Think back to February 1. After a week where the Jays gave up 45 second-half points at Butler and 55 to Xavier — the latter turning a 17-point halftime lead into a 10-point loss — they went out on the road. The season very much felt like it was at a crossroads, as six of their next 10 games would be on the road.
“It’s incredible, what this team has done in the face of adversity,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame show after Wednesday’s win over UConn. “Not many people thought we were going to be in this situation this year, but here we are.”
He noted the hurdles they’ve overcome in the past month, winning at UConn after Ryan Kalkbrenner left with an injury, beating Marquette at home after Alex O’Connell exited with an injury, and beating St. John’s after Ryan Nembhard’s season-ending injury. They’re down to a rotation of seven players, and six regulars. And yet the train keeps on rolling.
“Belief is a powerful thing,” McDermott said. “And (our guys) know that we believe in ‘em.”
Both McDermott and Arthur Kaluma spoke after the UConn win about how the team had a built-in excuse if the season had gone south with Nembhard’s injury, but to a man they refused to accept it.
“When R2 went down, a lot of teams would have looked it at like their season was over,” Kaluma said. “But with us, him going down lit a fire under us like no other. That’s our floor general, and we love him to death. This is for him.”
Since that ghastly loss to Xavier — in hindsight, the lowest point of the season — Creighton has remarkably only lost two more times, going 8-2 over that 10 game stretch. One came to Providence on the night they clinched their first-ever regular season Big East title.
The other came to tomorrow’s opponent in the regular season finale: Seton Hall.
That 10-game stretch has changed the trajectory of the season, taking them from a 4-4 record in the league — very much in line with their eighth-place preseason prediction — to a 12-6 record and a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament. With a win on Saturday, they’d finish in third place. Win or lose, they’re almost assuredly heading back to the NCAA Tournament in a season where almost no one thought that was a serious goal.
Seton Hall is also heading for the NCAA Tournament, and has done it while navigating a similarly-injury plagued season. Head coach Kevin Willard retooled the Pirates’ offense on the fly after the Big East’s leading scorer, Bryce Aiken, saw his season end due to a concussion. They suffered season-ending injuries to Jahari Long and Brandon Weston, short-term injuries to Jared Rhoden, Myles Cale, Ike Obiagu and Alexis Yetna, Kadary Richmond missed time due to a non-COVID illness, and Tyrese Samuel missing time after a rough recovery from COVID. Somehow despite all of that, they’re 19-9 and 10-8 in the league, right about where most predicted them to be — they were tabbed fifth in the preseason poll.
They’ve won seven of their last nine games entering Saturday, with the two losses coming to Villanova and Connecticut by a combined 11 points. The offensive change has been both structural and schematic.
Structurally, they moved reserve guard Jamir Harris into a bigger role as backup point guard, and made a point of playing Richmond and Harris together to get more ball handlers on the floor. Mostly, Willard decided he had to have either Harris or Tray Jackson — their two best three-point shooters — on the floor every second of the game he could.
Schematically, they run Harris and Jackson off screens to create open looks for them behind the perimeter, a huge shift from how they operated with Aiken on the floor. With him, the emphasis was generally to let him control the ball and make something happen either for himself or a teammate. Without Aiken, they needed to do something to create space for those two shooters — and not only has it resulted in shots for Harris and Jackson, it’s opened driving lanes for Richmond on pick-and-rolls because defenses are focused on closing out on shooters.
When Seton Hall defeated the Jays 74-55 in Newark on February 4, the Pirates were just starting to show the signs of their new offensive plan. They immediately knocked Creighton back on their heels with three 3-pointers by three different players on their first four possessions. They led 21-3 after eight minutes. On Creighton’s first 15 possessions they shot 1-for-8 with seven turnovers. It took five minutes to make their first basket, and six more to make their second.
Their plan had been to use steals and defensive stops to get out in the open floor and score before Seton Hall’s defense could set up — countering their length with speed. It’s the same general idea they’ve used to beat the Pirates five of the last six meetings. But when you fall behind 11-0 and 21-3, plans go out the window.
Starting a trio of 6’6” guards (Jared Rhoden, Kadary Richmond and Myles Cale) alongside 6’10” forward Tray Jackson and 7’2” center Ike Obiagu, the Pirates took away passing lanes and made it difficult to swing the ball side to side.
Ryan Hawkins and Ryan Kalkbrenner combined to shoot 2-of-14, as Obiagu blocked four shots and altered countless others. He bothered any Bluejay who got near the rim all night long. Their ball movement was suspect, and combined with Kalkbrenner’s lateral movement limited three days after an ankle injury, that left them with few offensive options.
In the rematch, they’re armed with the knowledge that they only got a ball reversal (passing the ball to the opposite side of the floor, with the hope of getting the defense off-balance) on around 20% of their possessions in the first meeting. But when they got a ball reversal, the possession ended with a made basket roughly 70% of the time.
70% of 20% isn’t very many, obviously. But the film of that game was a wake up call of sorts, and with or without Nembhard in the lineup they’ve looked like a different team since — determined to move the ball and use that movement to get the defense out of position.
Kalkbrenner is not only healthy, but playing better than he has at any time in his career. He bragged on the postgame radio show after the UConn win that he looked forward to proving he was “just as good if not better than” Adama Sanogo, the player many say is the best big man in the Big East, and that he “felt like I came out on top.”
How does he feel about taking on Obiagu, who got the better of him in Newark? It’s a safe bet he’s looking forward to it.
Greg McDermott said after Wednesday’s win that the crowd was unbelievable. They’ll need to feed off the energy from that crowd again, with their short rotation of seven players against a physical team built similarly to the UConn squad they beat three days prior.
“The crowd definitely gave us a boost. We looked like the fresher team the last five minutes, and that’s because of the extra boost of energy that we got from our crowd,” McDermott said. “And when they’re loud, it sucks the life out of your opponent, too. This was a huge crowd win for us tonight.”
- Tip: 1:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FOX
- Announcers: Tim Brando and Nick Bahe
- In Omaha: 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
- Radio: 1620AM and 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio: XM 391; SiriusXM app 981
Seton Hall has allowed only 65 points per contest over the last nine games and it has allowed its last nine opponents to shoot just 28 percent (53-of-185) from three-point range.
The Pirates lead the Big East with a 30.7 percent three-point field goal percentage defense and rank third in field goal percentage defense, allowing opponents to shoot at a 40.4 percent clip. The Pirates rank 29th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom.
Seton Hall’s bench is outscoring its opponent’s reserves 719-395 through 28 games and is averaging 25.7 points per game.
Creighton is 12-6 in league play, the 26th time in the last 27 seasons that Creighton has gone .500 or better in league play. The only Big East teams to finish .500 or better in league play each of the last six seasons (including 2021-22) are Creighton, Villanova and Seton Hall.
Creighton will once again meet or exceed their preseason prediction, as they were picked eighth this year and can finish no lower than fifth. They’ve met or exceeded their preseason prediction every single year they’ve been in the Big East.
Creighton will be either the No. 3 or No. 4 seed in the Big East Tourney, because they own the tiebreaker over both UConn and Marquette by virtue of a season sweep of both. They’ll be the No. 3 seed with a victory vs. Seton Hall and/or a UConn loss vs. DePaul. If CU is the No. 3 seed, it will play the winner of Georgetown against either Marquette or Seton Hall, depending on if the Golden Eagles or Pirates earn the No. 6 seed. CU will be the No. 4 seed only if it loses to Seton Hall AND DePaul loses at UConn. If CU is the No. 4 seed, it will play the the No. 5 seed, which will be either Marquette or Seton Hall.
Seton Hall leads the all-time series with Creighton 15-10, but Creighton is 5-3 in Omaha meetings. Creighton has won four of the last five games in the series at all sites, including a 77-60 win in Omaha to clinch a share of the 2020 Big East regular-season title and an 89-53 dismantling last January in Omaha.
On March 5, 2000, fourth-seeded Creighton beat the top seed Indiana State 71-69 in the semifinals of the MVC Tournament. The Jays ended the first half on a 14-0 run to take a 36-24 lead, then endured Sycamore runs of 17-0 and 7-0 in the second half to hold on for the win.
Indiana State cut the deficit to 68-66 after a three-point play by Nate Green with 44 seconds left, and then Matt West missed two free throws for the Jays to give ISU a chance to tie or take the lead. Green forced a pass inside, however, and Ben Walker was fouled immediately after securing the loose ball. He made both free throws to make it 70-66 Jays, but the game wasn’t over just yet. The Sycamores answered with a bucket and Walker, fouled again, made just one of two free throws. Up 71-68 with five seconds left, the Altman-Era Jays did something they almost never did — fouled when they were up three.
Freshman Terrell Taylor explained the play in the media room afterward: “Coach had a very good strategy on that particular play. He told me just to let them get it in, run a couple seconds off the clock and foul. I tried to go for the steal, but I tried to foul him at the same time.”
That strategy forced ISU to the line, where they made the first, missed the second intentionally, and then failed to secure the rebound. Livan Pyfrom tipped the ball out towards half-court and the clock expired, moving the Jays to the MVC finals. They’d go on to beat second-seeded SMS to claim their second-straight MVC tourney title the next night.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton’s made a habit of winning close games. Why stop now?
Bluejays 65, Pirates 63