Marquette has established themselves as the best team in the Big East so far, owning a 12-2 record and their first 3-0 start in league play since 2012-13. Wins at Maryland (#24 KenPom), vs Georgia (#48) in the Bahamas and Purdue (#20) and Wisconsin (#31) at home have them sitting in the top ten no matter which ranking you look at.
They’re coming off of a 78-50 destruction of Providence, the Friars worst home loss in league play since 2003. Marquette’s defense was a menace in that game, with 38 deflections and 15 steals. Providence had a turnover on 35.5% of their possessions in that game — think about that, they turned it over 1/3 of the time they had the ball! At one point, Marquette went on a 21-0 run as their constant ball pressure and live-ball turnovers demoralized the Friars.
It’s a bit of an outlier, but only because the Providence number is so outrageous: for the season Marquette’s opponents have turned it over on 23.8% of possessions, sixth most in D1. And the Golden Eagles have a steal on 15.1% of opponent’s possessions, the fourth most in D1. By way of comparison, St. John’s forces a turnover on 22.0% of opponent’s possessions (ranking 20th), and has a steal on 13.3% (ranking 19th). Creighton turned it over 19 times to the Red Storm on Tuesday, including 11 of them on steals, and eked out a one-point win at home. Marquette does a lot of the same things defensively, but all them a little bit better, and they’re at home in this one. Creighton’s road to an upset win with 19 turnovers is awfully narrow, if it exists at all.
The Bluejays have been sloppy all year, regardless of opponent; they’ve had the ball stolen from them on 12.9% of possessions, ranking 348th, and have turned it over on 19.7% of their possessions. If you prefer raw numbers, they’ve had 14 or more turnovers in nine of 14 games, and their opponent has had double-digit steals in seven of them. It’s too many, regardless of which method you prefer of measuring it — and at the season’s halfway point, it kind of is what it is according to their head coach.
“When we’ve struggled, the turnovers have been a big part of it,” Greg McDermott said after the St. John’s game. “We’ve got to try to clean it up, but it’s going to probably be a little bit of who we are this year, and we’re going to have to be a good team despite maybe making some mistakes. Some of it is we don’t have the length of some other teams at certain positions, and some of it is our ball handling isn’t as good as some of the teams we play. That’s just the reality of the situation we’re in. So let’s find a way to gut it out, and grind it out, and fight, and claw and do everything we can to win.”
Oddly, Creighton was witness to a preview of this year’s Marquette team last March. Both Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro missed the game in Omaha; Marquette’s starting five that afternoon is the same lineup they’ve used in every game this season. That group, led by Kam Jones, David Joplin and Stevie Mitchell, was scrappy and resilient, refusing to go away on a day when the Jays’ offense scored 89 points.
6’11” big man Ben Gold went 1-of-8 from three-point range in that game, with CU opting to not have Kalkbrenner leave the paint and guard him on the perimeter. The gamble worked. Problem is, Gold made 48% of his threes in December, and is 6-of-11 to start Big East play. If he gets hot, whatever Creighton’s adjustments are will likely involve Kalkbrenner defending him away from the rim — which leaves the middle open for Marquette’s guards to go to work.
That’s trouble because their guards are tremendous.
Kam Jones averages 20.1 points, 6.6 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game and is a national player of the year candidate. His improvement as a senior partially is a product of shot selection: over Jones’ first three seasons, 65% of his shots were three pointers. And he was a pretty good shooter! Last year he made 40.6% of them (95-of-234). Jones scored 23 in that March game in Omaha, making 6-of-8 inside the arc in a preview of what was to come.
This year he’s cut his attempts in half — just 32% of his shots have been threes — and the focus on getting to the rim for higher-percentage shots has worked. His overall shooting percentage is higher, his scoring is up, and the focus defenses have had to pay him off the dribble has opened up shots for others. Despite all the defensive attention, he has just 17 total turnovers over the last 10 games.
David Joplin is second in scoring at 14.4 points per game, and leads them in rebounds with 5.4 per game. He, too, had a big game last March here — he scored 21 on 6-of-10 inside the arc and 2-of-3 from three-point range. The presence of the 6’8” Joplin and his ability to hit a three-pointer presents another opportunity for them to drag Kalkbrenner out of the paint.
Stevie Mitchell scored 14 points on 5-of-8 shooting with five rebounds, five steals and two assists at Providence in just 21 minutes. Mitchell has scored double figures in points in each of the last three games and six of the last seven overall. For the year he averages 11.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.6 steals per game (13th best in the country).
Chase Ross rounds out the starting five, averaging 10.2 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists. But like Mitchell, his biggest impact is defensively — he has 109 deflections, an average of 7.8 per game. Ross is a constant pest who speeds up opponent’s decision-making, usually to their detriment.
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, WI
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Jeff Levering and Stephen Bardo
- In Omaha: Cox channel 78 (SD), 1078 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 620 (SD), 1620 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: FS1 Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 219, Dish Network channel 150
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcer: John Bishop
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 385 as well as on the SiriusXM App
- National Radio: Westwood One
- Announcers: Ryan Radtke and Will Perdue
- Broadcast on affiliates nationwide
- Streaming on WestwoodOneSports.com and on the Varsity and TuneIn mobile apps
Sophomore guard Zaide Lowery scored a career-high 11 points in the win at Providence, reaching double figures for the first time in his career. In 18 minutes, he made three 3-pointers and also had three rebounds and three assists. He’d scored just four combined points in the three games prior.
Senior guard Kam Jones is ranked second in the Big East and 11th in the nation in assists per game (6.6) through games of Dec. 31 and Marquette is second in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.7).
Since the 2022-23 campaign, Marquette is the only power conference team that hasn’t signed a NCAA Division I transfer. They’re one of just 23 (355 total) squads to feature the same starting lineup in every game this year, and going back to 2022-23 just eight total players have started a game — the lowest total in all of D1.
Ryan Kalkbrenner is likely to pass the 2,000 point mark in this game; he owns 1,994 career points entering play. He would be the fourth player to surpass 2,000 career points for Creighton, joining Doug McDermott (3,150), Rodney Buford (2,116) and Bob Harstad (2,110). Showing just how great those three were, Kalkbrenner will have played far more games before doing so — McDermott reached 2,000 points in 101 games, Buford needed 111 games and Harstad required 121 contests to reach 2,000 points. Friday will be Kalkbrenner’s 148th career game.
Ryan Kalkbrenner has blocked 10 shots while playing in 103 minutes over the course of Creighton’s last three games. What makes that stretch notable is that he’s done all that without being called for a single foul in any of those three games. Kalkbrenner is the nation’s only Division I player (men’s or women’s) in the last 15 seasons who has had any three-game stretch with at least one made three-pointer, 10 blocks and no fouls.
Greg McDermott will coach in his 500th game on the Creighton sideline on Friday. He is currently 334-165. Dana Altman is the only other CU coach to be at the helm for 500 or more games; Altman finished his CU career in 2010 with a 327-176 record, and owned a 325-175 mark after 500 games with the Bluejays.
This is the 100th all-time meeting, with Marquette holding a 59-40 lead. Creighton has won eight of the last 12 to narrow the margin, and leads 12-11 since becoming a member of the Big East.
The road team is 12-10 in their Big East matchups, with both teams owning 6-5 records on their rival’s home court.
On January 3, 2010, Creighton gave up a 17-2 run in the second half at Evansville to erase a big lead. Coming on the heels of a blown lead in Terre Haute two days earlier, the Jays were staring an 0-3 MVC record in the face when Justin Carter and Kenny Lawson took over the final seven minutes of the game to lead them to victory.
Tied at 60 after two straight layups from Carter, Lawson took a feed from Antoine Young for a bucket in the paint and drew a foul. He completed a three-point play by sinking the free throw, and the Jays had retaken the lead, 63-60. On Evansville’s next possession, Lawson blocked a shot, then sank a jumper to give the Jays a 65-60 advantage with 3:36 to play.
Lawson would had two more blocks and three more rebounds down the stretch as the Jays pulled away for a 72-64 win. On the day, he went 8-13 from the floor, 2-3 from the line, grabbed 11 boards, blocked 7 shots and scored 18 points in 27 minutes.
No highlight reel exists from this game because, as with many road games at Evansville over the years, it was broadcast back to Omaha via unreliable webcast. Most followed along by listening on the radio to the dulcet tones of T. Scott Marr.
2010 seems like an eternity ago.
The Bottom Line:
Marquette opened as 8.5 favorites, and the line has moved to 10.5 in Vegas. ESPN’s BPI gives Marquette 75.6% odds of victory, and KenPom is even more sure, giving MU 84% odds of winning.
For the Jays to pull off the unlikely upset, they’ll need to cut down on their turnovers at least somewhat, and then follow Greg McDermott’s advice from Tuesday against St. John’s — do everything else just a little bit better.
The Jays might trip them up in the rematch in Omaha. This one feels like a loss, though.
Marquette 83, Creighton 72