The Qwest/CenturyLink/CHI Health Center record for most points scored in a game by a Creighton opponent is 43 by Evansville’s Colt Ryan on Senior Night, February 21, 2012. He also holds the record for most field goals by an opponent, with 17 in that same game. Another Valley nemesis, Illinois State’s Osiris Eldridge, holds the record for most three-pointers made by an opponent at the arena with 8 on January 1, 2007. And the last time a Bluejay opponent scored 40+ at any venue was 41 by Seton Hall’s Khadeen Carrington on February 15, 2017.
We mention this at the offset because Wednesday night, #21 Marquette and their ridiculously high-scoring guard Markus Howard come to Omaha. Not only has Howard scored 37+ points three times this year — and 45 points on two separate occasions! — he’s now facing a much-maligned Bluejay defense prone to surrendering big nights to perimeter-oriented guards. Someone shoot a text to Colt Ryan and tell him that he should tune into CBSSN Wednesday night; his arena record is in danger of falling.
15 games into the season, Creighton’s defensive efficiency according to KenPom’s data ranks #121. They’re dead last in the Big East in that category, allowing 110.5 points per 100 possessions through two conference games (thanks to that dreadful Butler game). They’re last or second to last in the Big East in all the traditional categories, too — field goal percentage (teams shoot 45.9% against them), three-point percentage (teams make 34.9% against them), and points allowed (74.6 points). And now they’re facing a Marquette team primed to torch them both from behind the arc, where Creighton has oddly been pretty decent defensively, and in the paint, where Creighton has been just short of historically terrible. That’s problematic.
For the season, Howard is averaging a Big East-best 24.0 points per game, and also leads the team in assists (63) and steals (17). Over half of his team-high 234 shot attempts have been from behind the perimeter; he’s made an absurd 42.1% of them. Also absurd: that percentage is only the third highest on his own team (Sam and Joey Hauser are both better, percentage wise). And his shooting range is…well…ALL CAPS ABSURD. Deadspin wrote of him earlier this week that “Howard Will Shoot Over Anyone, From Anywhere.”
Howard can also put the ball on the floor and drive, which is where he might do more damage against a Bluejay defense that hasn’t really been able to stop the dribble all season. Kamar Baldwin scored nearly at will on Saturday inside the arc, and while he’s a great scorer, he’s no Markus Howard.
Even more concerning for the Bluejays is this: in losing two games to Marquette a year ago, Howard didn’t even really do that much damage and left the first game early due to a minor injury. CU’s defense was torched by other players, most of whom are still around to torment them. Sam Hauser scored 33 points and grabbed 17 rebounds in the two games, making 12-of-24 from the field. Sacar Anim scored 26 points in Omaha on 11-of-16 shooting; he scored zero in Milwaukee but the memories of those 26 in Omaha linger. But I feel like we’re getting overly pessimistic here, bordering on straight-up negativity, so let’s try to find some silver linings before this Primer becomes too much of a chore to read.
Silver lining: Andrew Rowsey is gone, taking with him the 47 points he hung on the Jays in two games a year ago. And without Rowsey, a reliable secondary scoring option has yet to emerge. That’s left Marquette in a heap of trouble on nights when Howard doesn’t score, such as last week at St. John’s when he was 2-for-15 from the floor. There’s capable options, but none they can consistently rely on, and none that take anywhere close to the number of shots Howard does. Howard uses 33% of his team’s possessions, while the next-closest player on their roster, Sam Hauser, uses 18.9%. That’s the biggest drop-off between first and second scoring options on any major conference team this season.
Obligatory Dark Cloud: Hauser has a brother named Joey who is essentially a clone. Sam is 6’8″, 225. Joey is 6’9″, 230. Sam shoots 55% on two-pointers (33-of-60). Joey shoots 53.3% on those shots with a nearly identical line (32-of-60). Sam has made 39.1% of his threes (33-of-92). Joey has made 47.5% of them (19-of-40). They both shoot north of 80% from the line (Sam is 84%, Joey is 82.2%. And Sam averages 6.8 rebounds per game; Joey averages 6.1. As if being tormented by one Hauser wasn’t enough, now there’s TWO!
Silver Lining Part 2: Ed Morrow plays significant minutes for Marquette. The same Ed Morrow who scored four combined points in two losses to the Jays while he was at Nebraska, despite scoring a lot more than that against everyone else.
Dark Cloud II — This Time It’s Not Dark Cloud I!: Steve Wojciechowski has mentioned time after time this year that the Golden Eagles are a paint-based offense, not a perimeter-based team as they were the past couple of seasons. Creighton’s defense inside has left a lot to be desired, they don’t have a true rim protector on the roster, and now they won’t have Jacob Epperson the rest of the season.
Silver Lining III: Marquette has been a markedly different team on the road this season than they’ve been at home. Their effective field goal percentage of 53.3% ranks 85th in the country, but on the road, their eFG is a pedestrian 48.0%. They grab fewer offensive rebounds (30.2% of misses at home, and under 25% on the road), and they shoot a lot fewer free throws (FTA/FGA is 33.6% overall, and 25% on the road). Further, they’ve committed a lot more fouls on the road than they have at home. It’s little wonder they’ve been blown out in two of their three road games — a 96-73 loss at Indiana and a 89-69 loss at St. John’s — and had the tables turned on them in the third, with Kansas eliminating a nine-point halftime lead with a 22-6 run to begin the second half.
Creighton can certainly beat the #21 ranked Golden Eagles. Vegas thinks so and pegs the Jays as a three-point favorite. KenPom thinks so, too, and has the same three-point spread. But they’ll have to shoot the ball really well for that to happen; expecting “Road Marquette” to show up against their defense is probably too much to hope for.
- Tip: 6:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: CBSSN
- Announcers: Brent Stover and Bob Wenzel
- In Omaha: Cox channel 234 (SD), 1234 (HD); CenturyLink Prism channel 643 (SD), 1643 (HD)
- Outside Omaha: CBSSN Channel Finder
- Satellite: DirecTV channel 221; Dish Network channel 158
- Streaming info
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- For Cord Cutters:
- Sacar Anim collected his best effort of the season thus far in the win over Xavier on Sunday, posting season highs in points (20) and rebounds (7). Anim, who finished the game 9-of-14 from the floor, hadn’t reached double figures in points in the previous five games and had scored only 19 total points combined in the team’s last four outings.
- Freshman forward Joey Hauser was inserted into the starting lineup on Nov. 17. He’s reached double figures in 9 of 15 games and is currently contributing 10.5 points and 6.1 rebounds per game while shooting 51.0 percent from the floor overall and 47.5 percent from behind the 3-point line. He and his brother Sam became the second pair of brothers ever to start in a Big East game. The first sibling duo to do that? Wally and Henry Ellenson for Marquette in 2015-16.
- The Golden Eagles are ranked first in the Big East and 49th in the nation in free throw percentage (.744). Marquette’s overall success at the line as a team is primarily thanks to Markus Howard (.902, 1st in the league and 17th in nation), Joey Hauser (.822, 4th in the league) and Sam Hauser (.848). The trio has combined to shoot 148-of-172 (86.0 percent) from the line in 2018-19, accounting for 56.4 percent of the team’s overall attempts.
- Creighton ranks as one of the highest scoring teams in the nation this year despite not making many trips to the foul line thus far. The Bluejays have made 176 three-pointers this season, compared to 171 free throws.
- Each of the last four games between Creighton and Marquette have been high-scoring affairs, with MU winning by scores of 102-94, 91-83, 90-86 and 85-81. In those four meetings, Marquette and Creighton have combined to make 92 three-point attempts and shot a combined 51.9 percent of all shots (262-504) from the floor. Creighton has lost 11 straight games when allowing 90+ points, with three of those setbacks coming at the hands of the Golden Eagles.
- Creighton leads the Big East in field goal percentage (.516), three-point field goal percentage (.436) and three-point field goals made (176), while Marquette is first in field goal percentage defense (.392), three-point field goal percentage defense (.297) and three-pointers allowed (92). The Golden Eagles are coming off a performance on Sunday where they held Xavier to 51 points and season-lows of 31.5 percent shooting from the field and 1-for-14 three-point marksmanship (7.1 percent).
Marquette leads the series with Creighton by a 54-32 margin, and has a 22-20 lead in Omaha. Marquette leads the series 6-4 since the teams became Big East rivals and has won the past five encounters; of note, each of the last eight meetings have been decided by eight points or less.
Greg McDermott is 2-6 against Steve Wojciechowski as a head coach, and is 4-6 in his career against Marquette.
Creighton has lost at home to Marquette in each of the previous three seasons. Since moving into CHI Health Center Omaha, the only team to defeat the Bluejays in four straight seasons in Omaha has been Southern Illinois (2003-04 to 2006-07). And last year’s loss was positively SIU-esque. Creighton built a 16-point lead at halftime, then frittered it away in the first eight minutes of the second half. From the Morning After:
Marquette lost leading scorer Markus Howard to an undisclosed injury midway through the half, and had their second leading scorer, Andrew Rowsey, saddled with three fouls. So they switched to a 2-3 zone to begin the second half, and as we’ve seen so often before, it completely flummoxed the Bluejay offense.
Settling for jumpers against the zone, and looking unsure of how to attack it, the Bluejays’ lead quickly disappeared. Rowsey scored 10 straight points — a pair of three-pointers, and a pair of post-up jumpers — to cut the lead to three. Then Sam Houser got hot, and Marquette took a 65-63 lead at the under-12 timeout.
The zone defense slowed the game down, and Creighton’s initial struggles to defeat it gave Marquette the window it needed to make a run. They missed five straight shot attempts, committed two turnovers, and went nearly five minutes without scoring. You can survive that kind of drought, but not when it coincides with defensive breakdowns and a complete lack of toughness on the glass.
Marquette’s zone defense is an easy thing to point to when dissecting where this game turned. And it certainly played a role. But make no mistake: this game was lost on the defensive end, as Creighton surrendered 49 points in the second half to a Marquette team who’s known for their three-point shooting and didn’t do a ton of damage from behind the arc. The Golden Eagles were a pedestrian 5-12 from three-point range in the second half, but a scorching 15-22 on two-point baskets. A big reason for that? Of their 14 missed shots in the second half, they grabbed an offensive rebound on nine of them, leading to 18 second-chance points.
“To give up 49 points on our home floor in 32 possessions in the second half is a joke. If you can’t rebound and you can’t defend, you don’t deserve to win,” McDermott said. And he’s right.
Last January 9, Creighton defeated Butler on Steve Lavin Dollar Beer Night (a fact Facebook has reminded me of this week, as it showed me the photo of me and Lav in my “Memories” notification.)
The Bottom Line:
KenPom predicts an 80-77 Bluejay win. I agree with the favorite; I think the points are FAR too low. If Creighton’s going to win, it’s going to have to be in a shootout.
Creighton 96, Marquette 93