshman class that has Hoya fans very excited. And with good reason: James Akinjo and Mac McClung are their second-and-third leading scorers behind Govan, and Josh LeBlanc is fourth in scoring while being tied for the team lead in rebounds with Govan.
McClung came to Georgetown as a viral YouTube sensation and the guy who set the Virginia state high school single-season scoring record by topping Hoya great Allen Iverson’s prior mark. His mixtapes were the stuff of legend, filled with exhilarating dunks. Those have been on display with the Hoyas, for sure, and he’s wasted no time getting acclimated to the college game. But surprisingly, McClung averages 13.4 points per game, largely on the basis of his ability to draw fouls.
After not attempting a single free throw in his first six collegiate games, he’s attempted 55 in the other eight games he’s played in, which is nearly seven per game, and he makes 78.2% from the line. His 38-point outburst against Arkansas Little Rock was fueled in large part by going 14-of-16 from the line; he was 6-of-7 against Appalachian State, 7-of-9 against SMU, 6-of-8 against Richmond, and 6-of-7 against Marquette.
That’s a good thing because on anything but shots at the rim, his game so far has been a mixed bag. 43% of his shot attempts have been three-pointers, and he’s made just 28% of them (19-of-66) including exactly the kind of wild swings you’d expect from a numbers like that. He made 3-of-11 at Syracuse, and has six separate games where he was 0-for something with two or more attempts. But he also made 4-of-6 against Marquette and 4-of-9 against Little Rock. And he sank the game-tying three to force OT in their eventual 2OT loss to Providence. Meanwhile, 25% of his shots have been jumpers inside the arc, and he’s a slightly better 33% shooter there. It’s the other 30% of his shot attempts you have to worry about — those are the ones at or near the rim, where he makes highlight reels with crazy dunks and swings momentum in a hurry.
Akinjo has stepped into the point guard role and mostly exceeded expectations, averaging 14.1 points and 4.9 assists a game, but has drawn criticism from Hoya fans and media for calling his own number a bit too often especially in crunch time. Our friends at Casual Hoya went as far as to call the team “selfish” for hunting their own shots instead of moving the ball earlier this week in a loss to Marquette, with Akinjo and McClung bearing the brunt of it. Given that he twice drove inside in the closing seconds of that game, drawing three defenders, and got his shot blocked both times while teammates stood watching with no defender in sight, you can understand the sentiment. It’s probably overblown somewhat; they’re freshmen and will be prone to freshmen mistakes, and they’re also high-usage players that will naturally take a lot of shots. That’s going to look like ball-hogging at times.
What’s not overblown: the fact that Akinjo has reportedly ignored Patrick Ewing’s play call on a last-second possession in two straight games — opting to shoot himself instead of running the play his coach designed for someone else. You can get away with that kind of extreme confidence-bordering-on-cockiness if you make the shot, or if you have a reputation for making clutch plays in big games. When you’re not (yet), and you miss it both times, you get called something else.
Through five conference games, Akinjo’s shooting has been atrocious. He’s made just 14-of-54 shots in those five games, including 1-of-10 against Marquette, 6-of-19 (and 2-of-8 from three-point range) against Providence, 3-of-9 at Xavier, 2-of-10 against St. John’s, and 2-of-8 against Butler. But he’s gotten to the line a ton — A TON — and made 81% of his free throws. He’s 33-of-40 from the stripe, meaning his average night through five games is 6-of-8. Between McClung and Akinjo, the Hoyas have two guards that love to drive, are great at drawing fouls, and almost always make the resulting free throws. That’s tough for opposing defenses, because even on nights when their jump shots aren’t falling, they still get points.
LeBlanc, the third freshman in a key role, is 6’7″, 230-pounds and began the season coming off the bench as an energizer, but he moved into the starting five before Christmas when senior Trey Mourning sat out in the concussion protocol and has stayed there even after Mourning returned. It’s hard to keep a guy who averages nearly a double-double as a sixth man. He doesn’t attempt a lot of shots because he doesn’t need to — Govan, Akinjo, and McClung take 53% of the Hoyas’ shots and have 53% of their points — but he’s incredibly efficient. He’s scored 164 points, not far from McClung’s 188, on 58 fewer shot attempts.
Almost exclusively operating in the paint, 69% of LeBlanc’s shot attempts are at or near the rim. He makes them a ridiculous 76.9% of the time. If their guards ever figure out that dumping it off to LeBlanc a little more often would result in easy points, look out.
And then there’s Jessie Govan. One of the Big East’s best big men the past three years, Govan has suddenly become a dangerous three-point shooter this year which makes him even tougher to defend than he was before. Through three seasons, he made 44 total threes and his shot chart was roughly 12% three-point attempts; he’s made 29 already this season to lead the team, around 30% of his shots have been three’s, and his 43.9% shooting percentage from downtown is second-best on the team. It’s not a huge stretch to see him turn into this sort of shooter; Govan’s been a big man who preferred shooting the mid-range jumper to scoring at the rim (54% of his shot attempts a year ago were two-point jumpers; 51% of them are this year). With his three-point shooting load increased this year, that means he’s scoring — and shooting — far less around the rim than he did before, leaving that to LeBlanc. It makes the Hoyas really hard to defend.
These two teams love to run, love to score, and aren’t particularly good at defending. It seems likely we’re in for a high-scoring game — Creighton leads the league at 83.5 points per game, while Georgetown is third with 82.8 per contest; The teams hold the bottom two places in scoring defense, as Georgetown is last with 77.7 points per game and Creighton ninth with 77.6 per game allowed.
It should be a fun game. And even if it isn’t, at least it will look good: Creighton’s debuting their powder/baby blue alternate uniforms for this game! Fans have clamored for this FOR YEARS, and with their new Nike contract, it’s finally happened. This will be the first time since 1990-91 that the Jays have worn the color, which was a standard part of their palette for nearly two decades — debuting in 1977 on their road uniforms to coincide with their return to the Missouri Valley Conference (with marigold trim!) and sticking around in some capacity through the Tony Barone Era.
If you want to see a whole bunch of people being ANGRY ON THE INTERNET, venture into the above Twitter thread which is filled with dozens of North Carolina fans A) Claiming exclusive ownership of that color which is called “powder blue” everywhere in the civilized world except for college basketball where it is called “Carolina blue” apparently, B) Still upset about Kendall Marshall all these years later, C) Still upset at Grant Gibbs and Ethan Wragge all these years later, or D) spewing some combination of the above, likely with a meme in an attempt to be hilarious.
Do not allow the ‘Heels to ruin our fun.
- Tip: 7:45pm
- Venue: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C.
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Justin Kutcher and Tarik Turner
- 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 Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- Last time out, Georgetown fell just short against Marquette 74-71 on Tuesday night. Mac McClung led the Hoyas with 24 points on a 7-of-11 effort from the floor including four 3-pointers. Jessie Govan tallied 14 points while Kaleb Johnson chipped in 12 points to round out those in double figures. Govan’s nine rebounds led the squad while James Akinjo recorded a game-best eight assists. Georgetown shot 42.3 percent from the floor and outrebounded the Golden Eagles 33-30. With the loss, the Hoyas slipped to 12-6 on the year with a 2-3 mark in conference play.
- With 14.1 ppg, James Akinjo tops a trio of freshmen in the Big East Conference to rank among the top 30 in scoring. He (14th) and teammate Mac McClung (13.4 ppg – 15th) are the only freshmen among the top 15 in the league. Akinjo is also the only freshman to appear on the assists list, averaging 4.9 apg for third in the conference. Josh LeBlanc is tied for second in the league in rebounding, grabbing 8.0 rpg and is one of only three freshman to rank among the top 30 in the category. He is also fourth in the BE with a 66.0 field goal percentage and one of only a pair of freshman ranked among the top 15.
- In Big East Conference action, Jessie Govan’s 10 blocks currently leads the league as he averages 2.0 bpg in league play. With 121 rejections over his career, he is on the heels of Don Reid’s (1991-95) 122 career blocks.
- Creighton has averaged 83.4 points in five Big East wins over Georgetown, but 57.2 points in six losses against the Hoyas. Along those same lines, Creighton is 6-0 all-time when scoring 75 or more against Georgetown, and 0-6 when it doesn’t.
- Creighton has four men averaging double-figures in scoring, with two others a fraction of a point away from joining them. Ty-Shon Alexander (17.0), Martin Krampelj (11.2), Mitch Ballock (10.9) and Marcus Zegarowski (10.8) are contributing at a double-digit clip, with Davion Mintz (9.9) and Damien Jefferson (9.4) not far behind. In league play, Alexander (16.4), Krampelj (15.8), Ballock (12.8), Mintz (12.6) and Zegarowski (12.2) are all well into double-figures. Creighton has not had five or more men finish a season averaging 10 or more points per game since the 1964-65 club had SIX men average in double-figures (Neil Johnson, 17.3; Elton McGriff, 15.0; Fritz Pointer, 14.3; Tim Powers, 12.6; Bob Miles, 11.9; Charlie Brown (11.6), though Johnson only played in 8-of-23 games.
- Greg McDermott will coach in his 300th game as Creighton head coach on Monday at Georgetown, becoming just the second coach in school history to preside over that many games. His predecessor, Dana Altman, is the only other coach with that many games on the Bluejay bench. Their records through 300 games are eerily similar: McDermott has a 197-102 record, and Altman was at 194-106.
Creighton and Georgetown have split 12 all-time meetings. The home team has won five of the last six meetings. The Jays swept the series a year ago, shredding the Hoyas 90-66 in D.C. behind 16 three-pointers, and winning a closer game in Omaha 85-77 — that one is best remembered as Jacob Epperson’s debut after pulling his redshirt. Here’s highlights of those two games!
The Washington Post had an interesting feature on Georgetown’s freshmen class in late December detailing their recruitment by Patrick Ewing and their determination to return Georgetown to prominence.
Meanwhile, a website named BBall Index published an interesting look at things Doug McDermott is doing away from the ball to make shots easier for his teammates (in addition to being a great three-point shooter himself) and make himself more valuable to the Pacers offense:
On January 21, 2012, Creighton rolled over Indiana State 75-49 in front of a national TV audience on ESPN2. From Ott’s recap:
“The afternoon set up well for star sophomore Doug McDermott to introduce his game to a national television audience. ESPN2 was in the house, ready to heap praise on McDermott. But the Sycamores decided to force Creighton players other than Dougie Fresh to beat them, hounding McDermott with double and triple teams. ISU held him to a season-low 12 points and forced him to commit 3 turnovers. But McDermott helped in other ways, by grabbing 11 rebounds for the second time in three games and swinging the ball away from him and toward open shooters. His teammates did the rest.
If casual basketball fans tuned in to watch McDermott and get a feel for how the sophomore All American candidate can take over a game, they instead saw the real reason the Bluejays might be a tough out come March. The Jays spread the ball around beautifully, assisting 17 times on 24 made field goals while turning it over just 10 times. Seven of Creighton’s 14 first half field goals came from beyond the three-point arc, as the Bluejays effectively buried the Sycamores in an avalanche of long-range shooting. Jahenns Manigat, Josh Jones, and Ethan Wragge each made two treys in the first half, while Grant Gibbs added one, and CU headed to the break up 42-25. An 8-minute dry spell late in the game cost Creighton a chance to truly decimate the Sycamores (the Jays only scored 7 points from the 8:40 mark until Taylor Stormberg hit a shot with less than a minute to play), but by then the afternoon had taken on the feel of an early season non-conference game against a cupcake opponent. It was anything but a trap; in fact, the outcome and the way the Bluejays got there probably serves as more frightening to opponents than would a career night by McDermott.”
The Bottom Line:
Creighton’s busting out the baby blue alternate uniforms for this game. That can only mean one thing: Jays win.
Creighton 81, Georgetown 77
