Heading into the final week of the regular season, Creighton has a pair of games where their probability of winning is 85% or greater and they’re 10+ point favorites in each according to KenPom. And then there’s the other game — Saturday morning at Villanova, a team who’s finally healthy and is talented enough make a run in NYC and steal a bid to the tourney. They’re a dangerous team that no one wants to play right now, as their win at Xavier on Tuesday night showed.
The Wildcats have won four of their last five to crawl back to .500 at 14-14, with their defense leading the way. In that span they’ve held foes to a shooting percentage of 44.2% and just 31.2% from behind the arc, while giving up 63.4 points per game.
It’s a vitally important game for the Jays, who are trying to secure the #3 seed in the conference tourney. With a 3-0 mark over the season’s final week they’ll be assured of that, and they could potentially grab the #2 seed depending on how other things break. A 2-1 record still gives them the #3 seed in about 2/3 of potential scenarios, but increases their chances of moving down to the #4 spot where they’d play a feisty UConn in their first game.
In the first meeting, Creighton prevailed 66-61. Three separate times in the final minutes, Trey Alexander either tied or gave the Bluejays the lead. His three with 7:42 left put CU ahead 54-51; his putback jumper at the 3:43 mark put them ahead 58-56; his pair of free throws with 26 seconds left put them ahead for good 62-61. Then he clinched the win with a defensive gem, poking the ball away from the veteran Caleb Daniels and into the hands of Baylor Scheierman, who passed it back to Alexander immediately knowing a foul was coming. He then made two more free throws, his 26th and 27th points of the night, to seal a great two-way performance where he also locked down Daniels defensively.
Villanova’s leading scorer at 15.6 points per game, Daniels scored just 12 and was never really able to get off an open look. The number of shots he took — or didn’t take — was indicative of just how tightly Alexander covered him. Daniels averages eight 3-point attempts per game, and he took just three in that game (making one). Two of those came in end-of-shot-clock scenarios.
Eric Dixon more than picked up the slack. The ‘Cats big man scored 20 points, and because of his ability to roam out behind the perimeter Ryan Kalkbrenner had difficulty guarding him. That also dragged Kalkbrenner away from the rim, opening driving lanes (and the glass). Fredrick King proved no match, surrendering seven straight points to Dixon that erased a second-half Bluejay lead and forced the Jays to put Kalkbrenner back in with four fouls. And Dixon’s three-pointer in the final minute of the game briefly gave VU the lead, before Alexander erased it.
Justin Moore was still easing his way back into the lineup when they played in Omaha; after scoring 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting in their upset of Xavier earlier this week, many are saying he’s officially back to being Justin Moore. He looked like one of the best players in the Big East that night. But is that sustainable night-in and night-out at this stage in his recovery from an Achilles tear? Keep in mind the week before, he shot 3-of-11 against Butler, then scored one point with three turnovers against DePaul — two poor performances against two bad teams.
Villanova has played at a glacially slow pace all year long, as the game in Omaha showed — the 63 possessions in that game are tied for the second-fewest in any game CU has played this year. That’s par for the course for Villanova, whose adjusted tempo is 63.8 (342nd slowest in D1). Their average possession lasts 19.3 seconds, 335th slowest nationally.
They take an extraordinarily huge number of threes — 47.6% of their shot attempts have come from behind the arc. Only seven teams in the entire country take more threes as a percentage of their overall shot attempts. And they’re not a good shooting team, making just 33.0% of their threes (233rd overall) — and even worse in Big East play, at 32.1% in league games (ninth). Both of those were on display in the first meeting, as 25 of their 49 shot attempts were three pointers, and they made just seven.
But by guiding the game into a slugfest, they were able to get to the line far more than Creighton opponents typically have this season — they were 16-of-20 from the line, meaning 29.5% of their points came on free throws. The average CU opponent has gotten just 12.8% of their points that way this year; only two teams in all of D1 (Purdue and Colgate) are better in that category. It also meant both Arthur Kaluma and Ryan Kalkbrenner were saddled with four fouls, limiting both their minutes and their ability to be aggressive defensively in the decisive moments.
CU got 27 points from Alexander, 16 from Kalkbrenner (on 7-of-11 shooting) and 10 from Ryan Nembhard with assists. In other words, 53 of their 66 points came from three players.
What they didn’t get? Much of anything offensively from Baylor Scheierman (five points on a season-low six shot attempts), Arthur Kaluma (eight points, five of them from the line), or the bench — they had zero points from their non-starters.
Kaluma spent the final eight minutes of Tuesday’s game against Marquette on the bench, with his poor defense and shot selection making him nearly unplayable in the deciding minutes of a game of that magnitude. It was the right call to pull him in favor of Francisco Farabello then; it’s concerning now because of the question mark it creates. For the Jays to get where they want in March, Kaluma has to play well. What is his state of mind entering Saturday — upset over the benching? Determined to make it the low point of his season and rebound from there? I suspect we’ll know early on Saturday, and Jays fans are anxiously awaiting the answer.
The other question mark is whether there’s a hangover from Tuesday’s gut-punch loss to Marquette. It would be human nature to feel deflated after seeing their goal of a Big East regular season title slip away in that fashion. Based on their traveling attire, it appears they’ve put the disappointment behind them and are ready to roll.
Tip: 11:00am
Venue: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, Pa.
- TV: FOX
- Announcers: Tim Brando and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: KPTM FOX 42
- Cox channel 10 (SD), 1010 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 42 (SD), 1042 (HD); DirecTV 42; Dish Network 42 or 5203
- Outside Omaha: Your local FOX affiliate
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 134 or 202 and on SXM app channel 965
- Villanova Radio: Across the Villanova iHeart Radio Network
- Announcers: Ryan Fannon and Whitey Rigsby
- National Radio: Westwood One
- Announcers: Scott Graham and Jon Crispin
- Airing in select markets and streaming on WestwoodOne.com
The Wildcats are Wildcats are 40-5 at Finneran Pavilion (.889) since 2018-19, and the Bluejays have never won there in seven tries. Thankfully this game is at their “home away from home”, the Wells Fargo Center, where the Jays have beaten them twice.
The 70-point plateau remains a key indicator of the Wildcats’ fortunes in 2022-23. Villanova is 13-3 this season (.813) when holding opponents below that threshold. It is 1-11 (.083) when foes register 70 or more points. In Big East games, VU is 7-2 when holding opponents under 70 points (.778).
In 35 regular-season conference games played since the start of last season, Ryan Kalkbrenner owns 95 blocked shots compared to just 60 fouls. With 185 career blocks, Kalkbrenner passed Chad Gallagher for sole possession of second place on CU’s all-time blocked shot list on Tuesday against Marquette. He’s got a ways to go to break Benoit Benjamin’s record of 411, though.
Speaking of Benoit, last season Kalkbrenner had a block in 26 straight games from Nov. 16 – Feb. 26th, making him the first Bluejay with a swat in 20 straight games or longer since Benjamin began a streak of 28 consecutive contests with a rejection on Dec. 14, 1984, a streak that only ended when Big Ben left early for the NBA Draft. Kalkbrenner fell short of breaking that mark but he’s sneaking up on it again — he currently owns a blocked shot in each of Creighton’s last 23 games, including multiple rejections in all but five of those contests.
Creighton is 1-13 all-time when making eight three-pointers or less against Villanova (including three meetings in the 1950’s long before the 3-point line existed), but 6-4 when making nine or more trifectas. CU has hit 81-of-174 treys (46.6%) in the seven wins, but 94-of-336 triples (28.0%) in the 17 losses.
Villanova leads the all-time series with Creighton, 17-7, including a 10-2 mark in home games. However, both Bluejay victories have come at Wells Fargo Center, where Saturday’s game will be held. Five of the last seven meetings have been decided by double-figures, with CU winning four of those games.
On February 25, 1991, Creighton clinched the regular season MVC title with a 65-64 win at Wichita State, thanks to a last-second shot by Duan Cole that remains etched in Bluejay lore.
The Shockers took the lead, 64-63, with 10 seconds left on a jumper by Robert George. Cole was guarding him, and he took it personally. “I was down because he had just scored on me,” Cole told the media afterward. “I was frustrated, and I wanted to do something about it.”
Coach Tony Barone took timeout to draw up a final play, and instructed Cole to penetrate, then make the decision of whether to kick it out to the wings, pass inside, or shoot it himself. Cole shooting was the last option, Barone said later. But Cole had other ideas.
“I had one focus,” he said after the game, “to take it to the basket. I felt I owed my team something. It would have been a tough night for me to sleep if I hadn’t hit that shot.”
And so with his team trailing by a point, the diminutive guard drove the length of the court and pulled up for a 10-foot jumper with 3.8 seconds left. It, of course, went in, and the Jays won their second MVC title in three years, this one an outright title. They’d win the MVC Tournament title a week later and advance to the NCAA Tourney, where they toppled 15th-ranked New Mexico State in the first round before bowing out to 13th-ranked Seton Hall.
The shot’s shown at the 2:15 mark of the season highlight video, which we featured on WBR a couple of summers ago.
The Bottom Line:
ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton a 65.4% chance of victory, while Vegas favors the Jays by five. KenPom predicts a 70-66 Bluejay win.
I think the Jays win, but in another game played at a slow pace, much like the one in Omaha.
Creighton 63, Villanova 58
