Fresh off a 10-point win over Oklahoma in the first game with their midseason addition, Denzel Mahoney, the Bluejays are headed west for a desert showdown with Arizona State riding a wave of confidence. The Sun Devils, meanwhile, come into the game licking their wounds after an embarrassing 40-point loss to Saint Mary’s. They were obliterated throughout, trailing 51-19 at the half and losing 96-56.
I’ve never seen a box score like the one from the Arizona State/Saint Mary’s game before. Only three ASU players scored a point. One starter scored eight. Another scored five. And Alonzo Verge, Jr scored 43 off the bench. Nine other guys played. None of them scored a single point — not a field goal, not a free throw, nothing. It’s bizarre.
That’s not the result you’d want if you’re a Creighton fan, because while you never know how a team will respond to that sort of butt-kicking, a team with any sort of pride is going to come out with their hair on fire the next game — and if they’re talented, as the Sun Devils are, that can be an explosive cocktail. Ask Texas Tech. After Creighton was blown out by San Diego State, they came out on fire and beat a really good Tech squad 24 hours later.
ASU is 8-3, even after the loss to Saint Mary’s, with convincing wins over KenPom #79 Georgia (79-59) and #91 St. John’s (80-67). Their three losses were to #43 Colorado (81-71), #12 Virginia (48-45) and the aforementioned loss to SMC. It’s a solid, if unspectacular, resume in other words, and Creighton should expect a battle. Turning ASU’s arena into CHI Health Center South will help — the last time the Jays played in Tempe, the venue was more or less turned into a neutral court environment by the swarms of Bluejay fans in attendance, and the same is expected Saturday night.
They’re led in scoring by Remy Martin at 18.5 points per game. A 6’0″, 170 pound junior, Martin was one of the many Sun Devils who did not score against Saint Mary’s. He was 0-for-7 from the field in 27 minutes. It was out of the ordinary in a lot of ways for Martin, not just because he was held scoreless but because he takes a LOT of shots normally. He’s taken 15 or more shots in six of their 11 games (and 20 or more shots three times!), and was coming off a game where he was 9-of-22 against Georgia. Saint Mary’s simply didn’t let him get shots up. He’ll be anxious to shoot against the Jays, for sure. Making sure the shots he takes are tough ones will be the key.
Alonzo Verge, Jr is second on the team in scoring at 13.8 points per game. The 6’3″ junior has typically been their sixth man, although he plays the fourth-most minutes on the team — and has been on the floor at the end of games more often than not — making him a poster child for the “who starts the game is less important than who finishes it” crowd.
A JuCo transfer from Moberly Community College, Verge began his ASU career in a slump, piling up one rough game after another. He was 2-of-11 (and 0-of-4 from three) against Colorado, 3-of-10 (and 0-of-3 from three) against Central Connecticut State, 5-of-15 (and 0-of-4 from three) against Rider, 1-of-9 against San Francisco, and 2-of-7 (and 0-of-2 from three) against Louisiana. At that point he had yet to make a three, and was shooting only 25%.
Since then? He’s been as hot as the Arizona desert. He’s made 31-of-52 shots the last three games (60%) and 13-of-14 from the line. His ridiculous 43-point night against Saint Mary’s, where he made 18-of-29 and 6-of-6 from the line, looks like a natural extension of where he’s been going the last two weeks. It sometimes takes JuCo players a bit to adjust to D1 basketball, and by all indications, Verge is past that point now. He’s a slasher who gets to the rim off the dribble and creates his own shots really well — 45% of his shots have come at the rim, where he shoots 57%. 30% of his shots have been pull-up midrange jumpers, and he’s been pretty good there, too, making 44%. The other quarter of his shots have been threes, and he’s been REALLY bad. You want him to shoot threes. He’s just 12% for the year (3-of-25). Seriously.
Two other players average in double-figures. Romello White, a 6’8″, 235 pound junior, averages 11.9 points and 10.8 rebounds. Creighton will have its hands full with White — he draws an average of six fouls per 40 minutes, and he’s shooting 67.7% from the field.
And Rob Edwards, a 6’5″, 205 pound senior, averages 10.5. Production drops off pretty significantly beyond those four players — they’ve combined to take 65% of the Sun Devils’ shots, score 67% of their points, and grab 52% of their rebounds.
(Note that because PAC-12 Network is not widely available, you will probably have difficulty finding this game on TV at home. Find a bar that is showing it, or a stream from some corner of the internet.)
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: Desert Financial Arena, Tempe, AZ
- TV: PAC-12 Network
- Announcers: Daron Sutton and Eddie House
- In Omaha: Cox channel 217 (SD), 1217 (HD) with the expanded sports pack
- Outside Omaha: PAC-12 Network Channel Finder
- Satellite: Dish Network channel 405 or 410, Not available on DirecTV
- Streaming on PAC-12.com if you have a login through your television provider
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- PAC-12 Network is generally not available on streaming services. If you’re a cord cutter, good luck.
- Junior Romello White — who had 18 points and 17 rebounds vs. Georgia on Dec. 14 — is averaging 14.0 points and 14.0 rebounds and is 24-of-33 (.727) from the field in his past five games
- ASU has held six opponents under 40 percent shooting and is holding opponents to .304 (70-of-230) from the three-point stripe. They have 98 steals, while opponents have just 68
- ASU is 11-1 following a loss the last two seasons. ASU only had one two-losing streak last season, and it responded by winning five of its next six.
- Creighton is 9-2 heading into Saturday, its final game prior to the holiday break. A win on Saturday would mark the seventh time in program history that CU picked up 10 or more wins by December 25th, and fifth time under Greg McDermott. Each of the previous six times it’s been done, Creighton won at least 21 games that year. All but one of those teams reached the NCAA Tournament (the 2008-09 team who went 27-8 but was snubbed by the NCAAs because life in the MVC was hard sometimes).
- Creighton was #56 in the initial NET rankings released on Monday, and surged to 39 after picking up a victory on Tuesday vs. Oklahoma. Saturday presents an opportunity for a Q1 win, as Arizona State was 29th in Wednesday’s rankings.
- Creighton has made 10 or more three-pointers in each of the last five games. It’s the fourth time that’s happened during Greg McDermott’s 10-year tenure.
Creighton and Arizona State have split 10 all-time meetings, with the Sun Devils holding a 3-1 edge in Tempe. Greg McDermott is 3-1 against Arizona State in his career and 1-1 against Bobby Hurley.
The last time they met, CU got a combined eight 3-pointers from Isaiah Zierden and Toby Hegner off the bench and beat ASU 96-85 in Tempe. From WBR’s Morning After:
“The first two minutes of Tuesday’s game could not have gone much worse for Creighton: they turned it over on three of their first four possessions, Khyri Thomas picked up two fouls, and they trailed 11-2 with ASU scoring on an uncontested layup, an alley-oop, a three-point play and a three-point shot. The home crowd was standing, and the Jays were reeling.
To make matters worse, Mo Watson was playing despite having the flu and throwing up during the game; he’d join Thomas with two fouls on the bench midway through the opening period.
Enter Hegner and Zierden. With the Jays trailing 13-6, the duo combined to score 15 of the team’s next 17 points, calmly making five 3-pointers from spots all around the arc in the span of six minutes. Their shooting exploits brought the team back, and then put them over the top; Zierden’s third three of the run, with 11:38 to go, tied the game at 20. Hegner’s second three of the run, coming 30 seconds after Zierden had tied the game, gave CU the lead 23-22. Foster then came up with a steal and a fast break dunk to push the lead out to 25-22, silence the crowd, and force Bobby Hurley to call timeout. The 19-9 run, fueled almost entirely by Hegner and Zierden, was the turning point in the game — Arizona State led just once more, for less than a minute.”
On December 21, 2015 Creighton got revenge over North Texas for a road loss on that exact same date the year before with a 105-82 pasting. Geoff Groselle was the key, scoring a career high 27 points to outscore his entire freshman and sophomore seasons in one game.
Ironically, they were 29-of-40 from the free throw line — when we wrote about Tuesday’s win over Oklahoma featuring the most free throw attempts in four seasons, this game against North Texas is the most recent one we were referring to.
When the Primer started, it was on a standalone blog, Creighton was in the Valley and this column was read by 25 people on a good day, and far less on others. That made inside jokes like sticking Wham!’s “Last Christmas” at the bottom of the final Primer before Christmas a funny yearly tradition. It’s continued to be a tradition through all the years on WBR; every time I think about breaking the tradition I re-watch the video and realize, yeah, this is a tradition for a reason.
Enjoy!
The Bottom Line:
KenPom favors the Jays by a single point, 76-75. I think the Jays get the win by six.
Creighton 79, Arizona State 73