Creighton and Seton Hall have yet to face off yet this year, and now they’ll play twice in eight days. It’s a wholesale rebuild job in Newark after losing the star senior class of Khadeen Carrington, Angel Delgado, and Desi Rodriguez — the faces of Seton Hall basketball for seemingly Creighton’s entire tenure in the Big East. They’re in the same boat as Creighton, tasked with replacing stars with a mix of newcomers and players in new roles.
Both teams enter Saturday night’s game with 4-6 records in the Big East and similar overall marks (CU is 13-10, SHU is 13-9) after challenging non-conference slates. But the Pirates have two big wins to show for that tough scheduling — a neutral court win over a Top 10 team in Kentucky, and a road win at a Top 20 team in Maryland — while Creighton came up empty handed.
A month ago, Kevin Willard looked like a genius. His rebuilt team was 12-4 with those two huge non-con wins, and 3-1 in the league thanks to a fortunate end-of-game call to beat St. John’s that had you wondering if this team had something special. But over the last month, they’ve lost five of six including four straight, were swept by DePaul, and blown away 80-52 at Villanova. All of that goodwill has evaporated, and what once looked like a team with an inside track to the NCAA Tournament is stuck on the bubble.
But they’ve had a week off to stew over the last-second loss at Butler, the second “bye” week in a bizarre schedule that saw them forced to squeeze six games into 17 days, then take a week off, play three games in seven days, then take another week off. Willard has criticized the league office for it repeatedly, and while mic’d up for the Butler game, was captured by Fox telling his team “We’ve got another bye week coming up. This conference and the schedule is the stupidest thing in the world.”
Their leader is junior Myles Powell, who averages 21.6 points per game and has taken over a quarter of his team’s shots. Powell was a handful for Creighton a year ago, scoring 19 points in Omaha (making 4-of-8 threes) and scoring 17 in Newark (on 3-of-5 from the arc). He’s been a handful for everyone this year — Powell has scored in double figures every game but one, a ghastly three-point performance at Villanova. He’s made more free throws than anyone in the league except Markus Howard, and has been just as hard to stop. Given Greg McDermott’s gambling nature defensively, you wonder if they scheme to let Powell get his and take other scorers away — or slow down Powell and hope someone else doesn’t get hot.
There aren’t many other reliable scorers. Quincy McKnight (10.1 ppg., 3.9 apg.) is the only other player to average in double-figures. Myles Cale (9.4 ppg.), Michael Nzei (9.3 ppg.) and Sandro Mamukelashvili (8.5 ppg., 7.0 rpg.) are their next three offensive weapons.
Nzei at 6’8” and Mamekelashvili at 6’10” start, and 6’11” Taurean Thompson and 7’2” Romaro Gill play lots of minutes off the bench. Those four players give them size Creighton can’t match, and that’s not even counting the 6’4” McKnight, a guard with a long wingspan that makes him one of the league’s better perimeter defenders.
How Creighton combats that size and length depends on who’s available. Marcus Zegarowki is out. Ty-Shon Alexander is a game-time decision on whether he’ll play. Damien Jefferson is still playing restricted minutes after his return, and Connor Cashaw is not totally healthy yet either. Full-strength Creighton would likely try to run and score on Seton Hall in transition as much as they can; outside of Powell, there aren’t any other reliable scorers on the Pirates’ roster. Shorthanded Creighton might not be able to run the way they’d like. That makes projecting the action a little tough.
- Tip: 7:00pm
- Venue: Prudential Center, Newark, NJ
- TV: CBSSN
- Announcers: Chris Hassel and Alaa Abdelnaby
- In Omaha: Cox channel 234 (SD), 1234 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 643 (SD), 1643 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: CBSSN Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 221; Dish Network channel 158
- Streaming info
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters
- Since the reforming of the league in 2014, The Hall is 8-3 in conference games that come with at least five off days beforehand
- Seton Hall is 75-10 (.882) in its last 85 games (dating back to the start of the 2015-16 season) when holding a lead of seven or more at any point in the contest.
- Seton Hall has won four games this season after trailing at the break, and have won eight games after trailing by five or more at any point in the contest. The Pirates trailed St. John’s by 14, and Xavier by 10 earlier in the year before mounting comeback wins. Against Providence on Jan. 30, Seton Hall led at the break, but trailed by as many as seven in the second half, before mounting another come-from-behind victory.
- Davion Mintz never left the floor vs. Villanova, playing all 45 minutes without taking a break. He’s the first Bluejay to play a complete game since James Milliken played all 40 minutes at No. 5 Xavier on March 5, 2016. He’s the first Bluejay to play 45 minutes or more since Austin Chatman logged 47 minutes in a double-overtime win over South Dakota on Dec. 9, 2014, and the lone Bluejay in the last 25 seasons to never leave the floor in an overtime game.
- Since the reconfiguration of the Big East in the summer of 2013, all 10 league schools have played exactly 100 regular-season Big East games. Creighton’s 51-49 record is tied for the fourth-best mark across the league, as WBR’s Matt DeMarinis researched this week.
- 1. Villanova 87-13 .870
- 2. Xavier 60-40 .600
- 3. Providence 54-46 .540
- 4. Creighton 51-49 .510
- Butler 51-49 .510
- 6. Seton Hall 48-52 .480
- Marquette 48-52 .480
- 8. Georgetown 42-58 .420
- 9. St. John’s 37-63 .370
- 10. DePaul 22-78 .220
- With 13 points and 10 rebounds at Villanova, Martin Krampelj had his third double-double of the season on Wednesday night. Each of his last two double-dips have come against the defending national champs, while his first one came at Oklahoma. Krampelj owns each of Creighton’s three double-doubles this year, and since December 10, 2018 has all seven of CU’s double-double games.
Seton Hall leads the all-time series with Creighton 12-6, and the Pirates are 8-3 in New Jersey meetings. Creighton has lost each of its last two trips to Newark by exactly six points (87-81 in 2016-17; 90-84 in 2017-18).
Last January 17, the Bluejays stormed out of the gates to score the game’s first eight points, and led 20-4 after less than seven minutes of action. Martin Krampelj started the scoring with an alley-oop. Marcus Foster hit a pair of threes and got to the rim with ease for a layup. Khyri Thomas hit a three, too, and later drove to the basket for a layup. After a three by Ronnie Harrell, the Jays had made eight of their first 10 shots from the floor — and were blowing the doors off the 19th ranked team in the country.
But Krampelj would tear his ACL, and miss the second half and the rest of the season, marring a 17-point win.
On February 9, 2005, Nate Funk, Johnny Mathies and Tyler McKinney scored 29 of the Bluejays final 33 points in a 83-82 win over Northern Iowa that was nationally-televised by ESPN2. The Jays scored on 12 of their final 14 possessions to overcome a then-arena-record 31-point performance by Panther guard Ben Jacobson, and it still almost wasn’t enough.
Creighton held a 10-point lead with 54.3 seconds remaining, and then Jacobson did his best Reggie Miller at MSG impression by scoring 10 points in the final 41 seconds, including two 3-point baskets in the final seven seconds.
“That was the longest minute I’ve ever played,” Funk told the media afterward. “They just kept hitting shot after shot. Thank God there was only point-seven seconds left when Ben hit that last one.”
CU ran out the clock after that second three, and took a deep breath as they’d pulled into a third-place tie in the league.
The Bottom Line:
KenPom favors Seton Hall by one, 78-77. ESPN’s BPI gives them a 60% probability of winning. The Vegas line is Seton Hall by 3.
I’d favor a full-strength Creighton in this one. With their roster as it likely stands, Seton Hall wins a close game.
Pirates 74, Creighton 71