UConn started the season 14-0, riding high with an offense and defense that both ranked inside the Top 10 in adjusted efficiency. That balance made them look invincible.
In suffering back-to-back losses by double digits, their flaws have begun to emerge. Neutralize Adama Sanogo and their offense breaks down; use their physicality against them defensively to draw fouls and get to the line. Xavier attempted 28 free throws and made 23; Providence attempted 35 and made 29. UConn committed 48 team fouls in those two games. It’s becoming a trend — they give up more free throws than any team in the Big East. Their free throw rate (the number of free throws an opponent attempts compared to the number of shot attempts) is 341st in D1 — it’s a ghastly 44.2%.
By comparison, Creighton ranks #1 in D1 in free throw rate at 16.2%. This has the makings of a game with a gigantic free throw attempt discrepancy that will make the bombastic Danny Hurley lose his temper at some point — despite the fact that through 15 games, almost no one in America fouls more than his team, and literally no one in America fouls less than the Jays.
With those two losses, UConn finds themselves in an awkward spot where they’re ranked #4 in the AP Top 25…but in fifth place in the Big East.
There’s two schools of thought to catching the Huskies at this moment in time. The pessimistic view is that it’s bad to play an elite team coming off of two tough losses — they’re too good to lose three straight. The optimistic view is it’s good to play them right now — they’re facing adversity for the first time, they’ve only had 48 hours to decompress from the loss at Providence and prepare for the Jays, and who’s to say a reeling team won’t continue to spiral, especially if you can jump on them early and keep their crowd out of it?
The reality is probably somewhere in between those extremes, and whoever wins it seems likely to be close: over the last two seasons Creighton and UConn have played five games decided by 17 total points, with 34 ties and 24 lead changes in those games.
- 2020-21 at UConn (76-74)
- 2020-21 at Creighton (74-66)
- 2020-21 Big East Semifinal (59-56)
- 2021-22 at UConn (59-55)
- 2021-22 at Creighton (64-62)
This year’s Husky squad is a deep one, with eight regulars averaging at least five points per game. That group is headed by Preseason Big East Player of the Year Adama Sanogo, who leads the team with 17.4 points and 6.8 rebounds per game.
Sanogo is a terrific player, and one that Creighton big man Ryan Kalkbrenner has enjoyed measuring himself against. Kalkbrenner was better offensively head-to-head in two matchups a year ago (Sanogo had 21 total points in the two games on 9-of-26 shooting; Kalkbrenner had 20 in the second half alone of the win Omaha). And Creighton won both games. There was a swagger to Kalkbrenner in those games, a chip on his shoulder that came from a feeling of disrespect by people around the league.
“Any time a player at your position gets picked for player of the year, you want to play really good against them,” Kalkbrenner said on the postgame radio show after Tuesday’s win. “I thought I did a pretty good job last year. Any time you can play well against somebody who’s picked to be better than you, it shows you’re alright. I just have to go in there and do what I do, and things will take care of themselves.”
He’s dialed back his confidence-bordering-on-provocation since these teams last met, which is probably for the best. UConn is winless against Creighton since re-joining the Big East, and they don’t need any extra motivation to be ready for this one.
Talk or not, Kalkbrenner is nearly unique in his ability to minimize Sanogo. The Jays haven’t needed to bring a double-team on him, which changes UConn’s half-court gameplan pretty significantly. Kalkbrenner generally defends without fouling, which compounds the frustration. They rely a lot on the attention opposing defenses have to pay Sanogo, on free throws when opponent’s can’t defend him without fouling, and on taking advantage of mismatches and scrambling caused by bringing help defenders onto him. Think of him as a “release valve” — they pass the ball to him on the block, and he either scores, draws a foul, or kicks it out to a shooter who’s open because of the defensive reaction to him.
He’s not a player who can get downhill and attack off the dribble, he’s not a lob threat off of pick-and-rolls, and his decision making away from the paint is a weakness. When teams have forced him out of his preferred style of play, UConn has struggled. In the latest example, Providence employed a 1-3-1 trapping zone in the second half to disrupt the tempo, dragging Sanogo out of the post, and he was uncomfortable making decisions with the ball the further away from the paint he got.
In two games against Creighton a year ago, UConn shot 5-of-21 and 6-of-22 from three-point range. They shot nearly 36% from outside in all other games — while not totally attributable to the way the Jays were able to bottle up Sanogo one-on-one, it was a huge factor.
Combine that with the fact that what had been a really good shooting UConn team has now struggled in back-to-back games — they were 13-of-37 from downtown against Xavier, and 5-of-22 against Providence — and you start to see an avenue to a Creighton win.
With that said, the Huskies are generally a much better shooting team than years past, and much less reliant on driving downhill to initiate contact. Tristen Newton (18-of-53, 34%), Jordan Hawkins (41-of-105, 39%), Joey Calcaterra (24-of-51, 47%) and Alex Karaban (29-of-77, 38%) are all good three-point shooters. All of them have attempted more than half of their shots from beyond the perimeter. 40% of their shots as a team have been three-pointers, 40th most in D1. It’s why any breakdown in the spacing they use to free up those shooters can be so detrimental to their success. They’re not a live-or-die by the three team, necessarily, but if you bottle up Sanogo they start to become something resembling that.
Sound familiar? It should to Bluejay fans. Creighton relies on the attention defenses must pay to Kalkbrenner — and to taking advantage of the spacing that results from it — to run its’ offense efficiently. We saw in December what happens without him on the floor; they’re a different, much worse, version of themselves.
That’s why it’s the Kalkbrenner versus Sanogo matchup that everyone will be watching. The player who gets the better of that battle is likely to see his team come out on top.
- Tip: 11:00am
- Venue: Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, Storrs, CT
- TV: FOX
- Announcers: Brandon Gaudin and Donny Marshall
- 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
- Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio: SiriusXM channel 382 and on SXM app channel 972
Freshman Alex Karaban was named the Big East Freshman on the Week last week after he averaged 10.5 points and 5.5 rebounds for the week, including a 15-point, 6-rebound performance in the win over Villanova. It is the third time that Karaban has won the award this season.
In their 14-0 start, UConn only won one game by less than double digits (74-66 vs Villanova) and only trailed in the second half once (to Georgetown in what became a 84-73 win).
The Huskies are led in scoring (17.8) and rebounding (6.7) by junior Adama Sanogo, with sophomore Jordan Hawkins also averaging in double figures (14.6). Junior Andre Jackson hands out the most assists (5.1), while freshman Donovan Clingan leads in blocked shots (1.9).
Creighton ranks 120th nationally in winning percentage, but owns a NET of 28 and a KenPom ranking of 18 (through Jan. 4) thanks in part to a challenging schedule that ranks ninth-toughest nationally among average opponent NET rankings.
Saturday’s game at No. 4 UConn will be the fifth top-25 team that Creighton has faced this season, all of which have been away from home (2 road, 3 neutral). Through games of Jan. 6th, Creighton’s four top-25 games are tied for third-most nationally and trail only Alabama (6) and Gonzaga (5).
Creighton owned nine blocked shots in Tuesday’s victory over Seton Hall. The nine blocked shots were tied for the most in a game under 13th-year head coach Greg McDermott (also done 2/13/18 vs. Bemidji State and 11/27/21 vs. SIU Edwardsville). Combined with its 11 three-pointers made, Creighton fell just one block away from its first game with 10 blocks and 10 three-pointers since Feb. 17, 2002 vs. Wichita State when it had 10 of each.
Creighton is 5-0 all-time against UConn, with all five meetings taking place in the last 25 months across four different cities.
Greg McDermott is 5-0 against Connecticut. McDermott is 5-1 all-time in head-to-head meetings vs. Dan Hurley, as Hurley’s Rhode Island team defeated Creighton 84-72 in the First Round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament in a game contested in Sacramento, Calif.
On January 7, 2004, 23rd ranked Creighton rallied from a 12-point deficit in the final seven minutes to win at Illinois State 56-55. ISU tied the game at 55 on a three-pointer by Trey Guidry with 12 seconds left, and Johnny Mathies responded by driving the length of the floor. He wound up with a wide-open look under the basket, and with 1.4 seconds left, was fouled in desperation by ISU’s Vince Greene to prevent a sure-fire game winner. Mathies hit the first free throw, and then missed the second intentionally to rob the Redbirds of as much time as possible. They weren’t able to get off a shot, and the undefeated Jays escaped with the win.
“We knew what we wanted on that last possession,” Creighton Coach Dana Altman told the media after the game. “We were going with Johnny hitting or missing a shot there. We didn’t want to chance a turnover, and Johnny made a heck of a move. It was a good play on Johnny’s part, but you also have to be careful on that because unless you really get cracked, the officials are reluctant to call a foul there. But he went to the rim and got hammered pretty good.”
The 11-0 start was Creighton’s best since the 1942-43 squad began the season 16-0. They’d win one more to move to 12-0, then lose on the road to Greg McDermott’s Northern Iowa Panthers to end their undefeated streak.
The Bottom Line:
KenPom predicts a 75-66 UConn win, while Vegas has UConn as 7.5 point favorites. ESPN’s BPI gives UConn an 80.6% chance of victory.
I think it will be closer than that, but getting out of Storrs with a win will be tough.
UConn 73, Creighton 70