It’s been almost a week since Creighton last took the floor, giving them a long time to lick their wounds from a blowout loss to Nebraska. As you may have read in our practice report earlier this week, they opened the first practice after that loss with a simple statement:
“If what happened on Saturday isn’t enough to motivate you, then nothing else needs to be said.”
As they try to get back on track, it’s fortuitous that the next opponent is one that likes to run even more than Creighton does, and is going to encourage a fast-paced game. Green Bay, or the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay as you might better remember them before they went all Metropolitan on us, has the 10th fastest adjusted tempo in the country, and their average possession length (14.5 seconds) is also 10th fastest. Their average game this season has had 76 possessions, which is a lot; Creighton’s had that many possessions in just three games this year, and never more than 78. Green Bay has had 80 or more in six of their 10 games, including an absolutely crazy 89-possession game in their 110-54 win over Wisconsin Lutheran (which means there were 2.2 possessions EVERY MINUTE in that game!).
Here’s some context to help visualize exactly how fast that is: Creighton has had exactly one game in Greg McDermott’s entire tenure at CU with 84 or more possessions — last year’s wild 100-89 win over UCLA, which had exactly 84. Green Bay’s done it four times in a little over a month.
That relentless pace has made them a tough team to play — a ranked Iowa team struggled to put them away at home before winning 93-82; a good Oregon squad had the same problem and won 83-72 in Eugene; they beat a Belmont team currently ranked #52 in the NET ratings 100-92. They even forced old friend Greg Lansing at Indiana State to play up-tempo (shocked face), losing 78-74 in a 79-possession barnburner by Sycamore standards.
One thing you may have picked up on in those scores: they aren’t as high as you’d expect for as many possessions as they get. They’re a fairly pedestrian shooting team — an effective field goal percentage of 51.1% ranks 175th out of 351 teams. They make 35.1% of their threes, which isn’t bad but isn’t great either (141st). They make 50.2% of their other shots, which, again, isn’t bad. But it ranks 187th, so it’s not all that great. Oh, and they don’t get to the line very often, and when they do, they’ve made 61.3% of their free throws as a team — ranking 332nd, or nearly at the bottom of D1.
In other words: Green Bay plays fast, but they’re not very efficient. A good shooting team with as many possessions as they have should be scoring 95 or 100 points pretty routinely. They don’t. But their relentless pace bothers opponents — part of the reason they’ve forced a turnover on nearly 20% of opponent’s possessions. Put another way, they’ve forced double-figure turnovers in every game this season. They rank 15th in the NCAA in turnovers forced, averaging 18.0 forced per game. The team is even better when measuring turnover margin, ranking 9th in the NCAA with a 5.8-1 turnover margin. And they have the 14th most steals in the NCAA with 93 this season. Combined with the fact that they throw multiple looks at you defensively — they’re mostly man-to-man, but employ some zone looks, and even a full-court press at times — and decent length, they’re a tough team to get consistent open shots against.
Offensively, the Phoenix are led by a trio of high-flying and athletic scorers.
Sandy Cohen III leads the way with 14.6 points per game. Cohen began his career at Marquette, and has played four times against the Bluejays — he’s scored a total of 13 points with 13 rebounds in those games. The 6’6″, 200 pound senior became eligible for Green Bay at midseason a year ago after transferring, and in 22 games he averaged 16.1 points while shooting 47.8% from the floor. He’s been in double figures in all but one game this season, and has had big performances against their three toughest opponents: Iowa (17 points, six rebounds, eight assists, three steals), Oregon (18 points, four rebounds, six assists, two blocks and three steals), and Belmont (14 points, seven rebounds, eight assists, three blocks). To say he does it all is an understatement — he leads the team in scoring, assists, steals, and blocks. On both sides of the ball, regardless of opponent and in just about every statistical category, Cohen has been a problem. Needless to say he will be priority number one for the Bluejay defense.
ShanQuan Hemphill has also been very impressive in his first season at GB, averaging 13.8 points. His nickname is “Tank”, because despite his size (6’6″, 190 pounds) he’s a very aggressive player around the rim and in the paint. Tank has scored in double-figures in 8 of their 10 games, and leads the Horizon League in field goal percentage at a blistering 61.1 percent. Of note, he hasn’t attempted a single three-pointer all season. Then again, when you drive to the rim fearlessly like a tank, and aren’t afraid to post up bigger players, you don’t necessarily need to shoot threes.
Another newcomer, JayQuan McCloud, has come up big in his debut season, averaging 13.7 PPG, despite missing his last game due to injury. Those three players account for half (49.7 percent if we’re being precise) of the team’s offensive production. If there’s a wild card to look out for offensively, it’s sophomore guard P.J. Pipes who averages 7.3 points a game. He’s scored in double figures in three consecutive games, and over that stretch, he’s made 12-of-23 from the floor.
- Tip: 8:00pm
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- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
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- Announcers: Wayne Randazzo and Dickey Simpkins
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- In Omaha: Cox channel 78 (SD), 1078 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 620 (SD), 1620 (HD)
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- Outside Omaha: FS1 Channel Finder
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- Satellite: DirecTV channel 219, Dish Network channel 150
- Radio: 1620AM
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- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
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- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:Check the availability of FS1 on your streaming service
- Ranking 13th in the NCAA in scoring with 87.2 PPG, GB has now scored 100 or more points three times this season. The Phoenix leads all Horizon League teams in that category, and has scored 80 or more points in 7 of its 10 games this season. The current scoring average of 87.2 would rank second all-time in program history, trailing only the 1970-71 team that averaged 90.5 PPG.
- Since the new Big East was established in 2013, Green Bay has never faced any of the 10 teams in the four years since, until Friday’s meeting with Creighton. The last time GB faced a Big East opponent was in 2012, when it defeated Marquette 49-47 in Green Bay.
- The Horizon League polls tabbed Green Bay fifth in their preseason poll, which is voted on by coaches, media and sports information directors. Various other preseason publications picked them as high as fourth; after finishing seventh a year ago, GB appears to be trending up.
- Ty-Shon Alexander has scored in double-figures in each of Creighton’s first nine games of the season. Since 1979-80, the only other sophomores to compile streaks of nine or more double-figure games to start a season are Creighton’s top two all-time leading scorers, Doug McDermott (all 35 games in 2011-12) and Rodney Buford (9 games in 1996-97).
- Speaking of Alexander: he’s at the top of the Big East leaderboard for most three-pointers made so far this year. And in Creighton history, he has the third-most made 3’s through nine games — trailing the two greatest long-range shooting seasons in program history. Kyle Korver made 42 (!) threes through nine games of his senior season in 2002-03, and Ethan Wragge made 34 in 2013-14. Alexander has 31.
- In the last 25 seasons, the only time that Creighton lost consecutive non-conference home games came in December of 2004, when the Jays fell to Kent State and Wyoming. CU lost to Gonzaga on Dec. 1 in its last home contest. Notably, the Bluejays have not lost three non-conference home games in the same regular-season since dropping four such home contests in 1982-83.
Creighton and Green Bay have never met.
For his part, Greg McDermott is 4-0 all-time against Green Bay, with all four of those meetings coming between 2001 and 2005 when McDermott was the coach at Northern Iowa. McDermott is 6-0 all-time against the current membership of the Horizon League, including a 90-65 win over IUPUI on Dec. 12, 2015.
The last time Creighton played on December 14 is a 101-72 win over Tennessee Tech in 2002. But other than Kyle Korver making six 3s (ho-hum by his lofty standards) that’s a fairly unremarkable game in hindsight.
So instead let’s go back to December 14, 1989 and Creighton’s 86-83 win over Nebraska. In front of a smallish-but-rowdy crowd of 6,696 at the Civic Auditorium, and a national TV audience on ESPN, the Bluejays rallied from a nine-point deficit over the final six minutes to pull out the win.
Trailing 77-68, they rattled off an 11-0 run starting with a free throw from Chad Gallagher, and then a three from Matt Roggenburk. After a defensive stop, Duan Cole stuck a three-pointer, and moments later scored on a drive to the rim that tied the game at 77. Though Nebraska re-took the lead, Darin Plautz put the Jays on top 82-81 with a minute to play on a three-pointer. And then clinging to a 84-83 edge with just 17 seconds left, a controversial call went the Jays way to help clinch the win.
Cole was trying to ice the game at the line, but missed the front end of a one-and-one. NU’s Rich King grabbed the rebound, and Bob Harstad — who had 24 points and 13 rebounds in the win — knocked the ball loose. It flew out of bounds, but the officials ruled it had touched King last, and awarded CU the ball. Danny Nee went ballistic; King was more diplomatic, but disagreed with the call.
“I think I got fouled,” he said after the game. “I should have been shooting a one-and-one for a chance to win the game.”
Harstad disagreed. “I just hit it out of his hand,” he said. “It was just kind of a reaction. I hit the ball, and it was clean. Then he reached for the ball, and it hit his hand and it went out. I think the ref had a bird’s-eye view of the whole situation.”
The Bottom Line:
The Phoenix keep things close for around 25-30 minutes, and then the Jays pull away late.
Creighton 98, Green Bay 85