Creighton is 16-4 in February the last three years, two more wins than Villanova and tops in the Big East. The last two years made sense; those were veteran teams who won the league and advanced to the Sweet 16. This year? Not so much. But here they are, 6-1 so far in February with five straight wins.
“The last three years, we’ve played really well in February. And it coincides with us hiring Jeremy Anderson,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show after Sunday’s win. “The scientific proof he provides to me about how many miles we can put on the players is the key — he tells me how much they have left in the tank for games and for practices.”
It isn’t the first time that the head Bluejay has gushed about the positive changes Anderson has ushered in on the strength and conditioning side of the program, but McDermott went a step further on Sunday. He detailed how Anderson has changed his philosophy as a coach in the days leading up to a game, and convinced him to trust his judgment.
“Five years ago, I would have told our strength coach that we’re going to practice as long as I think we need to, and then you figure out how to keep them healthy,” he continued. “Players need to be physically fresh to be mentally fresh. You can’t have the right mental approach on game day if your body hurts, in other words. And Jeremy has convinced me that his job is to get their bodies in as good a shape as possible when the game starts.”
If that means the players run two reps instead of six, it does — something that would have been unheard of before Anderson’s arrival. Especially in February when just about every player is nursing bumps and bruises, it’s made a difference on game day. From the top down, they believe if their bodies are feeling right, they’ll make the right mental decisions in games. CU’s results the last three years speak for themselves.
With that said, strength and conditioning can only go so far, and Creighton’s roster is more beat up than usual. Shereef Mitchell is done for the year. Freshman John Christofolis is, too. Arthur Kaluma remains out with a knee injury. And now Alex O’Connell is nursing a sprained ankle. Throw in injuries to walk-ons and the Jays don’t have enough healthy players to do a full five-on-five scrimmage in practice.
McDermott joked after Sunday’s game that they would have to go to an NBA-type schedule, where they just play games and occasionally practice every once in awhile. Appearing on Nick Bahe’s podcast on Monday, he said they were working on both O’Connell’s ankle and Kaluma’s knee — and alluded that of the two, Kaluma is probably the closest to returning to action.
“We’ll see who we have available on Wednesday,” he told Bahe, “and we’ll roll the ball out there and give it our best shot.”
Not exactly encouraging words heading into NYC to take on a St. John’s team that’s arguably playing their best ball of the season, and boasts the reigning Big East Player of the Week in Julian Champagnie. The Red Storm blew the doors off Butler 91-57 on Friday, and beat Xavier 86-73 two days before; a pair of close losses to Villanova (75-69) and UConn (63-60) preceded them. It’s probably too late to salvage NCAA Tourney hopes, but it looks like they’re rounding into the form many expected from them entering the season — just in time to play spoiler down the stretch. Or to make a run through MSG for the automatic bid in two weeks.
Preseason All-Big East wing Julian Champagnie leads the Big East in scoring (19.2), and leads the team in rebounding (6.6) and made three’s (56). Last week he lit up Xavier (27 points on 7-of-12 shooting inside the arc and 7-of-7 from the line) and Butler (31 points on 7-of-13 shooting inside the arc).
Champagnie had “only” 17 points on 7-of-21 shooting in a 87-64 Creighton win in January. But that was with Alex O’Connell frustrating him defensively; he repeatedly forced Champagnie to take tough shots, and his 14 missed shots fueled CU’s transition game. In the first half, Champagnie was just 1-of-10 from the field, and the one he made came on a broken play that left him wide-open. Of his 17 points, 12 came in the final 13 minutes when the outcome of the game was no longer in doubt. You could make a case that no one has defended him better this year.
Meanwhile, O’Connell’s best offensive games have come against St. John’s. He had a career-high 28 points in the win last month, making 9-of-14 shots including a career-high six three-pointers. Last season O’Connell made his Bluejay debut at St. John’s with six points in 12 minutes. He then had a season-best 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the rematch in Omaha.
That makes the timing of O’Connell’s injured ankle particularly tough. Nothing has been announced but it’s doubtful he plays; where things get interesting is if Kaluma is also out. Who the heck defends Champagnie in that scenario? Probably Trey Alexander, in the toughest defensive assignment he’s drawn since moving into the starting five in Kaluma’s absence. And if he struggles, the resulting domino effect if they shuffle assignments could free up Posh Alexander.
The Red Storm’s sophomore point guard is a stat-stuffer in the very best sense of the word, averaging 14.5 points, 5.4 assists, 4.3 rebounds, and a Big East best 2.2 steals per game. Ryan Nembhard did a good job on him in Omaha, holding Alexander to 9 points — one of just three games this year where he failed to score in double figures. More notable? He took just eight shots, making four, and couldn’t get to the line (attempting just two free throws). He had just three assists, and zero offensive boards on a night where St. John’s missed 43 shots.
On Friday against Butler, Alexander recorded 13 points and 10 assists for his third double-double of the season. He’s one of only two players to rank among the top 10 in the Big East in both scoring and assists alongside UConn’s R.J. Cole. Alexander is in a class of his own, however, when it comes to steals. His 2.5 thefts per contest are 0.5 more than Champagnie in second and 0.9 more than Seton Hall’s Kadary Richmond, who ranks third. The reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year ranks fifth nationally and first among high-major players in steals per game.
6’9” Purdue transfer Aaron Wheeler has played much better since the first meeting with the Jays. He was averaging just 7.7 points per game at that point, but has seven straight games of 11 points or more and has averaged 16.1 points in February.
- Tip: 5:30pm
- Venue: Carnesecca Arena, Queens, NY
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler, Bill Raftery
- 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
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio: XM 391; SiriusXM app 981
- Guard Montez Mathis has taken advantage of defenses’ attention to Champagnie and Alexander the last three games; he’s made 10-of-17 from the floor and averaged 10.0 points. His emergence as a reliable third scoring option from the wing makes St. John’s that much tougher to defend.
- 6’11” center Joel Soriano averages 2.0 blocks per game in league play, sixth-best in the conference. In their last four wins he’s been nearly unstoppable — 20-of-23 shooting while averaging 10.5 points.
- St. John’s 91-57 win in their last game matched their largest margin of victory ever in a Big East game, tying a 104-70 victory over Providence in 1999.
- The Bluejays are 5-1 this season in games decided by five points or less. Since the start of last season, Creighton is 8-2 in one-possession games (decided by 3 or less). Those eight victories by three points or less are tied for ninth-most nationally in that span and trails only Xavier (9) among Big East schools. By comparison, St. John’s has four wins by three points or less in the past two seasons.
- Ryan Nembhard was named the Big East Freshman of the Week for the sixth time this season this week after leading the conference with 17 assists last week. Nembhard averaged 16.3 points, 5.7 assists and 3.7 rebounds per game as Creighton went 3-0.
- Nembhard leads CU with 112 assists and 33 steals and is on pace to become the first Big East freshman to play more than 34 minutes per game in a decade. Nembhard was previously recognized on Nov. 15, Nov. 22, Nov. 29, Dec. 20 and Jan. 17 and becomes CU’s first six-time Freshman of the Week since Doug McDermott won seven such honors from the Missouri Valley Conference in 2010-11. Nembhard, along with teammates Trey Alexander (Jan. 24, Feb. 7) and Arthur Kaluma (Feb. 14), have now combined to win nine of the league’s 14 Freshman of the Week awards this season. That includes five of the past six weeks.
Creighton is 14-10 all-time against St. John’s, and 12-5 in the rivalry since joining the Big East. The Bluejays are 4-4 in the Big East era in road games in the series, and 4-8 all-time in New York against the Johnnies.
On February 23, 2020 #15 Creighton dismantled #21 Butler 81-59 to cap an amazing run in February. From the Morning After:
The first 30 minutes of Sunday’s 81-59 win over #21 Butler were as good as Creighton’s played in his ten years as head coach, according to Greg McDermott. There’s been some pretty great performances over those ten seasons, so that seems like a preposterous statement on the surface.
And yet, is it?
After 30 minutes on Sunday, Creighton had doubled up the Bulldogs 70-35. To that point of the game, they were unstoppable offensively and scoring both on three-pointers and poster-worthy dunks, often making Butler’s vaunted defense look stuck in the mud. They were stifling defensively, routinely stepping into passing lanes for steals or deflections, blocking shots, and making every shot attempt difficult. And as a result, they made a team ranked in the top 25 and headed for the NCAA Tournament look like a SWAC team playing a buy game in November. The level of domination was that thorough, the gap in execution that complete.
How good is this Creighton team? The short answer is that we don’t know, because they continue to move the mile marker further and further ahead, piling up progressively more and more impressive wins as the season heads toward its climax. In going 6-1 through the month of February, they beat four ranked teams — including three on the road at #8 Villanova, #10 Seton Hall, and #19 Marquette — and smacked around DePaul, St. John’s and #21 Butler at home.
What we do know is that the third team of the McDermott Era to crack the Top 10 in the AP poll is doing something the first two did not — play its best basketball of the season heading into March.
The Bottom Line:
Winning a sixth straight game was a tough task for the Jays before the injury to O’Connell. If he and Kaluma are both out and the rotation is just seven deep, it becomes a whole lot tougher.
Vegas certainly thinks so; Creighton is a five point underdog. KenPom favors St. John’s by four. Unfortunately, I think the hill is too steep tonight; even if O’Connell and/or Kaluma return, they’re likely to be less than 100% and less than effective at slowing down Julian Champagnie.
St. John’s 73, Creighton 67