Creighton’s dropped two of their last three games, falling from a chance to win a share of the regular season title to the likely ‘4’ seed in the Big East Tournament. It’s concerning, in the sense that their road through the conference tourney is a heckuva lot tougher with Connecticut as the first round opponent versus Seton Hall or Villanova. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that their season is circling the drain, especially with two games this week against teams they beat by a combined 25 points earlier this year — a perfect opportunity to get back some momentum.
A year ago, they lost two of their final three regular season games, including a 72-51 blowout at Providence and to Seton Hall on Senior Day. Then they rebounded to advance to the Big East title game — and win a game in the NCAA Tournament.
Two years ago, they lost two of their final three regular season games, too, though obviously the controversy surrounding Greg McDermott played a role. But that team also rallied to advance to the Big East title game, and advanced to the Sweet 16.
Heck, three years ago the team who steamrolled through the Big East during the second half of the conference season got boat raced by St. John’s on March 1, 91-71, before winning the final two games and the Big East title before COVID ended the season prematurely.
By late February, things can get monotonous. You’ve already done the heavy lifting in terms of preparing for an opponent before the first meeting, so the days ahead of a rematch are more about watching film and looking for a little edge here and there to make a difference — and less actual basketball work on the practice floor.
“Yesterday I thought we had a little more teeth to what we were doing,” Greg McDermott said on Tuesday. “It’s a little bit of a grind for the guys this time of year, and I thought yesterday’s energy and enthusiasm in practice was as good as it’s been in quite some time. I think they see the light at the end of the tunnel now.”
The end-of-season slumps in each of the last three years are a footnote because of what those teams accomplished in March. And the players are ready to embrace the chance to do the same.
“You kind of feel it in the air,” Baylor Scheierman said. “It definitely kind of rejuvenates you a little bit. This is why we do everything we do in the preseason, starting in June in July, it’s for this moment here. We’re really excited and thrilled for the opportunity ahead.”
To seize that opportunity, Trey Alexander said the team has to have a short-term memory and wipe the losses to Marquette and Villanova from their minds. “I feel like we kind of let that that loss against Marquette derail us in terms of getting back into the swing of things. We went into Villanova without as much energy and effort as I felt like we could have played with. That was obviously one of our more disappointing games throughout the season.”
First up is Georgetown, in what could be Patrick Ewing’s final regular season game as head coach — the Hoyas do not play this weekend. It seems like Ewing’s fate has been a foregone conclusion for months, with the Hoyas stumbling through a season where they’ve won just four games since Thanksgiving and two games in 2023, and with their season in its final days, so too must be Ewing’s tenure as head coach.
Creighton and Georgetown combined to miss 79 shots in the first meeting, with the Hoyas taking their typical buffoonish shots and the Bluejays too often falling into that trap themselves. No one was more emblematic of that than the Hoyas’ leading scorer, Primo Spears, who took an array of ill-advised midrange jumpers with his body contorted in various ways — off one foot, off spin moves, off the dribble with a hand in face. He’s made a career out of taking mid-range jumpers that look ridiculous and making them. Spears averages 15.8 points per game, and ranks second in the Big East with 5.3 assists.
Alexander did a great job defending him in that game, holding him to 10 points on 5-of-18 shooting; he had four assists and two turnovers. On the postgame radio show after that game, Alexander said that he’d picked up on Spears’ tendencies on film, and that allowed him to anticipate when those wild shots were going to go up. And when they did, he was in his pocket making the looks difficult. Of course, it’s easier to be that aggressive when you don’t have to worry about getting beat off the dribble — if Spears managed to get around him off the dribble, he’d have to deal with Ryan Kalkbrenner.
LSU transfer Brandon Murray averages 14.1 points per game, while boomerang transfer Qudus Wahab is averaging 9.9 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in his return to the Hoyas. It was Wahab who had the most success against the Jays in the first game with 14 points (on 6-of-9 shooting), seven rebounds and three steals. But he’s questionable for tonight with an illness — Wahab has missed three of the last five games and did not play against Providence on Sunday.
The Jays 63-53 win in the first meeting ranks as one of the ugliest wins in recent memory, as Georgetown’s aggressive help-side defense confused them at the outset. And once they adjusted to it, the Jays fell into the trap of taking the same kinds of dumb shots Georgetown was taking. It was much closer than it should have been. So while CU is 18.5 point favorites in the rematch, they’re not taking anything for granted.
“I feel like there’s a lot of games we’ve been favored in that we’ve lost this year,” Alexander said, “so we can’t really take that into terms of it just putting us in the ‘W’ column. We’re good enough to beat anybody in the country, but if we don’t come to play we could lose to anybody.”
It’s officially Senior Night for just one player — Scheierman — but it’s not official that this is his last home game as a Bluejay. He has one year of eligibility remaining because of the NCAA’s free COVID season, and he hasn’t decided whether or not he’ll use it.
“I’m going through the process (tonight) just in case, you know, it is my last game,” Scheierman said. “but there’s been no official decision on what I’m going to do.”
As for the real question on many Bluejay fans’ minds — whether Scheierman’s trademark headband will return against Georgetown after a two-game absence that coincided with their two-game losing streak — Scheierman said it will. Those were the first two games he’s gone headband-less since his freshman season at South Dakota State.
“It’s hilarious,” he told the media on Tuesday. “When I took it off at St. John’s, I took it off for like the last minute of the game and people acted like I had it off the whole game. It was unreal. It’s so funny.”
Then he added, tongue-in-cheek, “I got a fresh fade so I kind of wanted to show it off a little bit, you know what I’m saying?”
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler 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
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Tyler Clement
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 387 and on SXM app channel 977
- Georgetown Radio: 99.1 FM in the DC area
- Announcer: Rich Chvotkin
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 386
The Hoyas enter Wednesday’s game with a 7-23 record and a 2-17 mark in Big East play after falling to then-No. 20/18 Providence on Sunday at home. Primo Spears and Jay Heath combined for 45 points, including a combined 30 in the second half. Spears led the squad with 26 points on 10-of-19 shooting and Heath added 19 points on a 7-for-13 performance from the floor. Bradley Ezewiro led the Hoyas on the glass grabbing eight rebounds while Brandon Murray tallied five assists and Akok Akok added four blocks.
The backcourt of Brandon Murray, Primo Spears and Jay Heath has accounted for 51.3% of the team’s points this year (1086 of 2118).
Akok Akok leads the team with 2.0 blocks per game, and is second in rebounds with 6.3 boards per game. He’s shouldered a bigger load in Wahab’s absence, though sophomore Bradley Ezewiro (6’9″, 255 pounds) has been the biggest beneficiary — he’s started the last five games, including the two that Wahab has played in. Ezewiro had a monster game against Providence, scoring 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting.
In 22 all-time meetings against the Hoyas, Creighton is 11-2 when scoring 74 points or more against Georgetown, but 2-7 when scoring 73 points or less. The Bluejays average 81.15 points in the 13 triumphs, but 61.11 points per game in the nine setbacks. That’s especially relevant this year, as Creighton is sixth in the Big East (and 84th nationally) with 75.8 points per game this season, and Georgetown is 11th in the Big East in scoring defense (334th nationally), allowing 77.4 points per contest.
Creighton is 24-3 in the last 27 years in its final home game of the regular-season, losing only in 2002 to Drake (when it had no seniors), in 2015 in the final seconds to Xavier, and in 2022 to Seton Hall by five points.
Regardless of Georgetown’s result in its regular-season finale vs. Creighton on Wednesday, the Hoyas will be the No. 11 seed in next week’s Big East Tournament. Creighton can technically still be the third, fourth or fifth seed depending on how it (and others) perform in the final week of the season, though the #4 seed is most likely. A top-five seed ensures that Creighton will not play in the First Round of the tournament next Wednesday, and cannot play until 1:30 p.m. Central at the earliest on Thursday.
Creighton is 13-9 all-time against Georgetown and has won 10 of the last 13 meetings in the series. Creighton is 7-2 in Omaha against the Hoyas all-time.
Each of the last six Bluejay wins, and each of the last five meetings regardless of victor, have been decided by double-digits.
15 years ago today, on March 1, 2008, Creighton beat Bradley 111-110 in a double-overtime thriller that remains the most combined points in a game in CU history — one of the wildest games they’ve played in recent memory, providing the most unlikely member of the 40-point club in Cavel Witter.
Two weeks later, they won another thriller over Rhode Island in the NIT.
The Bottom Line:
ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton an astounding 97.7% chance of victory, while Vegas oddsmakers have the Jays as 18.5 point favorites. Somehow KenPom is even more optimistic, predicting a 20-point win (83-63).
It feels like anything less than that, given the circumstances surrounding these two teams, would be a disappointment. The Jays will roll in this one.
Creighton 85, Georgetown 63