After Thursday’s 77-60 win over Akron, Greg McDermott is 10-8 as Creighton’s head coach in the NCAA Tournament, winning at least one game in seven of the nine seasons he’s taken the Jays to the big dance — including each of the last four seasons. But to get to his third Sweet 16 in four years, he’ll need to get past his predecessor on the CU bench, as Dana Altman’s Oregon Ducks await.
“I got great feelings about Creighton. As I said yesterday: You can leave a place, but that doesn’t mean you still don’t love the place,” Altman reminisced. “I’ve had 14 great years at Oregon, and I love this place. When I’m done, l’ll feel the same way about Oregon as I do about Creighton. I’m the luckiest – I’ve coached 30 years at two great schools and been supported and given everything we need to try to be successful. I’m so happy for Greg (McDermott) and Creighton and the people that I know there. Greg has done a tremendous job. They’ve got a tremendous program. I’m so happy for ’em. I follow ’em; my family’s all back in Nebraska. I think Oregon’s 1, but Creighton’s 1A. There’s not much separation. It’s bittersweet, because only one of us is gonna move on.”
Meanwhile, McDermott joked that his old boss Bruce Rasmussen, who hired both Altman and McDermott, gave him one directive heading into this one:
“He made it clear…I’m supposed to kick Oregon’s ass.”
This Oregon team isn’t one of Altman’s best in Eugene, but despite being plagued by injuries to key players and a roster reduced to just eight scholarship players, they’ve gotten better as the season went along and are playing their best basketball of the season at the right time.
They finished fourth in the Pac-12, stumbling into the conference tourney by losing three of their last five. They were a team headed to the NIT, perhaps. Certainly not here. Then Altman summoned some of his famous conference tourney mojo and they ripped off three wins in three days, dispatching with fifth-place UCLA, third-place Colorado and regular season champion Arizona to claim the auto bid to the NCAA Tourney.
Once there, they beat #6 seed South Carolina by 14, moving Altman’s record in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to 7-0 as head coach at Oregon.
It’s a storyline Creighton fans know quite well, because they lived it for 16 seasons — the reputation for Dana Altman-coached teams getting better as the season progresses and peaking in March is well-deserved, and rose to prominence in Omaha as head coach of the Jays. He won 327 games as head coach at CU, a mark Greg McDermott could eclipse this season if the team keeps advancing in this tourney — he currently sits at 324 wins.
Usually by this point in the season, a team’s stats and metrics tell a pretty full story; 30+ games is about as big of a sample size as it gets in college hoops. But because of all their injury problems, Oregon is a bit tougher to analyze. They’re a different, and significantly better, team with 6’11” N’Faly Dante in the middle than they were without. He missed 14 of the first 15 games, or almost half the season, due to injury.
Since his return, Dante leads the Ducks with 16.5 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 1.7 steals per game. He’s made 70.5% of his shot attempts (140-of-200), all of them inside the arc, the 13th best mark in D1.
Over the last seven games? He’s averaging 19.9 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.6 steals, 2.0 blocks and 1.9 assists while shooting an unreal 84.1% from the field. In the PAC-12 tourney, he made 25-of-30 shots and scored 61 points, including a perfect 12-of-12 performance in the title game. He had 23 points on 7-of-9 shooting in the win over South Carolina.
“He’s a really, really good player; really big, really physical, good touch around the rim,” Ryan Kalkbrenner said. “We definitely have to be locked in and prepared for this team, but I think if we do what Mac asks us to do and do the game plan we put out there, I think we’ve got a good chance.”
McDermott said he thinks Oregon is vastly under-seeded because of how much better the Ducks are with Dante on the floor.
“If Dana had this group of guys available all season long, he wouldn’t have needed to play in the PAC-12 Tournament to win it to get in the NCAA Tournament, he would have had a very good seed,” McDermott said. “They’re playing great basketball right now. Dante impacts the game on both ends of the floor. He’s very physical at the rim offensively, and then he’s a tremendous rim protector on the other end, and his physicality is obviously going to be a problem for us. When he’s on the floor, he just commands so much attention on the offensive end because you can’t guard him one-on-one. We’ve got one of the best defenders in the country and I’m not sure we can guard him one-on-one.”
6’4” sixth-year senior guard Jermaine Cousinard had the performance of the tourney so far with 40 points against South Carolina, and would be at the top of the scouting report on any other team. The scoring came from everywhere: he was 9-of-13 on twos, 5-of-9 on threes and 7-of-7 from the line.
It’s a bit of an outlier, but with the volume of shots he takes, he’s had his share of giant games. He hung 39 on Arizona on March 2, making 10-of-15 from the floor. He also had a combined 44 in three games of the PAC-12 tourney, shooting 0-of-5 from three against both UCLA and Colorado. For the tourney, he shot 12-of-37 inside the arc (32.4%) and 4-of-18 on threes (22.2%). Those are far closer to his season averages than what he did to South Carolina; he’s shooting just 40% from the field and 33.7% from three for the year.
Couisnard has taken 27.6% of the team’s shots while he’s been on the floor; when he’s hot, he can go off for 40. When he’s not? He still scores 15-20, but might take 20 shots to get there. And the key to that is generally to stop his dribble — he shoots 51.9% on shots at or near the rim, and those comprise 32.9% of his total shots. Force him into a midrange jumper, and his shooting percentage drops all the way to 37.8%. Make him take threes, and it drops even further to 34.2%.
“I don’t think you ever want to overreact to a crazy outstanding game by any player,” McDermott said. “But he scored at every level (Thursday), and we have to make sure that, the best we can, we get him to take the shots that we want him to take, not the shots that he wants to take. And that sounds easy in theory; it’s very difficult because of his size and strength and the pace that he plays with. When he’s making 3-point shots at a level like that, it’s very problematic because of all the other things that he can do.”
To that end, Dante’s presence may actually help Creighton’s defense somewhat. He has not attempted a single three-pointer all year, and 71.4% of his shots come at the rim. Kalkbrenner is not going to be chasing him all over the halfcourt, meaning he’ll be able to stay home and contest shots at the rim from Oregon’s guards.
Creighton’s favored by a handful because while Dante is brilliant he will need to contend with a great defensive center, and Couisnard is a great scorer but often has to do it alone from the guard spot — and he’s streaky. If he has an off night, it’s tougher for Oregon to win. Their secondary scorers are not as explosive. Creighton has more avenues to victory, because they have a more diverse offense with more ways to score. The odds reflect that probability.
Tip: 8:40pm Omaha time
Venue: PPG Paints Arena, Pittsburgh, PA
TV: TBS
Announcers: Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas and Evan Washburn
In Omaha: Cox channel 27/1027
Satellite: DirecTV channel 247, Dish Network channel 139
Streaming at http://ncaa.com/marchmadnesslive
Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
Announcers: John Bishop and Nick Bahe
Streaming on The Varsity Network app, Powered by Learfield
National Radio: Westwood One
Announcers: Scott Graham and Jordan Cornette
Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 210 or 203, and on the SXM App
Streaming at WestwoodOneSports.com/Madness
Jermaine Couisnard joined Steph Curry and Wally Szczerbiak as the only players to score 40+ as a double digit seed with his 40-piece on Thursday. And he became the first player since Hersey Hawkins (Bradley, 1988) to score 40+ with five or more assists in an NCAA Tournament game.
Jackson Shelstad, a 6’0″ freshman, has scored 10 or more points in eight straight games, adding 2.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists over that span. Jadrian Tracey, a 6’5″ wing, is averaging 7.6 points while shooting 36.6% from three-point range. And Kwame Evans Jr., a 6’9″ freshman, rounds out the starting lineup and averages 7.5 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.
Dana Altman became the 24th coach in DI history to reach 750 wins on February 28, and the fifth active coach with 750 or more. Oregon has won 67 games in March under Coach Altman. Only Kansas (69) has won more games in March since 2011.
Ryan Kalkbrenner added to his many Creighton records in NCAA Tournament play on Thursday. His 47 field goals are two more than the previous mark held by Doug McDermott. His 11 blocked shots are a program record, four more than Chad Gallagher’s seven. His nine games played in are two more than Shereef Mitchell and Trey Alexander. His seven wins played in are two more than both Mitchell and Alexander as well. He also joined Kyle Korver’s program record by playing in a fourth NCAA Tournament.
Creighton had no steals on Thursday vs. Akron, just the fourth time in 14 seasons under Greg McDermott it did not record a steal. The last time that happened was Jan. 17, 2015 vs. Providence. Oddly, Creighton has not recorded a steal in either of its two NCAA Tournament wins in program history as a No. 3 seed, as that was also true exactly 10 years earlier on March 21, 2014 when the Jays beat Louisiana-Lafayette.
This will be the first time the Jays have faced a Pac-12 school in the NCAA Tournament since it met Washington State in the West Regional Semifinals, 83 years ago Thursday. Back then, the Pac-12 was referred to as the Pacific Coast Conference.
Creighton is 1-3 all-time against Oregon, with the teams last meeting in the best-of-3 finals of the College Basketball Invitational in 2010. Creighton won Game 1 84-70 in Omaha before the series shifted to Eugene, where the Ducks won game two 71-58, then won the title 71-69 on a basket by E.J. Singler with 2.0 seconds left. That game-winner followed a backcourt violation by Antoine Young, made possible by what could charitably be called “camouflaged” (or as Rob Anderson not-so-subtly put it in the game notes for today’s game, “non-existent”) half-court line on the Matthew Knight Arena floor. It’s been a sore spot among Creighton fans ever since.
And for Antoine Young, too, who tweeted out after the matchup was set on Thursday night, “I love coach Altman but I have no love lost about that damn invisible line on the court ! Roll Damn Jays !!!”
If you don’t remember that game and think we’re exaggerating, watch the clip for yourself. WBR’s Matt DeMarinis dug into the archives and found the actual play in Synergy’s database. It’s somehow even worse than I remember.
Prior to the 2011 CBI, Oregon won the only previous meeting with Creighton, 75-64 on Dec. 26, 1974 in Portland, Ore. The Ducks were ranked 19th at the time, and the contest was played as part of the Far West Classic.
The last time Creighton played on March 23 also came as a three-seed against an opponent wearing green and yellow, but the less we speak of that 85-55 loss to Baylor, the better.
So let’s go back three years prior to the previous time the Jays played on March 23: a 82-64 win over UCF that advanced the Jays into the aforementioned CBI Finals against Oregon. Thanks to a 10-0 run to open the game, the outcome was rarely in doubt; turnovers on each of UCF’s first two possessions were converted into two 3-pointers by Doug McDermott, and the lead would eventually stretch to 15-2 before the first media timeout. CU eventually built an 82-52 lead before UCF scored the game’s final 12 points to make the score appear a bit closer.
It’s a game better remembered, if at all, because UCF’s leading scorer was one Marcus Jordan, whose dad Michael was a pretty decent player in his day. Rumors that the six-time NBA champ and GOAT might be in attendance watching from a suite swirled around campus the day of the game; that didn’t happen, of course, and Jordan had a forgettable game, scoring nine points on nine shots with four turnovers.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton is favored by 5.5 in Vegas, and by six on KenPom with 70% odds of victory. ESPN’s BPI is even more confident, giving Creighton an 84.5% chance of advancing.