After starting the season 12-0, St. John’s has lost four of their last five games. The only win in that span came exactly two weeks ago against Creighton, an 81-66 victory in Queens that was the low point in CU’s season to this point — and a brief respite in what has become a tailspin for the Red Storm.
They’re a talented team that blew out Marquette, the only blemish on the 7-1 Golden Eagles’ conference record, and led undefeated Villanova for 35 minutes before folding in the game’s waning moments. But they’re also a team in a serious funk, led by an enigmatic star and a coach many observers doubt has the chops to turn them around. Heck, many observers wonder how much coaching Chris Mullin actually does, viewing him more as a CEO who delegates the coaching to his assistants. A moment captured by FOX’s cameras on Sunday did little to quiet those whispers — assistant Greg St. Jean running the huddle during a timeout, Mullin tying his shoes, pausing only to clap his hands and cheerlead for a moment before returning to the business of tying his shoes. If anything, it turned those whispers into full-volume questions.
As for that enigmatic star? Shamorie Ponds told the New York media after losing to Georgetown that “I feel like as a team we’ve parted ways. We’re not together like we were in the beginning.”
His honesty is refreshing, but as an unvarnished view of what’s going on behind the scenes, it’s not all that flattering. And combined with doubts about Mullin’s ability — or interest — in coaching them out of their slump, you’re left with headlines in New York newspapers calling their season a “disaster” and respected columnists openly questioning whether Mullin will last long enough for his storybook return to Queens to have a happy ending.
To make things even more of a soap opera, Mullin told the NY Post that he does not believe their season is at a crossroads — putting him at odds with his star. “I think we’ve been pretty consistent,” he told their Zach Braziller. “We’ll continue to get better.”
Things have been better, in other words. And now the Red Storm embark on a three-games-in-eight-days road trip that will probably define the direction their season goes — at Creighton on $1 Beer Night, at Cameron Indoor for a game with #2 Duke, and to Milwaukee for a game with #10 Marquette. Ouch.
Meanwhile things are looking up for the Bluejays. After that loss in Queens, the Jays dug deep and gritted out a pair of wins against Georgetown and Butler where they looked like a different team. A tougher team. A gutsier team. A team capable of breaking loose of the logjam in the second tier of the Big East and compete for an NCAA berth.
In the first meeting, Creighton controlled the first 15 or so minutes by attacking the rim offensively (outscoring St. John’s 16-8 in the paint during that stretch) and avoiding turnovers (just two in their first 20 possessions). They led 28-19 and then surrendered a gigantic run that changed the course of the game — giving up 22 points in nine possessions, with St. John’s making nine of their next 10 shots and turning that nine-point CU lead into a 37-31 lead for the Johnnies in a heartbeat. Over the final six minutes of the half, as St. John’s made the game-deciding push, CU went scoreless in the paint and never even attempted a shot inside the arc — their last seven shot attempts were all 3-point shots. That continued in the second half, as they attempted 19 threes and just 13 shots inside the arc. And after committing just two turnovers over the first 14 minutes, they had four in the final six minutes — and seven in the second half — to play right into St. John’s hands.
They’ve traditionally not shot the ball all that well against teams constructed like this St. John’s team — the Johnnies are long, athletic, and they pressure the ball. But as they did in NY, CU will have the opportunity to score at the rim if they can get Martin Krampelj post touches, and they can’t abandon that as quickly as they did in Queens. Staying committed to playing inside-out, or to getting inside shots period, is incredibly important. And being strong with their decision making is, too, as St. John’s steals the ball on 11.6% of possessions, ranking 21st nationally.
35 of Creighton’s 60 shot attempts in that game were threes. They made 11. Individually, Mitch Ballock and Ty-Shon Alexander combined to go 3-of-18 from three-point range. It’s not rocket science in this one — when they were able to score inside, and weren’t turning it over, they were winning. When they started settling for jump shots, and getting sloppy with the basketball, they lost.
Easier said than done, obviously.
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Vince Welch and Nick Bahe
- 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
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- Shamorie Ponds ranks third in the Big East in scoring (20.6), and first in assists (5.6), steals (2.6) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.8 to 1). He’s the only player in Division I to rank inside the top 40 in points per game (32nd), assists per game (32nd) and steals per game (10th). And he’s one of two players in St. John’s history to rank in the Top 10 in the record book for career points (10th, 1,612), assists (8th, 350) and steals (7th, 188) — the other is his coach, Chris Mullin. As he goes, so go the Red Storm. CU found that out first hand: he scored eight straight in the game-changing run.
- Justin Simon has scored in double figures in 12 of 20 games this year, and ranks fourth in the league in assists (4.9 per game), ninth in steals (1.3 per game) and 10th in blocks (0.9). He had 16 points, six rebounds, three assists and four steals in the first meeting, but was just 6-of-17 from the floor.
- St. John’s went seven deep in the first meeting, and got 72 of their 81 points from four players (Ponds, Simon, Mustapha Heron, and L.J. Figueroa). The only starter not to score in double figures was Marvin Clark, who averages 12.4 per game but scored just seven against the Jays. He did have 10 rebounds and two assists, though.
- Figueroa was particularly tough, logging a double-double with 16 points and 13 rebounds, including four offensive boards. He’s been in double figures for points in 17 of their 20 games, and is an extremely well-rounded player — he ranked in the top 15 in the Big East in scoring, overall rebounds, defensive rebounds, shooting percentage, three-point shooting percentage, and steals.
- So was Heron, who was 7-of-10 from the floor en route to 18 points. He’s a consistent scorer who’s been in double figures in 76 of his 84 career games. He’s been very good on the road this year, averaging 17.2 points in their five true road contests. And over the last three games, he’s averaged 18.7 points while shooting 51.3 pct from the floor (20-39 FG), 41.7 pct from distance (5-12 3FG) and 84.6 pct at the line (11-13 FT).
- Ty-Shon Alexander was named Big East Player of the Week after averaging 22.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists during two wins last week. He made 50 percent of his shots from the field (13-26) and 50 percent from three-point range (8-16) as well as 68.8 percent at the line (11-16). After averaging 5.5 points a year ago, Alexander now ranks seventh in the league with 17.6 points per contest. He’s made a three-pointer in 24 straight games, the longest active streak in the conference.
- Georgetown’s Mac McClung leads all Big East freshmen with 13.9 points per game, just ahead of teammate James Akinjo’s 13.4 ppg. Fourth on that list is Creighton’s Marcus Zegarowski at 10.7 points per game. In league only action, Marquette’s Joey Hauser (12.7) and Akinjo (12.0) are the only freshmen ahead of Zegarowski (11.3).
- Martin Krampelj has scored in double-figures in nine of the last 10 games, with nine points in the one contest he was limited to single digits. In the past 10 games, Krampelj has averaged 15.2 points and 8.3 rebounds per game. He’s shot 66.3 percent from the field, 38.9 percent from three-point territory, and 61.4 percent from the line.
Creighton is 10-8 all-time against St. John’s, and 8-3 in the series since joining the Big East. Creighton had won six straight in the series before a loss two weeks ago.
St. John’s has never won in Omaha in seven all-time games, and has never swept a season series from the Jays.
ESPN.com ran a feature this week on Creighton’s pair of Australian big men. It’s a solid feature on Jacob Epperson and Samson Froling, with lots of great little anecdotes like this one:
Both Aussies are works in progress. To thrive in the American college game, the pair have been actively trying to improve on what comes naturally to many U.S.-born players, whom Froling calls “better athletes.”
“I’ve had to work on increasing my explosiveness, my speed, adjusting to how much running they do,” said Froling, who averages 4.4 points on 58 percent shooting in 10 minutes as the backup center in a guard-dominated rotation.
“In Australia,” Epperson said, “it was always like, the bigger man, the stronger man wins.”
Check it out.
On January 30, 2013 Creighton returned home after a 15-day absence and beat Missouri State 91-77. A pair of Bluejays recorded double-doubles, as Austin Chatman had 14 points and 10 assists, while Doug McDermott had 29 points and 10 rebounds.
You know it’s a helluva performance by other players when Ethan Wragge makes 5-of-6 from three-point range and his achievement is buried in not one but two postgame articles on WBR — both Ott and myself covered about a half-dozen other topics in our write-ups before getting to Wragge. Combined with a hot-shooting game three nights earlier against Southern Illinois, Wragge was 9-of-14 behind the arc for the week. And we barely mentioned it. Jeez, we were spoiled with an embarrassment of riches on those 2011-2014 teams, weren’t we?
In promoting tonight’s “1980s Night”, Creighton created several recreations of movie posters featuring players. They’re rad.
And the TV commercial features Billy Bluejay dancing to David Bowie. How can we use any other song here after that?!?
The Bottom Line:
Creighton gets up early, and withstands a late surge by Shamorie Ponds to win.
Bluejays 83, Red Storm 75
