Creighton got a fortunate break from the schedule-designers this week, as they had two extra days to move past their historic takedown of top-ranked UConn and try to avoid a letdown. That game took place on a Tuesday instead of the usual mid-week Wednesday game; the followup happens on Sunday instead of Saturday.
Greg McDermott said he gave the players the day off on Wednesday to rest and decompress, and when they came back on Thursday they mainly did skill work with the top rotational players before watching film of St. John’s.
“It was obviously great to beat the number one team, but at the end of the day it was just a Big East regular season game,” Baylor Scheierman said. “We didn’t win the Big East tournament, we didn’t win the regular season title it was just a regular season game. So we have to be able to turn the page and get ready to play a good St John’s team at Madison Square Garden and that’s where our focus is at.”
It’s the first time Creighton’s regular season matchup at St. John’s will happen at MSG since 2015, as each of the last eight took place on campus at Carnasecca Arena. Interestingly, they haven’t played St. John’s in the Big East Tournament over that span either (at least, not in a game that counted or was completed), while playing all nine other Big East teams at least once.
“For the guys that haven’t played there before it’ll be a good kind of warmup for the Big East Tournament,” Scheierman said. “It doesn’t really matter to me where we’re playing at, to be completely honest. The rim’s still 10 feet and I’ll shoot it from anywhere.”
Timing and venue aside, Sunday’s game has all the features of a classic trap game.
St. John’s enters the game in free fall, having lost eight of their last 11 games to go from 4-1 the morning of the first game against Creighton to 7-9 today. They haven’t beaten a team other than Georgetown or DePaul since January 24. They’ve repeatedly blown leads, including a 19-point lead in their loss to Seton Hall over the weekend. They’ve repeatedly lost close games, losing 66-65 to the Jays, 73-72 to Marquette, and 75-72 to Providence. Along the way, an increasingly frustrated head coach Rick Pitino has made headlines for his postgame press conference soundbites. Among them: a minutes-long uninterrupted rant against the instant transfer era after a loss to UConn, and his quip in Omaha about wanting to kill himself after a loss by jumping into the cold and getting frostbite.
It boiled over last Sunday when he took shots at his own players in the press conference after the loss to Seton Hall — then doubled-down when given the chance to walk it back. You’ve seen the quotes by now, I’m sure, but they’re so wild it’s worth reading them again.
“We are so unathletic that we can’t guard anybody without fouling,” he said. “For me, I’ve always enjoyed the first year (at a new job), and I’m not gonna lie to you: This is the most unenjoyable experience of my lifetime. This has been so disappointing.”
Then he called out players by name.
“Look, Joel (Soriano) is slow laterally, he’s not fast on the court. Chris Ledlum is slow laterally, Sean Conway’s slow laterally. Brady (Dunlap) is physically weak, Drissa (Traore) is slow laterally. We just lack toughness…we don’t move our feet on defense. It’s really all the toughness things where we give up big leads. We kind of lost this season with the way we recruited. We recruited the antithesis of the way I coach. It’s a good group, they try hard, but they’re just not very tough.”
Eventually, he did have second thoughts and after their win against Georgetown on Wednesday, he admitted he shouldn’t have called his own players out by name.
“I totally apologize to them for doing that,” he said. “It was no intent. I was very calm, very collected, and I wasn’t ripping them. That wasn’t my intent, but words matter.”
Before the game, St. John’s players ended their layup line with a dunk show. Chris Ledlum, the graduate player Pitino called out by name for being “slow laterally,” tried going between his legs and missed. On the next attempt, as he tried to transfer the ball quickly from his left to right hand, it went flying and ricocheted off the shot clock. Then Ledlum attempted a 360-degree dunk, and that failed, too. Finally, Ledlum announced “watch out!” and finished a windmill, eliciting a howl from his teammates. “Slow laterally” perhaps but at least persistent.
The Red Storm are still a very dangerous opponent, because despite how frustrated Pitino is by his team, and how much they’ve struggled to finish games, they’re still the same talented roster who was in position to win almost every one of the games they’ve lost.
“They lost a 19 point lead at Seton Hall, and they lost at Marquette in game where they’re up double digits in the second half, so if you’re talented enough to do that you’re not far away from putting it all together,” McDermott said. “And obviously, Coach Pitino has been at this a long time. He’s forgotten more basketball than I’ll ever know. He knows what he’s doing and he’s one of the best motivators in the game so I’m not surprised they came out and played pretty well against Georgetown this week.”
In the first meeting, neither team could pull away over the first 28 minutes. Then with 12 minutes to go, a 14-2 St. John’s run featuring turnovers, missed Bluejay free throws and a technical foul on Scheierman seemed to flip the game as it gave the Red Storm a nine-point lead. But CU answered with a 12-2 run of their own to re-take the lead — and then the teams traded haymakers back and forth, exchanging the lead six separate times over the final five minutes. Trey Alexander’s free throws gave CU the final lead; their defense did the rest.
Creighton prevailed despite not scoring a field goal in the last four minutes and 46 seconds: all their scoring came at the free throw line. And they won despite not making a three-pointer in the second half, and attempting only four.
St. John’s had just one more offensive rebound than CU, 12 to 11, and on second chance points, it was 14-12 in favor of St. John’s. Staying even in those two stats kept the Jays in the game despite the shooting woes.
Heading into the rematch, McDermott told his guys they have to be ready for St. John’s pressure.
“They come at you in droves, and you have to be ready for it,” McDermott said. “Offensively, they’re one of the best mid-range shooting teams in the country and that’s what our defense forces people to do. So it puts us in a little bit of a predicament in terms of some of our coverages. How do we adjust that if we’re having trouble with it? Part of the reason that game was as competitive as it was is, you know, St. John’s kind of solves what we do defensively and what the core of our defense is because they have so many guys that are effective in that mid-range area.”
Four Johnnies average in double-figures, a group led by Preseason All-Big East center Joel Soriano (14.8 ppg., 9.4 rpg.). Soriano had 13 points and 11 rebounds in the first meeting, finally giving the double-double machine one against CU after falling short in both meetings with the Jays a year ago. He scored 18 points with nine boards in Omaha, and 15 points with eight boards in NYC last season.
Also scoring in double-figures are Daniss Jenkins (14.3 ppg., 5.4 apg.), RJ Luis Jr. (10.5 ppg., 4.9 rpg.) and Jordan Dingle (10.8 ppg.).
Jenkins is the only one of those three who did it in the first meeting, logging 11 points on 5-of-17 shooting including a miserable 4-of-14 inside the arc. Dingle (four points on 4-of-10 shooting) and Luis (eight points on 3-of-7 from the floor) were held in check.
Tip: 11:00am
Venue: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
TV: CBS (KMTV-3 in Omaha)
Announcers: Andrew Catalon and Steve Lappas
In Omaha: Cox channel 3 (SD), 1003 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 42 (SD), 1042 (HD); DirecTV 42; Dish Network 42 or 5203
Outside Omaha: Your local CBS affiliate
Streaming on FoxSportsGO
Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
Announcer: John Bishop
Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 158 or 202 as well as on the SiriusXM App
Daniss Jenkins has shined for the Red Storm over the last seven games, averaging 17.9 points and shooting 50.5 percent (47-93 FG) from the field. The 6-foot-4 point guard has drained 19 threes during this stretch, while also knocking down 56.0 percent (28-50 FG) of his shot attempts inside the 3-point arc.
RJ Luis Jr. and Jordan Dingle have elevated their play over the last four contests. Luis has scored in double figures in three of his last four games, including a 19-point effort in the team’s 90-85 victory at Georgetown on Wednesday. In his last four games, the 6-foot-7 wing has averaged 13.5 points and 6.8 rebounds over 26.4 minutes per contest. Luis has also knocked down 57.5 percent (23-40 FG) of his shot attempts inside the 3-point arc. Dingle, who is coming off a season-best 22-point performance at Georgetown, has averaged 11.3 points with 2.0 3-pointers per game in the last four contests.
The Johnnies rank among the nation’s best in offensive rebounding and blocks, standing fourth in Division I averaging 14.8 offensive rebounds and 14th with 5.3 blocks per contest, as of Feb. 23. The Red Storm also leads the Big East and is 39th in the nation with 39.3 rebounds per game. Joel Soriano has helped lead the team’s efforts in these statistical categories, as the graduate student has pulled down 3.7 offensive rebounds per game (13th in NCAA) and 9.4 total rebounds per contest (33rd in NCAA). Soriano, who has posted 13 double-doubles this season (16th in NCAA), is also one of the most efficient shooters in the nation with a 659.8 field goal percentage (23rd in NCAA).
Creighton has beaten a top ten team at least once in each of the last nine seasons. Imagine hearing that fact 10 years ago (and especially 20 years ago!) — but it’s true.
- 02/09/16 vs #5 Xavier
- 11/15/16 vs #9 Wisconsin
- 02/24/18 vs #3 Villanova
- 03/03/19 at #10 Marquette
- 02/01/20 at #8 Villanova
- 02/12/20 at #10 Seton Hall
- 03/07/20 vs #8 Seton Hall
- 02/13/21 vs #5 Villanova
- 12/17/21 vs #9 Villanova
- 11/22/22 vs #9 Arkansas
- 02/20/24 vs #1 Connecticut
Baylor Scheierman is 31 points shy of reaching 1,000 in his Creighton career, which doesn’t count his 1,114 points at South Dakota State. When he gets there, it will make him just the 11th player in NCAA history to score 1,000 points or more at multiple Division I schools.
Scheierman currently ranks 49th in program history with 969 points after just 64 career games at Creighton. No player has reached 1,000 points in fewer than 75 games at CU since Marcus Foster needed just 54 in 2018. Scheierman could become the third Bluejay transfer from a four-year school to reach 1,000 career points at CU, joining Gregory Echenique (Rutgers) and Marcus Foster (Kansas State). Two other junior college transfers (Rod Mason and Johnny Mathies) have also scored 1,000 points after joining the Bluejays but starting elsewhere.
Creighton is 17-10 all-time against St. John’s, and 16-5 in the match-up since joining the Big East. Creighton is 6-4 on the road against the Johnnies as league rivals, but 0-2 in games contested at Madison Square Garden. The Jays have scored 77+ points in seven of its last eight victories vs. St. John’s and are 14-0 all-time against the Red Storm when scoring 76 points or more.
On February 25, 1991, Creighton clinched the regular season MVC title with a 65-64 win at Wichita State, thanks to a last-second shot by Duan Cole that remains etched in Bluejay lore.
The Shockers took the lead, 64-63, with 10 seconds left on a jumper by Robert George. Cole was guarding him, and he took it personally. “I was down because he had just scored on me,” Cole told the media afterward. “I was frustrated, and I wanted to do something about it.”
Coach Tony Barone took timeout to draw up a final play, and instructed Cole to penetrate, then make the decision of whether to kick it out to the wings, pass inside, or shoot it himself. Cole shooting was the last option, Barone said later. But Cole had other ideas.
“I had one focus,” he said after the game, “to take it to the basket. I felt I owed my team something. It would have been a tough night for me to sleep if I hadn’t hit that shot.”
And so with his team trailing by a point, the diminutive guard drove the length of the court and pulled up for a 10-foot jumper with 3.8 seconds left. It, of course, went in, and the Jays won their second MVC title in three years, this one an outright title. They’d win the MVC Tournament title a week later and advance to the NCAA Tourney, where they toppled 15th-ranked New Mexico State in the first round before bowing out to 13th-ranked Seton Hall.
The shot’s shown at the 2:15 mark of the season highlight video, which we featured on WBR a couple of summers ago.
The Bottom Line:
ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton 60.7% odds of victory, and KenPom predicts a three-point win. It’ll be another rock fight, and I think it’ll be another Bluejay win.
Creighton 69, St. John’s 65