Creighton has won just twice at Butler since joining the Big East a decade ago: the 2013-14 team won 68-63 thanks to a Doug McDermott shot in the final minute, and the 2016-17 team won 76-67 thanks to a massive performance from Justin Patton. That’s the last time they’ve won there — and Patton’s been playing professionally for five years.
To put that in further perspective, the only other team they’ve failed to beat at least three times on the road is Villanova (who they’ve beaten twice, both at Wells Fargo Arena), and the only teams they haven’t beaten at least four times on the road are Providence and Xavier (who they’ve beaten on the road three times each).
Butler’s had some really good teams over the course of the last decade, but they haven’t been Villanova — and yet the Jays have struggled to win in Indianapolis every bit as much as they have against the juggernaut Wildcats. What gives?
Hinkle Fieldhouse is a great, tradition-steeped arena. Creighton’s shooters have struggled to make shots there, for whatever reason — likely some combination of the unique shooting backdrop, Butler generally having good defensive squads, and Butler being better able to dictate their grind-it-out style at home.
Combining Creighton’s nine games vs. Butler, as well as the two games inside Hinkle Fieldhouse during the 2021 NCAA Tournament Bubble (a win vs. Ohio, a loss vs. No. 1 Gonzaga), a few categories jump out as compiled by Creighton’s Rob Anderson in his game notes.
- Creighton is 3-1 when attempting 21 three-pointers or less compared to an 0-7 mark when shooting 22 or more trifectas.
- Creighton is also 3-1 when allowing 67 points or less, compared to an 0-7 mark when allowing 68 points or more.
- Creighton is 3-0 when it owns an assist/turnover ratio of 1.01 or better in those games, but 0-8 when it’s 1.00 or worse.
Since joining the Big East, Creighton is 10-1 when scoring 72 or more points against the Bulldogs and 2-7 when scoring 71 points or less. To no one’s surprise, those (more or less) mirror their home/neutral and road records against the Bulldogs.
If there was ever a season to break out, though, it’s this one. Butler comes in at 11-8 and 3-5 in the league, and their five Big East losses have been by 22, 22, 20, 25 and 16 points — including a 78-56 Bluejay win in Omaha last month.
Compounding matters, Butler’s interior defense has been leaky since conference play began. 6’11” transfer Manny Bates averages 12.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, and two blocks per game, and 6’10” senior Jalen Thomas (6.8 points, 4.3 rebounds) has been his primary backup. Neither has been great defensively, and against the Big East’s better big men, neither has been an effective scorer either.
Bates was swallowed up by Ryan Kalkbrenner in the first meeting, scoring six points with just two rebounds — while allowing Kalkbrenner to go nuts on the other end in his first game back from mono (19 points on 7-of-8 shooting). And now he’s out indefinitely with a knee injury — he missed the second half of the St. John’s game a week ago when the injury became too painful to keep playing through, and had a procedure done on it. He missed the Villanova game and while he’s expected back later this season, he will not be dressed tonight.
Without Bates, Thomas got the start against Villanova over the weekend. He’s smaller, more athletic and has more shooting range. It had its advantages — without Bates manning the post, leading scorer Chuck Harris had more room to attack the basket. His drive-and-kicks to their shooters fueled their offense, namely Simas Lukosius who had 28 points on 5-of-8 shooting from three-point range.
6’10” freshman Connor Turnbull had played just nine minutes in Big East games prior to Villanova; he saw the floor for seven minutes in that game. And he showed flashes of what he could become with nice footwork and an ability to score at the rim on lob passes. But defensively, he was a mess — he picked up two fouls in about 3-1/2 minutes — and though Butler hung on to win Villanova had a ton of success scoring in the paint.
36 of Villanova’s 71 points came in the paint. Even with Bates in the lineup, that had been a trend — 34 of St. John’s 77 points, 40 of Seton Hall’s 76 points, 40 of DePaul’s 70 points, and 36 of Providence’s 72 points came in the paint. Butler’s defense, especially in the paint, is a huge problem. They have trouble stopping dribble penetration, and they don’t have much rim protection when shooters get there. Enter Creighton, who dominated Providence in the paint on Saturday to the tune of 46 points — and dominated Butler, with Manny Bates, a month ago.
Combined with an offense that has been the worst in the Big East since conference play began, this is a team with a lot of problems. Their adjusted offensive efficiency is 92.6, ranking dead last and nearly five points worse than the next closest team (Georgetown at 97.3). Their effective field goal percentage is 45.9%, also dead last. And they’re bad no matter where they shoot from — they’ve made just 45.0% of their two-point shots (dead last) and 31.7% of their threes (8th, with Georgetown, DePaul and St. John’s hovering within a percentage point). Compounding matters, despite all those missed shots, they grab an offensive rebound on just 19.0% of their missed shots, which is also dead last in the Big East.
- Tip: 6:00pm
- Venue: Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler 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
- Announcer: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- SiriusXM channel 387 and on SXM app channel 977
- Butler’s nine made three-pointers vs. Villanova over the weekend are tied for their third-most this season. The Bulldogs shot 43% from behind the arc in the game
- Simas Lukosius is 23-for-49 (47 percent) from three-point range in Butler’s 10 home games. Lukosius and Eric Hunter Jr. have combined to average 28.5 points per game in the team’s 11 wins, while scoring a combined 11.2 points per game in the team’s eight losses.
- Butler commits just 12.7 fouls per game, the fewest in the country. Creighton’s not far behind with just 13.3 fouls per game to rank sixth-best. When the teams met in Omaha on Dec. 22nd, Butler was whistled for 17 fouls while Creighton was charged with 10.
- Of the 352 teams listed on in the NCAA listing for bench points per game, Butler’s 12.05 points per game ranks 343rd. Tuesday’s foe, Creighton, ranks 346th with 11.67 bench points per game.
- Creighton ranks 147th nationally in winning percentage, but owns an NET of 24 (through Jan. 15) thanks in part to a challenging schedule that ranks third-toughest nationally among average opponent NET rankings. 13 of Creighton’s 18 games have come against a team with a NET ranking of 97 or higher.
- With a win, Creighton would earn its first regular-season sweep over Butler since the 2017-18 season. And Creighton would snap a five-game losing streak at Hinkle Fieldhouse, its longest active road skid against any active Big East member.
Creighton is 16-11 all-time vs. Butler in a series that dates to a 27-22 Bluejay win in 1933. The home team has won the last 11 meetings not played on a neutral site.
Greg McDermott is 12-10 in his career vs. Butler, including a 12-8 mark on the Creighton sideline. He is 1-1 against teams coached by Thad Matta, losing 75-56 to Matta’s then-No. 3 Ohio State on Dec. 19, 2006 when McDermott was coach at Iowa State. Greg Oden, currently Butler’s Director of Operations, scored 18 points for the Buckeyes.
On January 17, 1985, Benoit Benjamin had 43 points, 16 rebounds and 10 blocked shots in a 96-90 win over Southern Illinois at the Civic Auditorium. He made 18 of 23 field goal attempts and seven of eight free throws, and already had 21 points at halftime to surpass his season average.
Vernon Moore added 19 points and 12 assists for Creighton, making it the rare game where multiple Bluejays had a double-double.
The Bottom Line:
If the Jays don’t fall in love with the three and focus on attacking Butler’s weak interior defense, they should be able to win this game Hinkle Fieldhouse horrors or not. The Vegas line is up to 7.5 points in favor of the Jays after opening at -6, while KenPom and ESPN’s BPI favor the Jays as well.
With eight days before their next game, a Bluejay win would send them into the bye week with momentum and a 5-3 league record ahead of home games with St. John’s and Xavier. They’ll get it, but with Hinkle as the backdrop it will be closer than it was in Omaha.
Creighton 76, Butler 66