Returning home after going 1-2 in the Players Era tourney for the second year in a row, Creighton finds themselves in a similar position, too: when the initial NCAA NET ranking was released Monday morning, they were 119th. A year ago, they were 99th in the first NET.
Speaking to the media after practice on Monday, Greg McDermott said he believes his team learned a lot about itself last week in Las Vegas, and that after watching the film, he found things to be encouraged by in all three games.
“I liked the way we fought back against Baylor in the second half and at least got ourselves to a point where it was anybody’s game with six or seven minutes left. We just couldn’t finish,” McDermott said. “And then even as poorly as we played against Iowa State, we came out of the locker room, cut it to eight and got them to take a timeout. We had some momentum again but then we let them stretch it right back out.”
Noting that no one would expect to play a team of Oregon’s caliber in the Thursday consolation bracket, he said he was proud of how his team regrouped to win — and impressed at the way they answered the bell twice in the second half when the Ducks threatened to steal a win.
Owen Freeman added that his biggest takeaway from the three games is that the team is becoming more comfortable with each other on the court. “Against Oregon, we had a really good first half. We saw what this looks like when everything was clicking, and saw a little bit of our potential,” Freeman said. “The longer we play together on the court, the more comfortable we’ll get.”
According to Blake Harper, a players-only meeting at the hotel the night after the Iowa State loss brought them closer together.
“Iowa State dictated the pace for that game. (In that meeting) we really emphasized that in the next game we had to make sure that we started demonstrating how we play,” Harper said. “Be more aggressive and force our opponent to respond to us. As for me personally I think I just kind of made sure my presence was felt out there on the court.”
A year ago, the Jays returned from Vegas to play #1 Kansas. They’d win that game, of course, and promptly lose leading scorer Pop Isaacs for the rest of the season.
This year, their first game back is of a slightly different variety. The Nicholls Colonels are at the end of a season-opening seven-game road trip, and they’ve lost each of the first six (to Kentucky, Eastern Illinois, Valparaiso, Murray State, Oklahoma State and Tulane.) Only two have been by fewer than 10 points.
The Colonels have four men averaging in double-figures, Trae English (13.5 ppg.), Jaylen Searles (13.4), Jalik Dunkley (12.0, 7.7 rpg.) and Sincere Malone (11.8, 3.0 apg., 2.0 spg.).
“They’re really athletic and they played Oklahoma State, I thought, relatively tough. They went to Tulane and played a close game,” McDermott said of the Colonels. “I think they’re very well coached. Tevon Saddler’s one of the youngest coaches in Division 1, and I think he’s done a great job.”
They actually led Tulane 59-53 in the second half before a 17-0 run flipped the game. The 6’8” Searles scored 22 points with six made 3-pointers in that game; while he’s a 34.8% career three-point shooter over three D1 seasons, he’d been struggling this year prior to that game (having made just 7-of-22 coming in). Searles isn’t much of a slasher and while his shot selection is roughly 50/50 between two-pointers and threes, most of his shots are jumpers.
His co-leading scorer, Trae English, is the opposite. The 6’0” English can get to the rim and finish, and has drawn nearly five fouls per game on opponents. He’s an aggressive defender, and his steal rate was one of the best in the country each of the last two years (3.2% in 2023-24 at McNeese State, and 2.8% last year for Nicholls). With that comes a lot of fouls, unfortunately, and he’s fouled out twice in six games this year, leaving the Colonels without their dynamic point guard.
The 6’7” Dunkley plays almost exclusively in the paint on offense, with 48 of his 54 shot attempts coming inside the arc. And he’s drawn a lot of contact around the rim, with an average of nearly 4.5 fouls whistled on his defender per game. Problem is, he’s been a really, really bad free throw shooter — 40.7%, as a matter of fact, or 11-of-27. He was 3-of-12 from the line against Tulane, which prevented him from a monster game. Even with those struggles he scored 14 points, but also had 15 rebounds (five offensive), two steals, two assists and a block. He’s an offensive rebound magnet, having grabbed nearly 11% of his team’s misses (272nd best among all D1 players).
The fourth Colonel averaging in double figures is Sincere Malone, a 6’8” forward who rarely shoots from more than five or six feet away. He’s nominally a center, although that’s mostly because he’s the second tallest player on the roster — and the only guy that’s taller, 6’10” Grant Sanders, is a senior in his first year of D1 basketball.
McDermott noted the Colonels will change defenses a lot, and that they’ve seen film of Nicholls employing both zone schemes and switching man-to-man defenses, with pressing and trapping mixed in.
“They also have a lot of guys who can take you off the dribble, which hasn’t exactly been our strong suit to this point,” McDermott said. “We really need one more good day of preparation.”
McDermott and his players were asked repeatedly on Monday if this was a potential trap game given a showdown with Nebraska looms this weekend.
“Our problems are in our own practice gym and that’s what we have to fix. While preparing for an opponent is important, it pales in comparison with the areas we have to grow as a group,” McDermott answered. “A lot of our focus is still on ourselves. There’s so many things we have to fix. That’s been our focus.”
Freeman added that the players are fully aware of the task at hand, and are focused on Nicholls.
“They’ve played a great schedule and they’re capable. We’ve all seen time and time again these trap games, so we’ve just go in there and focus on each day,” Freeman said. “For me especially, there’s a Bible verse that talks about don’t focus on tomorrow, focus on today for today has enough worries of its own. And I think that that really can be applied to basketball because we practiced today, we have a game tomorrow. Obviously, we know what’s ahead and we’re going to be prepared for that.”
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Nicholls’ coaching staff includes Jovon Coleman, who was a GA for Creighton in 2023-24. “I’m really proud of him,” McDermott said, adding that he’s watched a few of Nicholls’ games in the background this season because of that. “He took a leap of faith with that job, and he went to work and learned some areas of the game that he probably wasn’t quite as familiar with, specifically on the recruiting front. I know he’s recruited a fair amount of this team.”
Two of Nicholls’ first six opponents are coached by members of McDermott’s coaching tree: Oklahoma State with Steve Lutz, and Murray State with Ryan Miller. In the latter, the Racers won 99-79 with former Bluejay Fred King having a gigantic game — he was 8-of-8 from the field and 8-of-9 from the line, scoring 24 points with 10 rebounds, five blocks and two steals. And Mason Miller scored five with a three-pointer made, four rebounds and a steal.
Creighton still has not had a player produce a 20-point game this season, its longest drought to start a season since it didn’t happen in the first 12 games in 2003-04. Since Greg McDermott’s 2010 arrival, Creighton has had at least one player score 20 points or more in 57.6 percent (304) of its 528 games.
365 of Creighton’s 524 points have been scored by newcomers, an astounding 69.7 percent. This shouldn’t be too much of a shock though, as only 28.0 percent of last year’s points returned. By comparison, newcomers on last year’s team were responsible for only 36.6 percent of the points.
Creighton’s bench has outscored foes 178-159 this season. That +19 figure would be CU’s best year-end mark since 2018-19. Creighton’s bench has accounted for 33.97 percent of CU’s scoring, and 25.43 points per game. That’s the most bench points per game since the 2015-16 club averaged 26.4 points per game. CU’s best figure in the last 20 seasons came in 2007-08, when the Jays averaged 36.91 bench points per game and actually outscored the starting line-up (34.61 ppg.).
Creighton and Greg McDermott have never faced Nicholls, nor Nicholls coach Tevon Sadler. McDermott is 8-0 against teams currently in the Southland Conference, including a 5-0 record as Creighton coach.
On December 2, 1977, Creighton beat Loyola-Chicago 63-55 on Homecoming weekend in front of a crowd of 5,886 at the Civic. The Jays jumped out to a 21-12 lead with 11:09 to play in the first half, keyed by 14 points from junior forward David Wesley. Then they went ice-cold, made just three field goals the rest of the half — one of them a tip-in by Wesley at the buzzer — and trailed 33-28 at the half.
“I kind of chewed Rick (Apke) and Tim (McConnell) a little bit at half,” Coach Tom Apke told the World-Herald after the game. “I thought they were a little lethargic. They are two guys who are supposed to be poised. They have been through the wars. And I thought they did a good job in the second half.”
Indeed. Rick Apke made six of seven field goal attempts in the second half, including four straight during a 10-2 surge to begin the half. One of those was a dunk off a pass from Randy Eccker that cut Loyola’s lead to 35-34; another Apke basket moments later gave them the lead for good.
They’d take leads of as big as eight points, though Loyola fought back to make it 56-53 with 2:02 to play. Eccker and Apke iced the game at the line, with Eccker going 3-4 and Apke 2-2 in the game’s final minute.
Remarkably, Creighton assisted on 23 of their 27 made baskets, and turned it over just six times. Apke wound up with 19 points, seven rebounds, and seven assists, while Wesley added 18 points and eight boards.
Creighton is favored by 18.5 in Vegas, with 95.9% odds of victory according to ESPN’s BPI. KenPom predicts an 18 point win, too with similar 96% odds.
Jays 85, Nicholls 63