Creighton and Iowa both come into Sunday’s matchup off of their first loss of the year, and both teams are concerned about how their defense is performing. Iowa lost in overtime to a good Virginia Tech team (#42 KenPom) 93-88, getting destroyed in the paint as 72 of the Hokies points came either on two-pointers or free throws. Creighton, on the other hand, fell behind by as many as 15 at a Kansas State team (#101 KP) picked second-to-last in the preseason Big 12 poll.
“I’ve got a lot of concerns about our defense, to be perfectly honest,” Iowa coach Ben McCollum said on Friday. “What I thought after the game was accurate (after film study). I thought we played with a lot of ‘we don’t want to get beat mentality’. I thought we played with a lot of that rather than with an attacking mentality defensively. And I think when you’re passive or tentative in some of those situations, especially against a team like (Virginia Tech) where they’re not going to pass as much, it really hurts you from a defensive perspective.”
Iowa did plenty of other things poorly, too. They were just 5-of-17 from three. They only had seven assists on 26 made baskets after averaging well over 60% in both of their first two games. Most troublesome, they missed 16 free throws (31-of-47).
The jury is out on their three-point shooting; they were also 6-of-25 against Lipscomb and 14-of-30 against Eastern Illinois. The same can be said of their free throw shooting, as they were 14-of-28 from the line against Lipscomb and 11-of-17 against Eastern Illinois.
The three-point shooting is not as concerning because they’re built to be a physical team who scores the bulk of their points in the paint. That makes the free throw struggles a huge problem — their style is naturally going to lead to lots of drawn fouls, and the more you miss them, the more teams will be tempted to simply foul and send them to the line.
Meanwhile, Creighton’s defense on Tuesday left a lot to be desired. Kansas State was 14-of-30 from three-point range (46.7%) and 13-of-18 at the rim (72.2%). At one point in the second half KSU was 13-of-23 (56.5%) from deep before making just 1-of-7 to end the game. As for offensive issues, the Bluejays shot just 5-of-15 on non-rim two-pointers in the paint — close range shots that a good team should make north of 70% on.
“I don’t think we competed as hard as we needed to,” Alan Huss said on Friday. “We just got the integrity of what we’re trying to do defensively completely violated. We reacted. They had two kind of crazy fluke plays to start the game, hit two threes that got us spaced out. And then after that, we just had so many miscommunications on simple plays that we’ve really, over the past two months, we’ve done a nice job of eliminating those for the most part. And the fact that they had a stretch five out there, that really put an added emphasis on our ability to communicate or maybe it added strain on our inability to communicate. We were really exposed.”
Iowa won’t space them out with a stretch-five man, but they will be as physical as anyone CU will see all year, and that means the Jays have to get more consistent play from their bigs.
“I mean, we’ve got to be more physical,” Huss said. “I thought Kansas State was the aggressor, and with all due respect to Kansas State, they’re kind of a passive offensive team. You know, pass it around, spread you out. They out-physicalled us which is problematic. Iowa’s as physical a team as there is in the country. We’ve got to handle it and we’ve got to match it with a certain level of physicality from us.”
To that end, Huss gave an update on starting forward Jackson McAndrew, who was injured on Tuesday night. He said that McAndrew sprained his ankle and did not practice most of the week, and as of Friday they weren’t sure how much he’d be able to play on Sunday. He’s not a physical player but he is big and experienced and, if nothing else, has five fouls to use against a team that shoots free throws poorly.
6’3” guard Ty’Reek Coleman (14.3 ppg.) leads a Hawkeye offensive attack that has 10 players averaging five or more points per game. Coleman has an assist on 26.9% of their made baskets when he’s been on the floor and is an excellent distributor. He’s a slashing guard who lives in the paint — 19 of his 24 shot attempts so far have been two pointers, and he’s made just one 3-pointer. His split at Illinois State a year ago wasn’t quite that extreme (146 twos versus 87 three point attempts) but the general scouting report holds. As a result, he’s drawn 7.8 fouls per 40 minutes and attempted 21 free throws in three games (14-of-21).
6’8” Cooper Koch averages 13.7 points and five rebounds per game. He’s a floor spacer who shoots a ton of jump shots (12 of his 19 shots have been threes), and has one of the great statistical outlier stats of the young season — he was 15-of-17 from the free throw line against Virginia Tech. He took three combined free throws in the first two games and 36 total free throws in 37 games a year ago. That’s not his game. He was a 40% three-point shooter a year ago (66-of-164, 40.2%) and is on a similar pace this year (5-of-12, 41.7%).
Freshman Jaidyn Coon, originally a Creighton commit who re-opened his recruitment when Greg McDermott retired, had two good games to begin his career (19 total points, seven boards) and then struggled to see the floor against Virginia Tech.
6’11” center Trevin Jirak averages only 4.7 points per game but distributes a team-leading 4.3 assists per contest — a 39.1% assist rate. He’s a fascinating player, a pass-first big man who inverts opposing defenses because of how well he sees the floor and sets up shooters. He also crashes the glass, averaging 5.0 rebounds per game.
Other players to keep an eye on are 6’5” Isaia Howard, who’s coming off a 13 point, 15 rebound game against Virginia Tech where he made three 3’s. 6’7” Tate Sage is averaging nine points per game despite shooting just 3-of-12 from three so far. He shot 39% a year ago and is due to breakout. 6’9” Cam Manyawu has started all three games at center, but Jirak plays more minutes in their platoon role. Manyawu was a big offensive weapon a year ago, making 101-of-160 on two-pointers (63.1%), and he’s been just as effective this year albeit at a smaller usage rate (7-of-12 in three games.) And sophomore Peyton McCollum is a capable shooter, scoring 14 points on 4-of-7 from three against Eastern Illinois.
And then there’s 7’3”, 300 pound center Andrew McKeever, who they believe is ready to begin playing a bigger role. The Saint Mary’s transfer missed the first two games due to a back injury. He had five points and five rebounds in just 10 minutes against Virginia Tech, and is an enormous human being that not many defenses can match up with size-wise.
Tip: 2:00pm
Venue: Casey’s Center, Des Moines, IA
TV: FS1
Announcers: Cory Provus 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: Creighton Bluejay Radio Network
Announcers: John Bishop and Jeff Vanderloo
In Omaha: 1620 AM, 106.9 FM
In Grand Island: 97.7 FM The Zone
Everywhere else: streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 992 as well as on the SiriusXM App
Live Stats:
Follow along on Stat Broadcast
Iowa has been solid at defending the 3-point line this season; just five teams have allowed a lower 3-point attempt rate (27.7%) and their opponents have only made 23.3% of those attempts. The result? Their opponents get just 15.5% of their points on threes, the fifth lowest mark in D1.
The Hawkeyes have won the rebounding battle in each of the first three games and are +12.3 on the boards this season
The Hawkeyes will play 15 of their first 17 games inside the Iowa state border. Iowa will play three neutral site contests — one in Sioux City and two in Des Moines. The team’s only two road trips before mid-January are trips to Xavier and Purdue
Wes Enis is just the sixth different Bluejay in the last 30 years to score 59 points or more through three games of a season. Doug McDermott and Rodney Buford, who ended their careers as the top two scorers in program history, both did it twice. The others? Ryan Kalkbrenner, Nate Funk and Trey Alexander.
Creighton has forced 63 turnovers through three games. That’s the most turnovers CU has forced in the first three games of a season since causing 67 turnovers (20-30-17) in 2008-09.
After 15 steals against UMKC, Creighton had 11 steals against Le Moyne, then 11 more against Kansas State. It’s the first time that Creighton has had 10 or more steals in three straight games since Nov. 24-Dec. 1, 2007. CU hasn’t had 10+ steals in four straight games since Nov. 18-Dec. 8, 2001 (17-13-11-11).
Iowa leads the all-time series against Creighton by a 14-12 count. The Bluejays have won the last four regular-season meetings, including an 82-59 win in Des Moines in 2011 and a 92-84 victory in Omaha in 2023.
Alan Huss played Iowa three times as a student-athlete, going 2-1. Creighton won at Iowa 75-73 in 1998, then topped the No. 23 Hawkeyes 85-76 in Omaha in 1999. No. 24 Iowa ended Huss’ career with a 69-56 win in the 2001 NCAA Tournament, a game contested in Uniondale, N.Y.
Creighton is 1-1 all-time inside Casey’s Center, which opened in 2005 as Wells Fargo Arena. The Bluejays lost 91-88 to Iowa State on Nov. 21, 2010, on a long-distance shot near the buzzer from ISU big man Jamie Vanderbeken. Diante Garrett (28) and Melvin Ejim (22) combined for 50 points for the Cyclones, to outscore the Bluejay duo of Antoine Young (21) and Kenny Lawson Jr. (20).
More recently, CU defeated Iowa 82-59 on Nov. 20, 2011. Doug McDermott led CU with 25 points and nine rebounds, and Avery Dingman provided a spark by making 4-of-4 three-pointers to score 14 points in 11 minutes off the bench.
Creighton has played a Big Ten team three times in the last decade on November 15, all in the now-defunct Gavitt Games. In 2016, they knocked off #9 Wisconsin 79-67, in 2017 they defeated #20 Northwestern 92-88, and they lost to Ohio State in 2018.
Lots of players shined in that 2016 win over Wisconsin. Marcus Foster scored 15 points and got the Jays off to a good start. Maurice Watson had a double-double with 17 points and 10 assists, while also coming up with four steals. Justin Patton played 29 (!) minutes and managed to stay out of foul trouble despite defending some of the best post players he’ll face all year, and did an excellent job preventing Nigel Hayes, Ethan Happ, and Vitto Brown from doing damage in the paint. He also scored 10 points, grabbed seven boards, and had one of the most ferocious blocks a Creighton player has swatted in the post-Echenique Era.
But Khyri Thomas shined brightest. The sophomore from Omaha did a fantastic job of executing the defensive gameplan to limit the effectiveness of Big Ten Preseason POY Nigel Hayes by double-teaming him anytime he caught the ball near the rim. Hayes scored 16 hard-earned points but took just four shots inside the arc. And if that’s all he’d contributed, it would have still been a solid effort. Oh, but he did so much more. Thomas scored 18 points, and scored from everywhere — dunks, three-pointers, jumpers, free throws. With 6:55 to play and the Jays up by a precarious five points, he stole the ball from Bronson Koenig and drove the length of the floor for a layup and a free throw. Then after a defensive stop, he nailed a corner three in transition and suddenly it was an 11 point lead.
In the final minute, he may have single-handedly sealed the win with a 10-second sequence where he grabbed a hard-fought rebound, threw an outlet pass to Patton for an uncontested dunk, then stole the ball from Ethan Happ and raced downcourt for a dunk of his own.
Here’s the full highlight reel from a memorable night at the CLink:
Iowa is favored by 4.5, and KenPom predicts a two-point win. If the Jays can continue to create live ball turnovers that they convert into points, while improving their defensive communication to prevent easy baskets at the rim, I think they will pull out a close one.
Creighton 77, Iowa 74