20% of the regular season is already complete, and through six games, Creighton is 5-1. They’ve shown they’re a tough, resilient team, rallying from big deficits (Arkansas-Pine Bluff), holding off a surging home opponent (Nebraska), and winning at the buzzer (Southern Illinois). They turned the page after their only loss (Colorado State) to win 24 hours later.
Their shooting isn’t what we’ve become accustomed to, as they’re only 30.8% from three-point range after six games. If that holds the rest of the season, it would be the worst shooting team of the McDermott Era — his worst three-point shooting team is the 2014-15 group who shot 34.5%. That team finished 14-19. It would tie with Rick Johnson’s final Bluejay team, the 1993-94 Jays, for worst in school history. That team finished 7-22. Simply put, those are probably the two worst teams in the modern era of CU hoops, so drawing comparisons to them is not a flattering place to be.
And yet…this group has won in spite of that. One big reason? They understand where their strengths and weaknesses lie. In the midst of a 1-for-19 cold spell against Kennesaw State, they abandoned the three entirely and won the game in the paint — they took just a single three-pointer in the final 12 minutes of that game. Twice, they’ve attempted only 14 threes in a game, something that had happened just two previous times in the last eight seasons, according to research by the Omaha World-Herald’s Jon Nyatawa.
Meanwhile, Creighton has 28 dunks through six games this season. Ryan Kalkbrenner has half of them (14) after just 29 all of last season. Here’s something I found interesting: CU’s 28 dunks are its most through six games during any of Greg McDermott’s 12 seasons as Creighton head coach, surpassing the 2016-17 team’s 24 dunks — and that team had Marcus Foster and Justin Patton. Notably Kalkbrenner’s 14 slams to date trail only Justin Patton’s 17 dunks through six games in the McDermott era.
And Creighton is outrebounding teams by 8.3 boards per game this season. How good is CU’s current rebounding margin? It’d be the program’s best mark in more than 40 years, as the only club since 1980 to be +6 or better on the boards was the 1983-84 squad that finished +6.7.
Is it sustainable to continue winning this way? If it is, they’re going to have to shore up their fundamentals on both ends of the floor.
“There’s going to be some head-scratching moments where it looks like we’ve lost our minds,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show after the SIU win. “One thing that happens with a young team is that you lose your habits in a hurry without practice. The basics, jump to the ball, box-outs, how we communicate certain things — when you practice that every day, it’s easier to carry it over.
We’ve had one practice since the Nebraska game. There’s been some slippage. I talked to my staff after I watched the Colorado State film about how much slippage there’s been on things I was starting to see progress on before that. Spacing, cutting, some of our defensive fundamentals. We’ll get back to that when we get home.”
That’s been a focus of their practices since returning to the mainland from the Virgin Islands. And they have two tune-up games in the next four days before the schedule heats up in a big damn hurry — after SIUE and North Dakota State, they wrap up non-conference play with an Iowa State team who’s already doubled their win total of a year ago, a BYU team who blew the doors off of a good Oregon team 81-49, and perennially tough Arizona State. Oh, and then national title contender Villanova comes to Omaha on December 17 for the Big East opener.
We learned a lot about this team over the first six games. The next six will tell us even more.
First up in that stretch is SIUE, coached by Brian Barone (son of beloved former Bluejay coach Tony Barone). The Cougars were picked seventh out of 10 teams in the preseason Ohio Valley poll, and come in with a 2-4 record that includes a couple of black eye losses — 67-56 to a Chicago State team ranked 356th out of 358 teams in D1 by KenPom, and 86-73 to a St. Thomas team in their first year in D1 after making the jump all the way from DIII.
The Cougars have been equally bad on both ends of the floor. Their adjusted offensive efficiency is 91.9, ranking 323rd and a full eight points less than the D1 average. Their adjusted defensive efficiency is 107.0, ranking 324th — 7.1 points higher than average. So they’re more than 15 points worse than their opponents for every 100 possessions. It’s kind of impressive in a morbidly-curious way.
6’1” freshman Ray’Sean Taylor leads the team in scoring at 16.8 points per game. A redshirt freshman, Taylor missed the 2020-21 season after tearing his ACL. Playing off the ball, Taylor has 12 assists through four games, though he’s also turned it over 16 times. Most of Taylor’s damage comes in the paint, driving into the teeth of the defense. But he’s a capable shooter from longer range, making 14-of-39 (35%) of his threes so far.
Oh, and Taylor won the game for the Cougars against Youngstown State last week with this crazy shot — corralling a bad inbounds pass that was rolling away from him, dribbling once, and heaving a 35-footer with a hand in his face at the buzzer. Awesome stuff.
The final minute of that game was off-the-charts nuts. Down four with 45 seconds left, they rallied to win when a Youngstown State player falling out of bounds attempted to throw the ball off Shamar Wright, who instead controlled it and started a fastbreak where they scored a layup. Then instead of fouling, they defended the next possession, and Lamar Wright — the twin brother of Shamar — blocked a shot to start another fastbreak, where they tied the game. But with six seconds left they still needed to get the ball back. Youngstown State called timeout to set up a play, and promptly threw the ball away on the inbounds pass. And that set up Taylor’s crazy buzzer beater.
Speaking of the Wright brothers (if SIUE isn’t marketing that and getting them some NIL money, they need to), twins Lamar and Shamar are both 6’7”, 185 pound forwards. Their games are pretty different, though. Shamar is averaging 10.0 points and takes just under half of his shots from three-point range, where he’s a 26.3% shooter. He’s their second-best rebounder, averaging 5.8 per game, and has the most blocks (6) on the team. Lamar averages 6.5 points and has yet to take a three-pointer this year, with all 30 of his attempts coming inside the arc. Both of them struggle from the free-throw line, with Shamar making 13-of-25 (52%) and Lamar making 5-of-9.
6’4” senior Shaun Doss averages 12.8 points and is primarily a slasher, with 47.1% of his shots coming at or near the rim. He’s their best rebounder by a fair amount, which is a little surprising for a 6’4” small forward, but it’s a byproduct of his slashing ability. He’s the rare player with more offensive (22) than defensive (18) rebounds, and seven of his 29 made baskets so far this year have come on putbacks. He’s also their best scorer in transition, shooting an absurd 85.7% on field goals on the run. Doss is a player opponents have to identify and keep an eye on all the time, because his motor never stops.
6’1” junior Courtney Carter is their point guard, and his struggles tell a lot of SIUE’s story. He shoots just 40.0% from the floor (16-of-40), 33% from three (6-of-18) and 50% at the line. He has nearly as many turnovers (16) as assists (18).
- Tip: 5:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS2
- Announcers: Vince Welch and Jess Settles
- In Omaha: Cox channel 216 (SD), 1216 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 621 (SD), 1621 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: FS2 Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 618, Dish Network channel 397
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- The Cougars are +3.7 on the glass per game but have 23 more turnovers than assists.
- SIUE head coach Brian Barone is the son of former Creighton head coach Tony Barone, who led the Bluejay program from 1985-91. The Barone family moved to Omaha when Brian was seven years old and departed for College Station, Texas, when Brian was 13 and his dad was hired by Texas A&M.
- In his last four games, sophomore center Ryan Kalkbrenner has set career-highs in rebounds (9 vs. Nebraska), points (19 vs. Brown) and blocked (5 vs. Southern Illinois). Kalkbrenner has had 10 or more points and five or more rebounds in each of the past five contests, compared to four total such lines during his 2020-21 freshman campaign that spanned 31 contests.
- Ryan Nembhard has scored in double-figures each of Creighton’s first six games. In the last 27 years, the only other newcomers to score in double-figures during CU’s first three games have been true freshman Doug McDermott (8 straight in 2010-11), redshirt freshman Justin Patton (8 in 2016-17) and Kansas State transfer Marcus Foster (8 in 2016-17), who was a junior. Nembhard’s 85 points through six games are the most by any Bluejay freshman since Doug McDermott had 86 points at that point in 2010-11.
- Nembhard earned All-Tournament Team honors at the Paradise Jam after averaging 12.3 points, 4.7 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 2.3 steals in three games. Nembhard shot 55.6 percent from the field, 50 percent from three-point range and 60 percent from the line and made a shot at the buzzer vs. Southern Illinois in the third-place game. He is CU’s first true freshman to pick up All-Tournament Team honors at any event since Doug McDermott was named to the Global Sports Hy-Vee Challenge All-Tournament Team in 2010.
Creighton and SIU Edwardsville have met once, a 103-66 Bluejay win on November 25, 2017. The Jays buried SIUE with a crazy second half where they scored 60 points, had just four turnovers, made 8-14 of their shots from outside and 18-26 overall, scored 1.54 points per possession, and assisted on 16 of their 18 made baskets.
When I was looking back at that game, though, this tweet came back into my life and made me laugh, so I have to share it again.
Creighton hasn’t played on November 27 very often — just four times in the last 30 years — but they picked up two memorable wins on the date. On November 27, 1999 they beat #23 Iowa at the Civic, 85-76.
And on November 27, 2001 they beat #17 Western Kentucky 94-91 in double overtime at the Civic. It’s one of the finest wins in the long history of that building.
Creighton rallied from an 18-point deficit to force overtime, and after a see-saw second half that saw a litany of lead changes, needed a pair of free throws from Brody Deren with five seconds left to send the game to overtime. In the extra period, both Kyle Korver and Brody Deren fouled out. But so did WKU’s Chris Marcus, and Bluejay backup big man Joe Dabbert scored six of his 14 points in the first OT to take advantage. Yet the Jays’ lead wasn’t safe; Western Kentucky hit a pair of three-pointers in the final 18 seconds of OT to force a second overtime, part of an absolutely ridiculous back-and-forth that saw this happen in the span of less than 30 seconds of actual time:
- Two free throws from Ismael Caro to give CU a 83-79 lead
- A WKU three-pointer to make it 83-82
- Joe Dabbert breaks free for a slam dunk in transition, CU leads 85-82
- Another WKU three-pointer ties the game
The Bottom Line:
Creighton opens up the homestand on a solid note, winning wire-to-wire for the first time this year at home.
CU 80, SIUE 63