After spending the last month on the NCAA Tournament bubble, Creighton’s bubble was burst on Thursday in NYC when they dropped a Big East quarterfinal to Xavier 63-61. Their #2 seed in the NIT is a pretty good indicator that they were indeed among the last handful of teams on the outside looking in, which makes that loss — and others like it since the first of the year — all that much more frustrating. They were *close* but *not quite* in so many respects all season. So close to winning five more Big East games than they did. So close to beating Xavier in the quarterfinals. So close to making the NCAA Tourney in a season where hardly anyone expected that to be the case.
So close. Not quite.
The NIT is viewed by some of the more cynical Bluejay fans as an unexciting consolation prize and a disappointment because of what it isn’t — namely, the NCAA Tournament — but given the history of Greg McDermott’s teams using secondary tournaments as a springboard to greater things, I couldn’t disagree with that cynical viewpoint more strongly.
There was the 2011 CBI where, after being a slow, methodical, defensive-first team in Greg McDermott’s first season, they opened things up in the CBI and laid the groundwork for the offensive juggernaut that would be unleashed the next three years. Then in the 2016 NIT, the three extra games were instrumental in the emergence of Khyri Thomas as a confident, transcendent defensive stopper the following winter after an up-and-down freshman campaign — he was a role player through most of Big East play, and played a total of two minutes (!) in their Big East Tournament loss to Seton Hall. The next week, he turned in a 15-point, 8-rebound, 3-steal game against Alabama, a 13-point, 4-rebound, 2-assist game against Wagner, and there was no looking back.
The NIT could be a disappointment if it’s treated that way by the team, but if it’s treated as an opportunity to end the season on a better note after last week’s Big East tourney, we might look back on it the way we look back on the 2011 CBI and 2016 NIT — a vital ingredient in the growth of a young team.
And with a #2 seed, the opportunity to make a run will begin on their home floor. The Bluejays will open against Porter Moser’s Loyola-Chicago Ramblers, and if they win, another home game awaits against the winner of Memphis and San Diego.
Loyola was the regular season co-champs of the Missouri Valley a year after their Cinderella run to the Final Four as a #11 seed in the NCAA’s, tying Darian DeVries’ Drake Bulldogs for the MVC title. But both Loyola and Drake were upset in Arch Madness, sending #5 seed Bradley to the NCAA’s with the league’s auto bid, #2 seed Drake to the CIT, and #1 seed Loyola to the NIT with the auto-bid for regular season champs who fail to win their conference tournament.
The Ramblers returned three starters from that Final Four squad, including 2017-18 MVC Player of the Year Clayton Custer and the guy who won that award this year, Marques Townes, and had massive expectations. They were picked to win the MVC in the preseason poll, were ranked #26 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll (as the first team in the “others receiving votes” list) and #27 in the preseason Coaches Poll, and were expected to make a triumphant return to the NCAA’s.
Instead, they fell victim to a fate the Bluejays know all too well from their days in the Valley — the Ramblers had trouble getting quality opponents in the non-conference, failed to beat the few good teams they could get on the schedule, and entered MVC play needing to secure the auto bid to go dancing. They lost 60-58 to fellow NIT qualifier Furman. They lost at home to a Nevada team that spent most of the season as the darling of the non-power conference world. They lost a neutral-floor game against a top-25 Maryland squad. They lost to a pair of teams who are generally better than they wound up being (St. Joseph’s and Boston College). Their wins came against a litany of 200+ Q3 and Q4 teams.
And so when Bradley pulled the upset on Semifinal Saturday in St. Louis, it was off to the NIT for the Ramblers. Injuries played a role, too; 6’4″ sophomore Lucas Williamson missed 18 games with a broken hand, and made 41% of his threes in the games he played in (25-of-61). Two other contributors missed time. And a young bench led to Moser riding his veterans hard — 75% of their minutes were played by the starting five. Those five are pretty darn good though.
Senior guard Marques Townes led the Ramblers in scoring at 15.6 points per game and assists at 3.5 per contest this season. At 6’4″, 205 Townes has the quickness to get to the rim, and the size and strength to finish when he gets there. Over 40% of his shot attempts this year have come at the rim; two-thirds of them came off a dribble drive. And he made nearly 65% on those shots. He has range, too, hitting on 36% of his threes (and 41% in MVC play).
Fellow senior Clayton Custer is second on the team behind Townes at 2.7 assists per game, averages 11.2 points per game and leads the team in steals with 37. Well over half of his shots are three-pointers (he makes 38%), and eight of every ten shots he takes are jumpers from at least 10 feet away from the hoop. In other words, he’s not a slasher — that’s Townes’ forte — but a good spot-up shooter with an understanding of their offense that allows him to create opportunities for his teammates.
Sophomore big man Cameron Krutwig, who stands at 6-foot-9 and weighs in 255 pounds, adds 14.7 points per game to go along with team-highs in rebounding (7.3), blocked shots (0.9), and field-goal percentage (63.2%). He’s a big dude. He shoots well over 60% from the floor. He’s a really good passer and creates shots for teammates when defenses collapse on him or throw a double-team at him. And he’ll be part of the most fascinating individual matchup in this game — how will the Jays defend him? He’s probably too big for Martin Krampelj to guards straight-up on the block. And if you send a double-team his way, he’ll kick it to a driving Townes or an open Custer behind the arc.
With Williamson back in the lineup after his injury, he makes the Ramblers harder to defend by giving them another three-point threat. He’s also their best one-on-one defender with the size and length to disrupt an opponent’s best wing player. Throw in freshman Cooper Kaifes, who’s become their best three-point shooter over the course of the season (46.9%, good for second-best among all MVC players this season — on 113 attempts) and suddenly the full-strength Ramblers start to resemble the team so many thought would run away with the MVC.
There aren’t many teams in America who play slower than Loyola. Their adjusted tempo ranks 348 out of 353, and their average possession length is 19.0 seconds, which also ranks 348th. They’re patient, they wait for the defense to make a mistake, and then they take advantage. And they crash the glass when they have the ball — their offensive rebound percentage of 21.8% ranks *number one* in all of Division 1. In that way, they resemble their coach. What they give up in size, they make up for in desire, intensity and a willingness to battle.
Defensively, they get back quickly and take away transition opportunities — the tradeoff is that they give up more offensive rebounds than all but five teams in the country, which makes sense — and force opponents to settle into the kind of slow, plodding game they prefer. Just 17.7% of opponents’ shots have come in transition, seventh-fewest nationally.
And they’re a bit turnover prone, coughing up the ball on 18.7% of their possessions which is right at the D1 average. They’ve made up for it by forcing a turnover on 20.5% of opponent’s possessions.
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: ESPNU
- Announcers: Jordan Bernfield and Kevin Lehman
- In Omaha: Cox channel 220 (SD), 1220 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 605 (SD), 1605 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: Check your local listings
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 208, Dish Network channel 141
- Streaming on WatchESPN
- Radio: 1620AM and 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
- Audio stream NOT available online due to NIT restrictions
- For Cord Cutters:
- The Ramblers have posted back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since 1983-84 (20-9) and 1984-85 (27-6) and have won 20+ games three times in the last five years. Under eighth-year head coach Porter Moser, Loyola has won the College Basketball Invitational (2015), reached the NCAA Final Four (2018) and now made a NIT appearance (2019). Moser is 9-1 (.900) in postseason play at Loyola.
- The Ramblers are making their first back-to-back postseason appearances since 1963 and 1964, when they reached the NCAA Tournament in consecutive campaigns.
- This is their fifth appearance in the NIT and first since 1980. The Ramblers are 6-4 (.600) all-time in NIT competition, and finished as the runner-up twice: falling to Long Island in the championship game in 1939, and to San Francisco in 1949.
- A win would give Creighton at least one win in nine of its last 11 postseason trips. It would also improve Creighton to 8-11 all-time in the NIT, including a 6-5 record at home, and improve Greg McDermott to 10-8 in the postseason at Creighton, and 206-108 overall at CU.
- McDermott’s nine postseason wins at Creighton are the most in school history, two more than Dana Altman’s seven. McDermott (9-8) is one of two coaches in program history with a winning record in postseason play, joining Eddie Sutton (2-1).
- Creighton is 14-14 against teams that qualified for the postseason, including a 3-10 mark against NCAA qualifiers (wins over Marquette, Georgia State and Montana), a 7-4 mark against NIT qualifiers (2-0 vs. Georgetown and Providence, 1-0 vs. Clemson, 1-1 vs. Butler, 1-2 vs. Xavier and 0-1 vs. Nebraska), a 2-0 record (both vs. DePaul) against CBI clubs, and a 2-0 record (Green Bay, East Tennessee State) against CIT qualifiers.
Loyola-Chicago replaced the Bluejays in the MVC after CU joined the Big East Conference prior to the 2013-14 season; the Ramblers own a 12-6 advantage in 18 previous meetings. The teams have met just twice since 1982; Creighton topped the Ramblers, 78-58, in a 2010 BracketBusters game in Omaha, and when CU finally scheduled the required return game in 2015, Loyola won 68-65. From the Morning After:
Three days after losing to Arizona State in the final minute when Cole Huff missed two free throws that would have tied the game, the Jays lost in the final minute to Loyola when Khyri Thomas missed two free throws that would have tied it. Unlike the loss to ASU, this one wasn’t lost in the final minute, or even in the second half. This one was lost long before that. It was lost in the first 15 minutes of the game, when they allowed Loyola to dictate the tempo, slow down the game, and turn it into a low-possession game favoring the Ramblers. They made just two of their first 18 shots, and as the misses piled up, their frustration did as well, and their ball movement disappeared, their shot selection got progressively worse, and the bad vibes began to snowball on them.
The game came down to the final minute once again, a close game in need of a play or two to close it out. They began the final three minutes down 59-51, and then Thomas hit a three and a driving layup to make it 59-56. The teams traded three-pointers on the next two possessions to make it 62-59, then traded two Loyola free throws for a Mo Watson drive to the rim. At 64-61, Loyola was fouled and made one of two; Groselle hit a bucket at the rim to make it 65-63, and then the Jays stole the inbounds pass, Thomas went up for a shot to tie the game, and was fouled.
You know the rest. He missed both free throws, then Zierden missed one last desperation shot, and the comeback ended just short.
Creighton’s played just one game on March 19 — a 87-54 mismatch in the second round of the 2015 NIT against Wagner. Geoff Groselle had 18 points and 9 points on 7-7 shooting, numbers that would have been even larger had he played longer than 20 minutes. He didn’t need to with his team rolling, which was probably a good thing for Wagner and for humanity, as the sight of the 7’0″ Groselle laying in baskets with ease and tipping out rebounds over players four and five inches shorter than him was almost unfair.
Here’s some of what we wrote in the aftermath:
“Eighth-seeded Wagner jumped out to an early double-digit lead at top seed St. Bonaventure in the first round, and then held on to win despite a furious rally by the Bonnies. Having watched that, Creighton was clearly determined not to allow a sequel, and they succeeded. Their defense forced turnovers on four of Wagner’s first five possessions, and the Jays took a 10-3 lead after four minutes as a result. Keying that early surge? Khyri Thomas, who continues to flourish in the NIT. Four of his team’s first 10 points belonged to Thomas, punctuated by a steal and transition dunk.
With the defense having set a tone, Creighton went to work exploiting their massive height advantage in the paint. They pounded the ball into the post on nearly every single possession, with Geoff Groselle and Zach Hanson taking one-third of the Bluejays shot attempts in the first half and scoring exactly half of their team’s points. Wagner had no player taller than 6’8″, and when Groselle would catch the ball in the post and hold it above his head before shooting, they had no recourse to stop him or the ball and everybody in the building knew it. He was perfect on seven shot attempts as a result. Hanson, on the other hand, used a variety of moves to back down the smaller defenders and shoot over them with jump shots, and had already scored a career-high 14 points at halftime.
Meanwhile, the Bluejay defense continued to stifle Wagner, and not only held them to six made field goals in the first half, but just three offensive rebounds, meaning they went one-and-done nearly every possession. Their 21-point halftime lead was no fluke. The first half was as complete and thorough a domination as we’ve seen from the Bluejays all year long, and that wasn’t even the most impressive thing. A team that has occasionally (okay, frequently) eased up with big leads and allowed opponents back into games showed a killer instinct and put the game away early in the second half. The lead never shrunk to less than 17 points, and they took their largest lead of the day with their final points — two free throws from Toby Hegner that gave them a 33-point lead and an 87-54 win.
Creighton has now had back-to-back stellar defensive games in the NIT, while continuing to score at their usual mid-70s pace, and the result unsurprisingly has been two blowout wins. The Bluejays held Alabama to 54 points and 28.3% shooting in the first round, and held Wagner to 27.9% shooting from the field and 27.3% from behind the arc while giving up an identical 54 points. Those two defensive performances have moved them up to 39th overall in adjusted defense according to KemPom, which is something I’m not sure many would have believed in December.”
In looking back at the pregame write-ups before the 2016 NIT win over Alabama, I learned that this montage from Rocky IV appeared in this spot of the Primer. As you know, I’m not superstitious AT ALL (read: I very much am!) so we’re running with it again. Besides, you can’t beat a good montage set to a Robert Tepper song.
The Bottom Line:
Vegas favors the Jays by 9. KenPom favors the Jays by 9. ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton an 85% chance of winning. That seems too much. CU wins, but with Loyola’s pace, it’s going to be tough to create that much separation.
Creighton 68, Loyola 61
