Tuesday’s season opening 90-77 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff was a strange game. In the first half, Creighton turned it over far too often, missed too many shots when they didn’t turn it over, and had too many defensive miscues. And in the second half, they cleaned most of that up, putting on an offensive clinic and putting the defensive clamps on Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s best players.
There’s a case to be made for throwing out the first half and forgetting about it. The Golden Lions had better talent than they have had in recent years, including two legitimate playmakers in Shawn Williams and Trey Sampson. With no way to prepare a proper scouting report, it was going to take a bit to adjust once CU figured that out, and they were doing it with a (mostly) new coaching staff, an entirely new starting five, and a rotation made up almost entirely of players seeing D1 action for the first time. In hindsight, that first half was kind of predictable. And according to Greg McDermott, it will help the Baby Jays improve.
“This is so much better than coming in here and winning by 40,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show after the win. “There are things we can learn from on this game tape, good and bad. We can take some of the mistakes we made, and correct them. We can also look at the things we did well and make sure our guys see what that looks like, so they can start to learn when the spacing is right, and when the tempo is right, and when the ball movement is right, this is what happens.”
Of course, it’s easy to say that after rallying from a 15-point deficit. A lot of teams across the country are looking at ugly game tape from Tuesday night, and doing it while nursing a loss. #25 Virginia lost at home to Navy. #15 Houston needed overtime to hold off an upset-minded Hofstra squad. Nebraska lost at home to Western Illinois after being double-digit favorites to a team picked fifth in the Summit League. But the Jays did rally, they won going away, and that gives them a different perspective on that ugly first half.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen when we got down by 15. It would have been easy for those guys to hang their heads and start to doubt each other,” McDermott said. “The integrity and spacing of our offense really got disjointed in the first half. Guys tried to do some things on their own and tried to save the day rather than just trust our offense and trust ball movement, and get out in transition and try to wear into Pine Bluff. And they didn’t shoot as well in the second half because we did wear into them.”
48 hours later, Kennesaw State will be in Omaha and the Owls present a different set of problems for the Bluejays. They return all five starters and 93.7% of their scoring from a year ago and bring with them the experience of having played in Omaha last December (albeit at 4:00pm on a Friday afternoon in a mostly-empty arena). So after flying blind against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Creighton will have tons of game film and first-hand experience to help prepare a scouting report for Kennesaw State.
The Owls struggled last year, finishing 5-19 and losing 14 straight games from the middle of December through the middle of February. Three of their wins came against non-D1 opponents. They finished ninth in the ASUN, and that league’s coaches don’t expect them to be much better this year — as a matter of fact, they picked them to be worse, slotting them 11th in the preseason coaches poll.
Kennesaw State hung tough in Ames on Tuesday, trailing Iowa State by just six points with 6:30 to play. They outrebounded the Cyclones 31-29, shot 50% inside the arc (13-of-26), and had 11 steals contributing to 22 Iowa State turnovers. But they had 24 turnovers of their own, including seven by their point guard, and assisted on only six of their 20 made baskets. They ran lots of iso plays and tried to get downhill to the rim as much as they could, and the result was a whopping 36 free throw attempts. Iowa State was whistled for 31 fouls and had three guys foul out.
6’4” guard Spencer Rodgers, the top returning scorer in the ASUN at 16.3 points per game, was held to 12 by the Cyclones though his minutes were limited due to foul trouble, and he ultimately fouled out, too. Rodgers did a lot in Omaha a year ago, scoring 10 points on 5-of-8 shooting inside the arc, grabbing six rebounds, and dishing out five assists in 38 minutes. He did miss all five three-pointers he attempted, however.
Terrell Burden stands just 5’10”, but he’s clever, quick, and is skilled at driving into the paint. 86% of his shot attempts a year ago came inside the arc, which tells you what his plan is — and it’s not to settle for jump shots. He wants to drive, he wants to draw contact, and he often succeeds. In scoring 21 points Tuesday night, he attempted NINETEEN free throws (and made 13). Remarkably, he drew 15 fouls on Cyclone defenders. Burden is an interesting matchup to watch, because he was rendered invisible by the Jays’ defense a year ago, with the combination of Marcus Zegarowski and Shereef Mitchell holding him to four points on 1-of-5 shooting with two assists while committing four turnovers. They also defended him without fouling; Burden attempted just two free throws.
Chris Youngblood, a four-star recruit out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was the centerpiece of head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim’s first full recruiting class last year. Youngblood averaged 12.4 points as a freshman and was a consistent scorer for the Owls all year. He’s a stronger, more athletic player than you typically see on an ASUN team, and you can see why he was a consensus Top-30 guard out of high school. Youngblood struggling shooting the ball against Iowa State on Tuesday, making just 1-of-7 from three-point range. But he was able to dribble penetrate on the Cyclones’ defense, and attempted 10 free throws, making nine. He also struggled here in Omaha a year ago, making 3-of-9 from three-point range with Mitch Ballock and Damien Jefferson sharing the defensive assignment.
Alex Peterson, a 6’7” senior, came off of the bench against Iowa State but is worth keeping an eye on because he played really well against the Bluejays a year ago. In 28 minutes he made 6-of-12 inside the arc, scoring a team-high 14 points to go along with five rebounds and two assists. He scored six of his points in the first four minutes before CU’s defense adjusted.
The Owls went nine deep into their bench on Tuesday, an 81-possession game where they took shots early in the shot clock (using an average of just 15.3 seconds per possession). They won’t be afraid to run with the Jays. But they’re incredibly inefficient — a year ago their adjusted offensive efficiency ranked 350th out of 356 teams, at an atrocious 87.8. That’s roughly 15 points less than the D1 average. Their effective field goal percentage was 45.8%, ranking 314th. They were bad from everywhere — 29.4% from three-point range (326th), 46.7% on two-pointers (280th), and 65.9% from the line (309th). They routinely chose bad shots, and didn’t make them at a very high clip.
Defensively, they were poor, with an adjusted defensive efficiency of 105.4 (ranking 238th). Creighton tore them up in the paint a year ago, scoring 50 points in the paint — a season high. It was Ryan Kalkbrenner’s best game as a freshman, as he shot 7-of-8 from the field with 14 points, six rebounds, two blocks and a steal in just 15 minutes of action.
With the entire roster back and game film from 48 hours ago, this will be the Jays’ first opportunity to implement a real game plan and see how their guys execute it. I’d imagine the Jays will try to attack the paint, given their success there last year. If they can clean up their turnovers, and defend without fouling, they should win this one comfortably enough to get some end of game minutes for guys like John Christofolis and Rati Andronikashvili who couldn’t get in Tuesday.
- 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
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Brody Deren
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Two Owls made their debut for KSU Tuesday, as senior guard Jamir Moultrie came off the bench to score 12 points including going 3-for-3 from behind the arc. Moultrie is playing for his third school in three years, transferring from LaSalle to North Carolina Center, and now to Kennesaw State. 6’8”, 260-pound junior forward Demond Robinson, a transfer from Murray State, meanwhile was the starting post player for the Owls. He did not score in 21 minutes but played solid defense on the block.
- KSU brings back over 90% over its scoring production and total minutes from last season. The Owls rank 16th in the nation in both categories, bringing back 93.7% of its total points and 91.8% of its total minutes.
- Between 1992-93 and 2020-21, only four true freshmen started Creighton’s regular-season opener. Then versus Arkansas-Pine Bluff, both Ryan Nembhard and Arthur Kaluma got the nod on opening night. Nembhard had 15 points and 10 assists while Kaluma owned 15 points, eight rebounds and four blocks. This season marked the first time Creighton started two true freshmen in a regular-season opener since 1991-92 (Eric Dantzler and Mike Amos).
- Creighton started three players with the first name of Ryan in its regular-season opener, as Ryan Nembhard, Ryan Hawkins and Ryan Kalkbrenner all got the nod vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Creighton has not started multiple players with the same first name in the same regular-season game since Nov. 18, 2006, when both Nick Porter and Nick Bahe started against Nebraska. With so many men named Ryan (not to mention assistant coach Ryan Miller), the Bluejay staff has gone to referring to Hawkins as “Hawk”, the 7-foot Kalkbrenner as “Big Ryan” and Nembhard as “R2”, in honor of his uniform number.
- Creighton scored 58 points in the paint during its season-opener vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Nov. 9. It was CU’s most paint points since also scoring in the 2017-18 season-opener vs. Yale.
Creighton is 3-0 all-time against Kennesaw State, including an 81-55 win in 2019 and a 93-58 triumph last December. All three meetings have taken place in Omaha.
Greg McDermott is 3-0 against Kennesaw State, 2-0 against Amir Abdur-Rahim and 8-0 in his career against teams currently in the A-SUN.
Creighton defeated the UMKC Kangaroos 96-70 on November 11, 2013, in a game that saw Doug McDermott score 37 points, just another ho-hum, pedestrian offensive game for the most prolific scorer in school history.
“Creighton’s All American scored the team’s first 9 points and 14 of the team’s first 18 points. His CU teammates were feeding the school’s all-time leading scorer, facilitating the type of night that could have knocked Bob Portman out of possession of the single-game scoring record (51 points in December 1967).
McDermott finished the first half with 25 points after playing nearly the entire first stanza. He was needed on the floor because despite his scoring outburst the Bluejays allowed a 12-3 run that turned an 18-11 CU lead into a 23-21 deficit with 7:35 left in the first half.
No worries. McDermott went to work again, tying the game with a layup and then grabbing a defensive rebound during the Kangaroos’ next possession. He hit a triple on Creighton’s subsequent trip down the court to give the Jays a lead they would never relinquish.
All told, McDermott captained a 32-8 run, one that he capped with a layup and a three-pointer within the first minute of the second half. Just like that, the Bluejays were up by 22 points and could play the rest of the evening out testing various personnel combinations.
Please, Creighton fans. Never take Doug McDermott for granted.”
Sage advice as we watch a Bluejay team that might have a different leading scorer every night.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton gets off to a better start than they did Tuesday, and while this one isn’t a big blowout, it’s more comfortable than Tuesday was.
Jays 88, Kennesaw State 70