The 2017-18 regular season wraps up Saturday afternoon in the same place it ended a year ago: the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, against the Marquette Golden Eagles. Creighton’s played themselves into an opportunity to finish all alone in third place by virtue of beating Villanova and DePaul last week, and that’s precisely where they’ll end up if they win on Saturday. That would get them the final game of the day on Thursday in New York, and an 8:30pm central tip against the six seed. As for the NCAA Tournament, Creighton’s safely in; they’re playing for a better seed at this point. Bracketologists are in wild disagreement about where they’ll fall, with the most reputable projections slotting them anywhere from a 6 to a 10. A win over Marquette on the road would be a solid addition to their resume.
For Marquette, things are far more complicated, and they do not control their own destiny. They have a chance to earn a seed anywhere from fifth to seventh in the Big East tourney, but both scenarios that get them out of Wednesday’s play-in round involve them beating Creighton and a Butler win over Seton Hall. What happens between Providence and St. John’s would then determine whether they’re seeded fifth or sixth. An NCAA Tournament bid probably requires them to beat Creighton and win at least one game in NYC, though even that might not be enough as Anonymous Eagle discovered this week.
With all of that on the line, and both teams bringing additional emotional baggage with them, this has the feel of a classic high-energy March battle. It’s likely to be Marquette’s final game at Bradley Center before moving to their new arena next fall, and they’re selling $2 concessions (read: beer!) to celebrate. So in addition to everything they’re playing for yet this season, they’re also hoping to not go into the history books as losing their final home game at that arena. Meanwhile, Creighton blew a 16-point lead at home in losing to the Golden Eagles two weeks ago, a loss that left a bad taste in their mouths and led to an unusual amount of criticism lobbed at a coaching staff not used to having that level of negative emotion directed their way. You think the Bluejay players and coaches don’t want revenge?
You bet they do.
Marquette has three of the better shooters in the conference in Markus Howard, Andrew Rowsey, and Sam Hauser. Howard averages 20.8 points per game, and scored six early points before leaving the first meeting with an injury. Rowsey is close behind at 19.7 points per game, with 95 made three-pointers. He scored 21 in that first meeting, though he needed 20 shots to get them — he was 8-20 overall, and 3-12 from three-point range. Hauser averages 15.0 points, and scored right at his average in the first game on 6-12 shooting.
Creighton did an okay job defending those three, but was torched by Sacar Anim for 26 points (11-16 shooting) — the only time all season someone other than their big three has led the team in scoring. And they didn’t do much defending at all to begin either half; Marquette scored 12 points on the first five possessions to begin each half, with the Jays unable to get a stop. And when CU did manage to get a stop, they couldn’t get the rebound — Marquette scored 18 points off of offensive rebounds in the second half alone.
However, Marquette couldn’t really defend the Jays, either, particularly when Howard was on the floor. Creighton’s blistering first half (19-27 overall, 6-10 from three-point range) led to their best shooting percentage in a single half this season at 70.4%. They scored on an incredible 1.514 points per possession. Even after Howard left, and Marquette switched to a zone, the Bluejays shot plenty well enough to win (13-30 overall and 5-14 from three-point range in the second half).
The game was lost on the defensive end. Marquette turned a 16-point deficit into a win by outscoring Creighton 18-3 in the second half on second-chance points, 20-12 on points in the paint, and 6-2 on points off turnovers. They were 15-22 on two-point baskets in the half. And they scored on five of their final six trips to end the game.
A couple of developments since that game give some hope that they can do a better job in the rematch. One, Jacob Epperson has continued to gain experience and stamina — particularly last week, he played for longer stretches and was far better defensively than he was even two weeks ago. And Marquette literally had no answer for him offensively, as he was a perfect 7-7 on field goals, though he only played 14 minutes because he blew too many defensive assignments (and was out of gas after two or three minutes of play). And two, Mitch Ballock and Ty-Shon Alexander have broken through their freshmen slumps, with Ballock providing the kind of playmaking ability they’ll need if Marquette opts to throw a zone at them again, and Alexander shooting well from three-point range.
- Tip: 1:30pm
- Venue: BMO Harris Bradley Center, Milwaukee, WI
- TV: FOX
- Announcers: Justin Kutcher 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
- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- Barring an NIT home game, this will be Marquette’s final game at the Bradley Center. Marquette has won over 75 percent if its games (386-115) at the arena, owns three undefeated seasons at home (1995-96, 2001-02, 2012-13), has had a winning year at home every season, and has ranked in the top-25 in final attendance in each of the last 16 seasons.
- Guard Markus Howard is on pace to become the program’s 48th 1,000-point scorer. He is currently in possession of 991 points in less than two years and would be one of the fastest players in program history to reach the milestone. Multiple MU players have reached 1,000 points in two seasons, led by George Thompson (1966-69). He managed to collect 1,187 points without the benefit of the 3-point line.
- Marquette is 17-12 overall, and 8-9 in the Big East, but six of their losses have come to nationally ranked teams, and five were against teams (Villanova, Xavier, Purdue) currently ranked in the top-10.
- Heading into the final game of the Big East schedule, a few Bluejays have a chance to lead the league in a category for conference action only. Marcus Foster leads the league with 134 field goals, one more than Kelan Martin. Foster and Andrew Rowsey are tied for the league lead with 53 three-pointers made, one more than Kelan Martin and two more than Trevon Bluiett and Myles Powell. And Davion Mintz ranks second in the league with a 2.4 assist/turnover ratio, trailing only Jalen Brunson (2.5).
- Khyri Thomas had 16 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and five steals in Creighton’s win over DePaul Tuesday. He’s the only player in the nation with a 16/8/8/5 game this season. He is one of only four Bluejays in Greg McDermott’s eight-year tenure to post at least seven points, seven rebounds and seven assists in the same game, joining Austin Chatman, Grant Gibbs and Maurice Watson Jr. — and Thomas has actually done it once in each of the past three years.
- Since the reconfiguration of the Big East in 2013, Creighton, Providence and Villanova are the only teams to meet or exceed their poll prediction each season. This year, Creighton and Providence are once again matching or exceeding their preseason prognostication, while Villanova is one spot behind its prediction.
Marquette leads the series with Creighton by a 53-32 margin, with a 31-12 lead in Milwaukee. Marquette leads the series 5-4 since the teams became Big East rivals, and the road team has won four of the last five meetings in the series.
In the last meeting…Marquette won 90-86. But enough about that.
On Thursday, Greg McDermott was on 1620’s Unsportsmanlike Conduct to discuss the win on Senior Night, the Marquette game, and more.
Speaking of the Bluejay seniors, in case you missed it, WBR compiled four individual highlight videos — one for each of the seniors. Matt DeMarinis cracked the code behind the soundtrack songs to each:
And finally, the Associated Press’ Eric Olson filed this feature on Marcus Foster’s ‘wild ride’, which he writes “ended with a smooth landing.”
On March 3, 2012, Creighton rolled Evansville 99-71 in the semifinals of Arch Madness in front of a nearly-full house at ScottTrade Center, a majority of them Bluejay fans. From the WBR postgame:
“Though excellent throughout, their defense was downright suffocating during a 19-5 run midway through the first half, a span that featured two players making inspired plays. Gregory Echenique had two blocks in four possessions, and Josh Jones hit back-to-back threes as the Jays ran their lead out to 33-21.
Another stretch of suffocating defense came minutes later, when the Jays went on a 15-2 run over the final five minutes of the half in running out to a 49-30 lead at the break. The run was punctuated by a Will Artino dunk on a fastbreak, and after he hung on the rim for a second too long for referee Gerry Pollard’s liking, he was whistled for a technical foul. Though the call incensed the Creighton faithful, it was of little consequence to the outcome or to the momentum of the game; rather, the dunk was an exclamation point in an exhilarating first half, and a dagger to the heart of the Purple Aces.
Nine players scored baskets for Creighton in the first half, as they tried to keep their starters fresh on the second day of the tourney. “Our plan was to go to the bench early and go to the bench often,” Coach McDermott said after the game. “We felt we had a little more depth and we could keep fresh guys on Colt Ryan and Denver Holmes, and they don’t have another Colt Ryan or Denver Holmes coming off the bench to do what those guys do.”
Creighton is a team that can play with anyone, and utterly destroy teams like Evansville, when they’re making shots the way they’re capable of. They proved in their 21-2 start to the season when they repeatedly blew out teams night after night, and though over the last month they made some folks forget how good they could be when playing well, they offered a not-so-subtle reminder on Saturday.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QWnqpHrEI
The Bottom Line:
Creighton avenges their home loss, outscores Marquette in a wild game, and rolls into NYC with the three seed.
Creighton 90, Marquette 85