Creighton’s non-conference schedule is back-loaded, perhaps deliberately, giving a young team nearly a month of experience against decent competition before a 10-day gauntlet of top-tier teams leading into the Big East opener. That stretch begins Saturday with #19 Iowa State at home, followed by #12 BYU in Sioux Falls, and an unranked but always tough Arizona State at home. Oh, and that Big East opener? #6 Villanova.
They’re 6-1 heading into the final “buy” game of the non-conference schedule tonight against North Dakota State, who isn’t quite on the same level as Iowa State/BYU/Arizona State, but is also a pretty significant upgrade over the likes of Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Kennesaw State, and SIU-E (and for that matter, Brown and SIU). The Bison return the top six scorers from a team who finished third in the Summit League a year ago and advanced to the conference title game where they were bounced by eventual Sweet 16 Cinderella Oral Roberts. They’ve played in three staight Summit League title games and seven of the last nine, winning in both 2019 and 2020 to punch tickets to the NCAA Tournament.
They’ve gotten off to a shaky start, with four wins in games they were heavily favored in (DIII Concordia College Minnesota, Cal Poly, second-year D1 school Tarleton State, and Idaho). They led UNLV late in a game in Las Vegas, but had a potential game-tying shot blocked at the rim at the buzzer. And then they were steamrolled 97-45 the next night in Tucson against Arizona.
A big reason might be the absence of Lincoln native Sam Griesel, who averaged 11.5 points and 6.4 rebounds a year ago, while leading the team with 82 assists. He scored 311 points and started all 27 games. He’s been out since the season opener after suffering an abdominal injury, and will not suit up tonight. Griesel is an important playmaker for the Bison, and they’ve struggled to replace him.
It’s notable that they’ve struggled from three-point range so far, shooting only 29.1%. They made 34.1% a year ago and 35.6% two years ago with most of the same players. It’s not just one game tanking their season average, either, as you might expect with a small sample size (although making 3-of-19 from three-point range against Idaho over the weekend doesn’t help.) They were 8-of-27 against Concordia, 8-of-27 against Cal Poly, 9-of-28 at UNLV, 6-of-26 at Arizona, and 12-of-31 against Tarleton.
One thing that jumps out is the sheer number of threes they fire up — 45% of their total shot attempts have been three-point shots so far. And that’s not out of character for NDSU. In four of the last five years, they’ve hovered between 43-47% of their shots coming from behind the arc. They take a lot of threes, and usually they make a lot of threes. Based on how they performed the last two years it’s a safe assumption that at some point they’re going to find their stroke, and CU has to make sure it’s not against them. For a defense that has struggled at times with fundamentals, that could be a problem.
Greg McDermott talked after each of the last two games about how he’s observed what he calls “slippage” in the team’s retention of fundamental concepts. They haven’t been able to practice a lot over the last two weeks, leaving for the Virgin Islands the day after a road game in Lincoln and then not practicing much once they were there because they played three games in four days.
“All of those drills that we do day after day after day that are so important for a young team — drills that we didn’t have to do last year — this year we have to run all of them.” McDermott said after Saturday’s win. “We have to jump to the ball. We have to work on ball-screen coverages. We have to work on tags. And as soon as we quit working on those things, it slipped.”
He said he’s even considering cutting back on the time they spend on scouting reports for opponents so they can focus on improving themselves. “But you can go wrong with that approach, too, because part of what’s made us good defensively is being able to sniff out their plays as they happen,” McDermott added. “We just have a lot to learn. But I’ll tell you this, I have fun going through it with them. They’re awesome.”
Senior forward Rocky Kreuser leads the Bison in scoring at 15.3 points per game. At 6’10”, 245 pounds, Kreuser is a difficult player to defend because he has size to battle in the paint, and likes to draw opposing big men out to the perimeter to guard him. He’s always on the move, and NDSU runs him through screens, pick-and-pops, and pick-and-rolls to free him up to shoot.
48% of his shots have been three-pointers this year (34 of 71), and he’s made 35.3% of them. It’s not often you see a combination of leading rebounder (8.5 boards per game) and leading three-point shooter (12-of-34) in a 6’10” package. The Bluejays struggled to stop him a year ago, with Kreuser scoring 16 points in a variety of ways — he was 5-of-8 inside the arc and 2-of-4 behind it. Christian Bishop was the primary defender on him in the game a year ago, and chased him all over the floor. It will fascinating to see what CU does to defend him tonight.
Grant Nelson, a 6’11” second-year freshman (thanks to the free COVID season a year ago), averages 11.5 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Like Kreuser he stretches the floor offensively, with nearly 40% of his shot attempts coming from three. He made 36% of them as a first-year freshman; he’s been ice cold this year, making just 3-of-17 (17%). Fortunately for the Bison he’s been really solid inside the arc, shooting 55% on two-pointers and 75% on shots near the rim. He’s also been their best offensive rebounder and creator of second-chance opportunities. CU didn’t see much of him a year ago; in 10 minutes he took two shots and missed them both.
In the backcourt, Jarius Cook, a 6’3” guard, averages 10.0 points and has been their best jump shooter this year. On a team struggling overall from three, he’s made 40% (11-of-28). Cook scored four points against CU a year ago on 2-of-9 shooting in 29 minutes.
Tyree Eady averages 6.8 points and has a team-high 13 assists, and is coming off a season-best 17 points against Idaho where he was 7-of-8 from the line. Eady had a solid all-around game in Omaha last November, scoring 12 points (on 4-of-7 shooting) with seven rebounds.
NDSU prefers a slower-paced game, averaging 66 possessions per game (291st in D1). Their average possession lasts 18.3 seconds (281st). Creighton struggled in that type of game a week ago against Southern Illinois, committing 12 turnovers in a 60 possession game (20% of their possessions!). They’ve been turnover prone so far this year, and that’s magnified in a low-possession game.
They’ve also been inconsistent in multiple areas, from shot selection to defensive rotations to (at times) energy and effort level. It’s a work in progress, as McDermott said on his postgame radio show Saturday.
“Every one of these guys were the best player on their high school team,” he said. “You have to learn how to be coached when you’re held to a standard and everybody else is good, too — if you can’t meet that standard, you come out of the game and somebody else comes in. There’s a process that a person has to go through to get from ‘Jeez, is Coach just that big of a jerk?’ to ‘OK, here’s the message, here’s what he’s trying to tell me, here’s what I need to learn from it. And then I need to wipe it and move on.’ And I’ve got a bunch of guys that are all going that process at the same time. We’ll get there, but it’s going to be a process.”
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS2
- Announcers: Kevin Fitzgerald and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: Cox channel 216 (SD), 1216 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 621 (SD), 1621 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: FS2 Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 618, Dish Network channel 397
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Josh Dotzler
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio: Creighton broadcast on SiriusXM channel 380 (Internet channel 970)
Creighton is 10-0 all-time against North Dakota State, including a 7-0 advantage in Omaha. The Bluejays and Bison met for the first time since 1975 almost exactly one year ago (Nov. 29, 2020), a 69-58 CU victory.
Greg McDermott is 3-0 in his career against North Dakota State, including a pair of wins coming when he was coaching at Iowa State. McDermott is also 12-0 as Creighton head coach against teams from the Summit League.
The Bison yield 64.7 points per game, a number that would plummet to 58.2 if you throw out the 97 points allowed to Arizona.
The Bison shot a season-best 52 percent and scored a season-high 90 points in Saturday’s 90-73 win over Idaho.
NDSU averaged a +8.3 rebounding margin in Summit League play last season, the best in the league. NDSU’s +6.6 rebounding margin for the season ranked 23rd in the nation.
Before this season, Creighton had not won six times in the month of November since going 6-1 in 2018-19. The last time Creighton won seven times in the month of November was 2016-17.
Ryan Kalkbrenner has had five or more blocked shots in each of Creighton’s last two contests. Just how rare is that? In Greg McDermott’s 12 years on the Creighton sideline, the only Bluejay with multiple games of 5+ blocks in the same season had been Gregory Echenique, who did it in 2010-11 (2x) as well as 2012-13 (4x). He’s the first Bluejay with five swats in consecutive games since Benoit Benjamin did it in six straight games from Jan. 27-Feb. 14, 1985.
Creighton owns 25 victories since the start of the 2010-11 season after trailing by double-figures at some point, including two this season. Twelve of those 25 comebacks have come away from home. One of them came on this date 10 years ago.
On November 30, 2011, Creighton rallied from a 17-point deficit at San Diego State to win a huge game in a hostile environment, 85-83. It marked the official arrival of the Doug McDermott-led Bluejays on the national scene, it’s one of the signature wins of his four-year career, and it remains the biggest deficit the Jays have overcome to win in the Greg McDermott Era. What a night.
The Bottom Line:
KenPom predicts a nine-point win, and ESPN’s BPI gives the Jays an 81% win probability. But nothing has been easy for this group. I can’t see them pulling away from a good, veteran team like North Dakota State. This is probably another nail-biter.
Creighton 74, North Dakota State 67
