Winners of two straight, Creighton heads on the road for a pivotal game tonight against the struggling Butler Bulldogs. Sitting at 4-2 in the league with one road win already, picking up another would go a long ways toward CU finishing in the top half of the league five weeks from now.
Butler returned just about everyone from a year ago — 97.6% of their scoring is back. But returning everyone from a team who finished 10-15 (and 8-12 in the Big East) a year ago doesn’t necessarily mean success will follow, as this Bulldog team has shown. They’re on basically the same trajectory as they were a year ago, sitting at 9-10 overall and 2-6 in the league. Their nine losses have come by an average of 20.9 points. If they finish with a losing record, it would be the first time they’ve done that in back-to-back years in over 30 years.
It has LaVall Jordan on the hot seat in Indianapolis, though an in-depth piece in the local paper this week made the case that firing him won’t necessarily solve Butler’s problems. Among the points the Indianapolis Star’s David Woods makes are that Butler is virtually last in every financial category in the Big East, and moving on from Jordan would mean a fifth coach since joining the league in 2013.
It’s a program that banks on development, because of the 15 scholarship on the roster, zero were ranked in the Top 150 out of high school. Jeff Goodman told the paper that “The biggest issue is, you look up and down the roster, where is the high-end talent on this team? They’ve got a bunch of decent players, but there’s no all-star player on this team.”
ESPN’s Jay Bilas concurred. “It’s a personnel issue. They’ve got some good players. But their talent level is not where you would want it.”
Chuck Harris leads them in scoring at 10.8 points per game, and despite coming off the bench for over half of the games so far, also leads the team in minutes played. Harris is a versatile scorer that defenders have a hard time staying in front of, as Creighton fans know all too well — he scored 29 points last March in Omaha. And he’s coming off a 21-point night at Providence over the weekend, responding to a lineup change that saw him start the game.
Bryce Golden is second on the team in scoring at 9.3 points per game, and has scored in double figures nine times this year. He’s shooting 56.3% from the floor, second-best in the Big East, and though he doesn’t take a ton of threes, the fact that he’s capable — Golden is 10-of-28 (35.7%) — keeps defenses honest.
Jayden Taylor, a freshman guard from Indianapolis, scored 19 points last week against UConn and averages 9.2 on the year. He’s not a terribly efficient scorer — his 39.3% shooting percentage is frankly pretty bad — but he’s done a good job of getting to the line, attempting the most free throws on the team (52-of-69, 75.4%). Taylor lost his starting spot over the weekend as LaVall Jordan experimented with changes, and Bo Hodges moved into his role. Much like Harris, Hodges responded well to the move — he scored 17 points on 8-of-12 shooting.
That we’ve gotten this far down the list before mentioning senior guard Aaron Thompson probably partially explains Butler’s struggles. Expected to be one of the Big East’s top performers, he’s been good but not far from great — Thompson averages a pedestrian 7.4 points and 2.7 rebounds, and though he does lead the team with 64 assists, he has 34 turnovers as well. He’s gotten to line a fair amount, but shot only 47.8% on free throws. Still, he’s a savvy veteran that often impacts the game in ways that don’t show up in the stat sheet. And he has his moments, like when he scored 17 in the Bulldogs’ OT win over Creighton a year ago.
The Bulldogs are great at controlling tempo and slowing games down, especially at Hinkle. It’s one of the reasons Creighton has struggled to win in that building over the years. Their average possession length is 19.4 seconds, ranking 342nd in D1, and their adjusted tempo is 63.4 — 339th in D1. So even though they don’t force a ton of turnovers (19.1% of opponents possessions, 157th), the fact that their games tend to have fewer possessions in the first place magnifies the turnovers their opponents do have.
There will be opportunities at the rim for the Jays to score — Butler’s opponents have made 51.5% of their two-pointers this year, ranking in the bottom 100 of D1 defenses. That’s largely because they don’t have much rim protection; they block just 7.1% of opponent’s shots. The trick is getting there — Butler makes up somewhat for that lack of rim protection by cutting off driving lanes. If you can beat them off the dribble, though, you can have success.
- Tip: 5:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Aaron Goldsmith, Donny Marshall
- 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
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio: XM 391; SiriusXM app 981
Butler has played the fourth-toughest schedule in the country according to KenPom, and is coming off stretches that included four of five games on the road and Top 25 opponents in six of seven games. Eight of Butler’s 10 losses have come to teams currently ranked among the Top 30 in the NCAA NET metric.
Bryce Nze missed seven games with a shoulder injury, but since returning has led the Bulldogs in rebounding in 10 of 12 games.
Creighton has started 5-2 or better in league play in seven of Greg McDermott’s first 11 seasons at the helm. This year’s squad is 4-2 heading into Wednesday’s game at Butler. Six of those teams to start like that reached the NCAA Tournament, while a seventh reached the quarterfinals of the NIT.
Just halfway into his sophomore season, Ryan Kalkbrenner has surpassed all of his totals from all of last season already. Last season Kalkbrenner had 182 points, 108 rebounds, 38 blocks and 29 dunks in 422 minutes. This year Kalkbrenner owns 207 points, 123 rebounds, 52 blocks and 35 dunks in 456 minutes.
After owning seven or more blocked shots in a game just nine times in Greg McDermott’s first 11 seasons on the Bluejay sideline, Creighton has seven contests this winter with at least seven swats.
Creighton is 14-10 all-time vs. Butler. The home team has won the last eight meetings not played on a neutral site. Creighton is 3-8 all-time in Indianapolis against the Bulldogs, including a 2-6 mark since the schools became Big East rivals.
Since joining the Big East, Creighton is 9-1 when scoring 72 or more points against the Bulldogs and 1-6 when scoring 71 points or less.
Butler beat Creighton 70-66 in overtime last January 16th in Indianapolis before CU walloped the Bulldogs 93-73 on March 6 in Omaha and again 87-56 five days later at the conference Tournament.
On January 26, 1991, Bob Harstad broke Creighton’s all-time scoring record in a 83-68 win over Indiana State at the Civic. The record-breaker came courtesy of two pump-fakes in traffic in the lane; after the second, an Indiana State defender knocked the ball loose, but Harstad regained control and tipped it in.
“I got it hit out of my hand, so I just tipped it in. It’s probably the luckiest shot I ever made,” Harstad told the media after the game.
The game was stopped momentarily so the sold-out crowd of 9,504 at the Civic could salute the senior for toppling Bob Portman’s record of 1,876 points, which had been the gold standard since 1969. His teammate Chad Gallagher would also wind up surpassing Portman’s mark later that season, finishing his career with 1,983 points. Harstad’s mark of 2,110 points lasted eight years before Rodney Buford broke it; Doug McDermott shattered it 15 years later.
The Bottom Line:
With a win, the Jays would move to 5-2 ahead of a brutal three-game stretch where they play Xavier at home and UConn and Seton Hall on the road in the span of six days. Butler is likely to play like a desperate team — their backs are against the wall and they might be playing for their coaches’ job the rest of the year. If the Jays can match that intensity, they’re the better team and should win.
Creighton 68, Butler 62