At tipoff on Sunday, 52 days will have elapsed between the unmitigated disaster of the first Creighton-Marquette game this season, and the rematch. To say the final 0.8 seconds of that game will live forever in infamy is probably an overstatement, but you’d be hard-pressed to meet a Bluejay fan who’s gotten over that loss. Beating the Golden Eagles, who’ve risen all the way to #10 in the polls, in the rematch won’t totally make up for it. But it would help.
Sunday’s game is of paramount importance for both teams as the regular season enters its final week. It’s Creighton’s last gasp at a headline-generating, exclamation-point win for their resume — a historically weak bubble has left the door open a crack for teams in top conferences who would otherwise have been out long ago, and the Bluejays are still showing up on the periphery on that weak bubble. They’re among the last eight teams out on dozens of bracketologists’ projections, so winning their last three games to get to 18-13 entering NYC (including a 9-9 mark in the league) with one of the wins over Marquette would make Selection Sunday interesting.
Every win from here out also helps avoid Wednesday night in NYC, although there’s a compelling argument to be made that Creighton might actually be better off playing on Wednesday — because moving up to the #6 spot means very likely playing #3 seeded St. John’s. The Red Storm are the worst matchup in the league from a personnel standpoint for the Bluejays, and they beat CU handily twice. At MSG, they’d certainly be a hefty favorite to make it three times.
As for the Golden Eagles, they’ve already clinched a top-two finish in the league and are playing for their first-ever outright Big East regular season title. They finished in a three-way tie for first in 2012-13 with Georgetown and Louisville, but were the three seed in the Big East Tourney after tiebreakers were applied; they had the two seed in the 2011-12 league tourney. With Villanova (12-4) having played one more league game than Marquette (12-3) at this point, wins in each of their last three games would clinch the title outright.
They’re led now, as they were then, by Wooden Award candidate Markus Howard. At 25.3 points per game, he leads the Big East and is sixth nationally in scoring. He has three games this season of 45 points or more, including the 53 he scored in Omaha on January 9. He also leads the Golden Eagles with 112 assists and 29 steals. Jays fans know all about Howard, his ability to be unstoppable when he heats up, and his seemingly unlimited range — all three were on display in that early January meeting, especially in overtime where he scored 14 points in five minutes.
Howard’s been terrific against everyone except the two most physical teams in the league — Providence has held him to 38 combined points in two games (2-for-16 shooting inside the arc, 4-of-11 on threes) and St. John’s has held him to 25 (1-of-16 inside the arc, 6-of-16 on threes). He’s lit up everyone else at least once, and sometimes twice.
He’s scored 63 points in two games against Villanova (including 38 in Milwaukee). He’s had 60 in two games against Butler. 59 against DePaul. 57 against Xavier. As good as those numbers are, and they’re brilliant, it’s hard not to also notice that he nearly had more in one game — 53 — against Creighton than in two games against everyone else. He’s generally been a much better shooter at home this year than on the road, too. Scary.
Brothers Sam Hauser (15.1 ppg., 6.9 rpg.) and Joey Hauser (9.9 ppg., 5.4 rpg.) are MU’s top two rebounders, and had 15 of their team’s 37 boards in the game in Omaha. Sam had a double double with 13 points and 10 boards and the game-tying three in regulation; Joey had 13 points and five boards. They’ve combined to make 111 three-pointers, and combined with Howard give Marquette the luxury of three shooters who make 40% or more of their threes.
Sophomore Theo John isn’t a huge scorer at 5.8 points per game, but he’s made his mark in the areas where Howard And The Hausers have not — he averages nearly two offensive rebounds a game (and 11.3% of the available offensive boards when he’s on the floor), and over two blocks (12.1% of opponent’s two-point attempts — ranking 11th in the country). He’s an elite shot-blocker, as the Jays found out in Omaha when he swatted four shots away, and his rim protection raises the aggressiveness of the entire defense for Marquette.
And junior Sacar Anim, who rounds out the starting five (and the primary rotation), averages 8.3 points and 3.1 rebounds a game. He fouled out of the game in Omaha after scoring seven points with five boards.
Creighton has improved a lot defensively since the first meeting, and over the last seven games they’ve held opponents to under a point per possession — 0.983 to be exact. That’s a marked improvement over the first eight league games when they were giving up 1.15 points per possession. And they’re starting to find their groove offensively again after a mid-season slump; they made over half of their shots in back-to-back games last week for the first time since November.
Are the improvements enough to notch a marquee win on the road?
- Tip: 2:00pm
- Venue: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, WI
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Aaron Goldsmith and Len Elmore
- 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
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- Markus Howard had a Marquette-record 53 points in the last meeting with Creighton, which is also the most ever scored by a Bluejay opponent in a single game. No player has scored 30 points twice in the same season against Creighton since Bradley’s Hersey Hawkins had games of 35 and 38 in 1987-88, a season in which Hawkins averaged 36.3 points per game and was named National Player of the Year.
- In the 31 seasons that have followed, there’s been 22 occasions where a player has scored 30 or more points against Creighton and faced the Bluejays later in their career. Those players, who averaged 33.09 points in the game with 30+ points, have averaged just 14.86 points in the subsequent meeting. Only three of those men even scored 19 points or more, with Evansville’s Marcus Wilson (31 & 28 in 1998-99) coming closest to posting back-to-back 30-point outings.
- Through games of Feb. 28, MU ranks first in the Big East in field goal percentage defense (.402, 23rd in nation), second in defensive rebounds per game (28.6, 18th in nation) and first in blocked shots (4.6 bpg., 37th in nation). MU has held its opponents under 40.0 percent shooting from the field (only four times total in 2017-18) in 11 of the team’s 23 victories.
- The Golden Eagles rank first in the Big East and 11th in the nation in free throw percentage (.767), thanks primarily to Markus Howard (.913, 2nd), Sam Hauser (.915, 1st) and Joey Hauser (.834, 8th), who all rank in the top-10 among Big East players in free throw percentage. Howard is currently fourth in the nation. The trio has combined to shoot 295-of-331 (89.1 percent) from the line in 2018-19, accounting for 59.4 percent of the team’s overall attempts.
- Creighton has not played an overtime game against the same opponent twice in the same campaign since Tulsa in the 1983-84 season. And they’ve not scored 100 or more against the same team twice in the same year since North Texas in the 1976-77 season
- Creighton has beaten at least one ranked team in each of the last six seasons (including 2018-19), and multiple ranked foes in each of the previous four years (but not yet in 2018-19). They’ve beaten at least one top-10 team each of the previous three seasons, and will look to extend that streak to four with a win on Sunday
- Marcus Zegarowski has made 48 of his first 104 three-pointers in a Creighton uniform, and now that he’s over 100 attempts he qualifies for the Bluejay record book. His 46.2% shooting percentage currently ranks first (though obviously with significantly fewer attempts, and hopefully three-plus seasons to go) — ahead of names like Doug McDermott, Kyle Korver, Booker Woodfox and Ethan Wragge.
Marquette leads the series with Creighton by a 55-32 margin, and has a 32-12 lead in Milwaukee. Marquette leads the series 7-4 since the teams became Big East rivals and has won the past six encounters; of note, each of the last nine meetings have been decided by eight points or less.
Greg McDermott is 2-7 against Steve Wojciechowski as a head coach, and is 4-7 in his career against Marquette.
Each of the last five games between Creighton and Marquette have been high-scoring affairs, with MU winning by scores of 102-94, 91-83, 90-86, 85-81 and 106-104. In those five meetings, Marquette and Creighton have combined to make 125 three-point attempts and shot a combined 52.2 percent of all shots (328-628) from the floor. Creighton has lost 13 straight games when allowing 90+ points, with four of those setbacks coming at the hands of the Golden Eagles.
Greg McDermott was on Sharp & Benning on 1620 this week:
Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman was on the OWH Bottom Line with Mike’l Severe:
And McDermott, Mitch Ballock, and Marcus Zegarowski talked to media at practice:
On March 3, 2012, Creighton rolled Evansville 99-71 in the semifinals of Arch Madness in front of a nearly-full house at ScottTrade Center, a majority of them Bluejay fans. From the WBR postgame:
“Though excellent throughout, their defense was downright suffocating during a 19-5 run midway through the first half, a span that featured two players making inspired plays. Gregory Echenique had two blocks in four possessions, and Josh Jones hit back-to-back threes as the Jays ran their lead out to 33-21.
Another stretch of suffocating defense came minutes later, when the Jays went on a 15-2 run over the final five minutes of the half in running out to a 49-30 lead at the break. The run was punctuated by a Will Artino dunk on a fastbreak, and after he hung on the rim for a second too long for referee Gerry Pollard’s liking, he was whistled for a technical foul. Though the call incensed the Creighton faithful, it was of little consequence to the outcome or to the momentum of the game; rather, the dunk was an exclamation point in an exhilarating first half, and a dagger to the heart of the Purple Aces.
Nine players scored baskets for Creighton in the first half, as they tried to keep their starters fresh on the second day of the tourney. “Our plan was to go to the bench early and go to the bench often,” Coach McDermott said after the game. “We felt we had a little more depth and we could keep fresh guys on Colt Ryan and Denver Holmes, and they don’t have another Colt Ryan or Denver Holmes coming off the bench to do what those guys do.”
Creighton is a team that can play with anyone, and utterly destroy teams like Evansville, when they’re making shots the way they’re capable of. They proved in their 21-2 start to the season when they repeatedly blew out teams night after night, and though over the last month they made some folks forget how good they could be when playing well, they offered a not-so-subtle reminder on Saturday.”
The Bottom Line:
No heartbreak this time — Marquette is likely to win this one by a possession or three, and it won’t likely be decided at the horn.
#10 Marquette 81, Creighton 75