On December 17, Creighton turned in their most complete performance of the season, a 79-59 blowout of #9 Villanova. They haven’t played since, with COVID-19 outbreaks postponing games against DePaul and Georgetown. Assuming Saturday’s game happens, it will have been 15 days in between games for the Jays who have been — as far as we know — healthy and ready to play the entire time.
It’s not ideal, and if I’m being honest, it feels like the Big East has messed this up by not moving quicker. While half of the league has been on COVID pause, the other half has mostly sat around. To be sure, between TV clearances, arena availability, travel and other considerations, the logistics of rescheduling a game are more than just picking a date that works for both teams. But with more postponements sure to come and the (seemingly) inevitable conclusion that there won’t be enough time to reschedule every missed game, one hopes that by the end of the month the Big East doesn’t look back at this two-week window as a missed opportunity.
One of those teams sitting around is Marquette, who managed to squeeze in two Big East games — losses at Xavier and to Connecticut at home — before a scheduled game with St. John’s was postponed. It will be 10 days between games for the Golden Eagles, though the unexpected break came at a good time considering the stretch of games they were coming out of. Five straight games against teams ranked in the Top 70 of KenPom’s ratings, three of them on the road, saw Marquette lose four of five.
Shaka Smart’s first Marquette squad hasn’t quite mastered his “havoc” style of play yet, but they’re getting there — and that’s a concern for a Bluejay team who struggled mightily against two similarly physical opponents (Iowa State and Arizona State) earlier this year. CU never found an offensive rhythm in either game, and Ryan Nembhard struggled to stay under control against their pressure. How much have they learned from those two losses? We’re about to find out. Because Marquette will throw a full-court press at them, they’ll trap, and they’ll be in the face of ball-handlers all game. Mostly, they’ll do everything they can to speed the Jays up and force them into mistakes.
On the other end, Marquette shoots a ton of threes — 44.2% of its field goals come from behind the line (third-most in the league). They’re not particularly good at it, either, making just 31.8% of them. So a lot of their offense comes from aggressively attacking the rim off the dribble or by working inside-out. That’s an advantage for CU, who has an elite rim protector in Ryan Kalkbrenner and a defensive strategy that aims to funnel shooters directly at him. It’ll be up to their wings to defend the metric ton of threes that Marquette will attempt, and make sure they don’t get hot.
Individually, they’re led by 6’7” NBA prospect Justin Lewis, whose 7’2” wingspan makes him a matchup nightmare for opponents. Lewis averages 15.7 points and does a little of everything — he shoots jumpers, he beats defenders off the dribble, and he’s strong at the rim. The latter is where he’s particularly dangerous; Lewis shoots 76.2% on shots at the rim, and also draws a ton of contact. He’s attempted 61 free throws through 13 games, and made 75.4% of those. The one area where he’s struggled is shooting the three. 62 of his 162 shot attempts this year have been from behind the arc (nearly four out of every 10 shots) and he’s made just 25.8%. Not great. You can bait him into falling in love with that shot — he was 0-for-7 on threes against UCLA a couple of weeks ago, and followed it up with a 1-of-5 night against Xavier.
Lewis is also their best rebounder (7.7 boards per game), and has twice as many as anyone else on the team. That’s both indicative of how good Lewis is, and how much Smart has his team focused on getting back defensively — even at the expense of rebounds. They get an offensive board on only 22.5% of their missed shots, ranking 323rd in D1.
Second-leading scorer Darryl Morsell averages 13.8 points per game, but missed their December 21 game against UConn due to COVID protocols. He’s listed as doubtful for Saturday’s game according to Marquette’s game notes, and he’s a big loss if he’s indeed out — Morsell was the 2020-21 Big Ten Defensive Player of he Year at Maryland, and a huge part of everything the Golden Eagles do.
Olivier-Maxence Prosper, or “O-Max” as Marquette fans have taken to calling the Clemson transfer, started in his place and took most of his minutes against UConn. While he averages just 5.2 points and 3.7 rebounds per game this year, he finished with a season-high 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the floor in 30 minutes of action with five rebounds and three assists.
Tyler Kolek, the Atlantic-10 rookie of the year at George Mason last season, has been a huge addition for Marquette. He averages 5.9 assists per game, 16th best in D1, and moves the defense extremely well. His 2.1 assist to turnover ratio is fourth best, too. With Kolek leading the way, Marquette’s 16.2 assists per game as a team is the second-best mark in the league.
He also averages 1.7 steals per game to pace their defense. With all that production it almost doesn’t matter what he does offensively, but he does average 6.5 points per game.
Kur Kuath, the Oklahoma transfer, anchors the post and has already swatted 38 shots (2.9 bpg., 17th in nation) this year. He owns three-or-more blocks in eight outings.
This has all the hallmarks of a grind-it-out slugfest, and CU’s struggled in that type of game this year. It’ll be fascinating to see how they’ve progressed since those games. They’ll need to show a lot of improvement to come out of this one with a win.
Tip: 11:00am
Venue: fiserv.Forum, Milwaukee, WI
TV: FS1
Announcers: Matt Schumacker and Stephen Bardo
In Omaha: Cox channel 78 (SD), 1078 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 620 (SD), 1620 (HD)
Outside Omaha: FS1 Channel Finder [https://www.foxsports.com/find-fs1-on-your-tv]
Satellite: DirecTV channel 219, Dish Network channel 150
Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website [https://www.foxsports.com/live]
Radio: 1620AM
Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
A possible X-Factor is Greg Elliott, the junior guard who’s made 9-of-14 from 3-point range in six games against Creighton in his career. He’s only averaging 15 minutes a game all off the bench this year, but given his success against CU don’t be surprised if he plays a bit more in this one.
Four of Marquette’s five losses (St. Bonaventure, Wisconsin, UCLA, Xavier) this season have come against teams ranked in the top-25 at the time of the matchup and three of those were on the road.
Marquette has averaged 27.1 deflections per game (352 total) and met or surpassed its goal of 32 on five occasions (SIUE, Illinois, NIU, Jackson State, Kansas State). Guard Tyler Kolek (62) owns a narrow advantage over forward Kur Kuath (38-of-60 are blocked shots) for the team lead. Kolek leads the roster in steals with 22.
Creighton ranks sixth nationally (per BartTorvik.com) with its shooting 58.5 percent from two-point range. That’s its second-best mark ever under Greg McDermott (59.0 in 2017-18) and includes a 64.6 percent mark from inside the paint.
A 79-59 win vs. No. 9 Villanova coupled with an 83-71 win vs. No. 24 BYU means Creighton owns a pair double-digit wins over top-25 competition this season, something only three other schools can also claim. Gonzaga’s done it three times while Villanova and Iowa State have done it twice. The Bluejays have now beaten multiple top-25 foes each of the last seven seasons (2015-16 to 2021-22), something only Gonzaga, Purdue and Villanova can also claim.
That 79-59 win vs. Villanova on Dec. 17 was CU’s third-largest margin of victory ever over a top-10 team. Each of the top three efforts on that chart, and five of the top six such wins, have come against Villanova.
Marquette leads the series with Creighton by a 56-36 margin, and has a 32-15 lead in Milwaukee. Thirteen of the last 14 meetings have been decided by eight points or less. The series is 8-8 since the teams became Big East rivals,
Creighton is 3-0 in three previous trips to Fiserv Forum, with victories coming by 66-60, 73-65 and 71-68 scores. Since the facility opened in 2018, Marquette owns a 41-15 record in the facility. At 3-0, Creighton is the only team to defeat the Golden Eagles there three times, and on Saturday can be the first to beat MU there four times.
Saturday’s contest is just Creighton’s seventh game ever played on New Year’s Day, with the Jays 3-3 so far. Creighton lost at Saint Joseph’s 50-40 in 1938, lost in Louisville to Morehead State in 1947 by a 65-58 score, beat Illinois State 79-71 in 2007, lost at Indiana State 70-64 in 2010, defeated Drake 73-57 in 2011 and topped Marquette in Omaha in 2020 by a 92-75 count.
The Bottom Line:
Both teams are likely to be rusty, coming off of long breaks. Whoever settles in first seems likely to win. I think that’ll be the home team, sadly.
Marquette 63, Jays 58