One of the reasons Creighton had a championship season a year ago was that they didn’t allow an ugly loss to snowball into a losing streak. They went 6-1 in games following a loss. They followed up the 82-52 loss to San Diego State with an overtime win over Texas Tech the next night. After a disappointing finish in a road loss at Georgetown, they ripped off four straight wins starting with late game heroics from Marcus Zegarowski against Providence. When the Friars got revenge with a 73-56 blowout a couple of weeks later, the Jays responded with five straight wins. And when St. John’s blew them out in Queens 91-71 on March 1, they promptly beat both Georgetown and Seton Hall decisively to win the league title.
Heading into a two-game road trip after a disappointing 89-84 loss to Marquette, that’s Creighton’s task: to not allow that loss to turn into two or three. It’s going to show us a lot about the team because the road trip takes them to St. John’s — where they were thumped by 20 a year ago — and to UConn for the first-ever meeting between the teams as Big East members.
In the Jays’ two losses so far this year, free throw woes have played a big role. They were 14-of-25 from the line against Marquette, including 11 missed free throws in the game’s final 10 minutes. They were just 9-of-18 in the one-point loss at Kansas a week ago, and Zegarowski infamously missed the game-tying free throw on the final play of the game. They’re shooting 68.3% as a team from the line through six games, a marked drop from last year’s 73.9%. Why the drop?
It’s important to look at who’s taking the free throws. A year ago, Ty-Shon Alexander took 136 of the team’s 533 free throws — fully one-quarter. And he made 117 of them (86.0%). Add in Zegarowski (61-80, 76.3%) and Denzel Mahoney (62-74, 83.8%) and over half of their free throws were taken by players who rarely missed.
This year? Zegarowski (71.4%) and Mahoney (81.3%) are shooting just as well, or close to it. The difference is Christian Bishop has a quarter of their free throw attempts (23 of their 104) but unlike Alexander who was nearly automatic, Bishop is 16-of-23 (69.6%). Damien Jefferson has taken 15, and made only 8 (53.3%).
Against Kansas, five of the nine missed free throws were Bishop and Jefferson. Against Marquette, five of the eleven misses were theirs. So when we’re talking about free throw woes, it’s not a team-wide issue — it’s opponents sending players who are poor free shooters to the line, and those players doing exactly what you’d expect them to.
On the subject of shooting, ShotQuality’s data indicates that based on the shots the Bluejays have gotten and the shots their opponents have gotten, they’d be expected to be 6-0. They are not.
In the Marquette game, based on their data on the shots each team took, Creighton would win 74% of the time. The Golden Eagles scored 20 more points than they were expected to based on adjusted shot quality data. In layman’s terms: CU missed a lot of shots they would normally make, and Marquette hit a ton of lucky shots they would normally miss. It happens.
And so it’s on to St. John’s, a team that comes into Thursday night with a 5-3 record and owns losses to the three best opponents they’ve played so far — 74-68 to BYU, 77-68 at Seton Hall, and the most galling to fans of the Johnnies, a 97-94 loss at Georgetown. They led by seven with two minutes left, allowed a couple of miscues to turn into several in a row, and the game got away from them.
Their frenetic style bothered Creighton a year ago. The Jays won in Omaha largely because they were 13-of-28 on threes; when they shot 4-of-27 in the rematch, they got beat. That’s because in two games, Creighton never really figured out a way to slow them down defensively — St. John’s scored 173 total points, and made 25-of-53 (47.2%) of their three pointers. And while six different players averaged double-figures in scoring it was different players from outside their top performers that torched them in Omaha versus in Queens. Marcellus Earlington was unstoppable in Omaha, shooting 10-for-17 with 25 points. He had four in the rematch, but Greg Williams had 21 on 7-of-10 from three-point range.
That super-aggressive approach leads to turnovers that look out-of-control. They have a turnover on 18.5% of their possessions so far this year. But because of the press and their aggressiveness, they figure they can get their opponents to make more mistakes than they do. That’s been true so far, as their opponents have committed a turnover on 25.0% of their possessions. That’s the 28th best rate in D1. If you can stay under control and not commit self-inflicted turnovers, it short-circuits a lot of what St. John’s does. 36.1% of their shot attempts have come in transition, and their effective field goal percentage is 56.0% on those shots. Get them to shoot in the half court, and that percentage drops — and the longer you get them to hold the ball, the lower it goes.
CU has committed a turnover on just 13.0% of their possessions, 10th best in D1. That figures to be higher against St. John’s. It will be strength versus strength — two teams who play at a fast pace. One thrives with spacing, crisp ball movement and passing, and the other thrives on turning the game into a battle of who can make fewer mistakes.
Julian Champagnie leads the Red Storm at 20.8 points per game. He’s can shoot from all three levels — 64.3% on shots at the rim, 40.0% on midrange jumpers, and 27% on threes. He’s really good at finishing through contact around the rim, and when he draws a foul he’s nearly automatic (26-of-30 from the line so far). But he’s coming off of a couple of rough games in Big East play. He took a whopping 19 shots in scoring 24 points at Seton Hall. He made just 3-of-9 inside the arc and 0-of-2 on threes against Georgetown, scoring 13. That’s Champagnie’s game — a high volume shooter who grabs a ton of rebounds, gets a lot of shot attempts on second chances, and leaves his fingerprints on every game.
Greg Williams averages 12.8 points a game and looking at his career gamelog, one game jumps out as completely unlike any other. He made 22 three pointers all last season, and seven of them came in one game against the Jays. He was 7-of-10 from three-point range in Queens, the only time in 67 career games he’s taken double-digit shots from long range, and the only time he’s made more than three. The Jays dared him to beat them and he did. They won’t likely do that again, but that’s also not his game — 41.9% of his shot attempts have come at the rim this year, with Williams doing a good job of getting into the lane off the dribble and creating.
Freshman Posh Alexander averages 9.8 points, 4.5 assists and 2.5 steals per game. He’s been the key to their full court press, a tenacious on-ball defender who is exhausting to compete against. If the Jays play with the sort of lackluster energy they displayed in the second half Monday night, Alexander will make them look ridiculous. He’s the perfect lead guard for a Mike Anderson coached team — fearless, quick, aggressive, tough. Look at this possession from their game against Georgetown and count the number of times Alexander makes a play simply because he wants it more than anyone else. Jeeze.
And then there’s Isaih Moore. The 6’10” junior, a transfer from College of Charleston, broke out with a huge game against Georgetown, scoring 26 points on 10-of-18 shooting and grabbing 14 rebounds — seven of them offensive. He’ll be a difficult matchup for Creighton’s interior players, who were abused by Marquette on the glass Monday night.
- Tip: 6:00pm
- Venue: Carnesecca Arena, Queens, NY
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Dave Sims, Sarah Kustok
- 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
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio:
- Creighton broadcast on channel 207
St. John’s broadcast on channel 380
- Creighton broadcast on channel 207
- The Johnnies currently rank at the bottom of the league by allowing opponents to shoot 37.6 percent from deep. In two of the team’s three losses this season (BYU and Georgetown), the opponent has drained at least 10 treys.
- The Johnnies will try to upend a top-10 team on campus for the first time since these squads last officially met nine months ago. Behind 21 points from Greg Williams Jr., St. John’s defeated No. 10/9 Creighton, 91-71, at Carnesecca Arena on March 1. The win was the first over a top-10 team in Queens for the Red Storm since Feb. 28, 1987, when the Johnnies knocked off No. 9 Pittsburgh at Alumni Hall.
- St. John’s has had their schedule altered drastically in the last week. After their game at UConn was postponed on Friday, they played Seton Hall instead; when their Monday game against Butler was postponed, they played Georgetown on Sunday instead.
- This is the third time in eight years that Creighton’s first Big East road game came at St. John’s. The Bluejays won 80-70 on Dec. 31, 2015 and followed that with an 85-72 win a season later on Jan. 4, 2017. Both of those victories came at Carnesecca Arena.
- Damien Jefferson had a pair of big games against St. John’s last season, making 15-of-18 field goal attempts and averaging 18 points per contest. Jefferson had scored 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the first meeting, then sank 8-of-9 shots to match his career-high with 20 points. And he comes in hot: Jefferson made 6-of-7 shots on Monday vs. Marquette and has scored in double-figures in a career-long five straight games.
- Mitch Ballock made nine three-pointers in Creighton’s first five games of the season before making eight on Monday night against Marquette. His eight trifectas were tied for fourth-most in a game in Bluejay history, but three behind his record 11 vs. DePaul on March 9, 2019. Ballock joined Kyle Korver as the only players in school history with multiple games of eight or more triples.
Creighton is 11-10 all-time against St. John’s, and 9-5 in the rivalry since joining the Big East. The home team won both meetings last season, and the rubber match in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals was halted at halftime.
The Bluejays are 3-8 all-time in road games against St. John’s, but are 3-2 at Carnesecca Arena since joining the conference.
Creighton got some good news on Wednesday, when a vote by the NCAA Division 1 Council made all transfers immediately eligible. That means Duke transfer Alex O’Connell is now on the active roster.
O’Connell gets a free year, in essence, with the remainder of this year not counting toward his four years of eligibility. So the 6’6″ senior, a solid three-year contributor for the Blue Devils, will get two years in a Bluejay uniform.
Thursday is the one-year anniversary of Denzel Mahoney’s Creighton debut. Mahoney first appeared as a Bluejay on Dec. 17, 2019 with 14 points in a win vs. Oklahoma. In 26 games (6 starts) with CU, he has averaged 12.8 points and 3.2 rebounds per game while shooting 83.3 percent from the charity stripe.
Creighton is 20-7 since Mahoney became eligible to play, and 19-7 when Mahoney plays. He has scored in double-figures in 18-of-26 games at CU.
The Bottom Line:
While it’s a tough matchup, it’s also the perfect one to snap Creighton out of whatever malaise they were suffering after halftime against Marquette. There’s no choice but to play smart, under control and with max energy — anything less and they’ll get a wakeup call quickly.
The Jays are favored — KenPom says 83-77, ESPN’s BPI gives them a 60% chance of victory — and I think they’ll respond well to Monday’s loss.
Creighton 85, St. John’s 80