The debate rages on Creighton Twitter and elsewhere about whether the Bluejays have been too reliant on the three-pointer through four games. It simmered to a boil over the weekend after the Jays tied a program record with 40 three-point attempts in a 32-point win over Texas Southern.
Are they reliant on the three? Or are they taking what the defense gives them — defenses that, through four games, have sold out to take away Ryan Kalkbrenner at the rim? With the caveat that four games is an extraordinarily small sample size, let’s dive in.
According to KenPom’s data, which goes back to 1997, the game Saturday set a Creighton record for most three-point attempts as a percentage of their total shots, a stat they call “Three-Point Rate.” 63.5% of their shots were three-pointers. It’s a top ten list stocked with some of the most maddening losses of the last quarter-century — the 2014 Big East title game against Providence, Ole Miss in November 2014, North Texas in December 2014, Nebraska last December — games where they couldn’t throw the ball into the ocean yet continued hoisting three-pointers. It also features games where the opposite was true, like the Ethan Wragge Game at Villanova in January of 2014.
Through four games, they’ve taken 54.9% of their shots from three-point range. If that holds, it would be the most in the Greg McDermott “Let It Fly” era by a huge margin — the next closest is the 2018-19 squad, who took 46.7% of their shots from long range.
To take more of your shots from three-point range than any of those individual games probably means you’re taking too many of them. To have taken nearly 10% more than any Creighton team of the past quarter-century leads you to the same idea.
But two things can be true at once.
This team’s 40.0% three-point shooting percentage is their best since the last three Doug McDermott teams who finished 3rd, 1st and 1st nationally in that stat from 2011-2014. It’s just the sixth time they’ve been north of 40% since 1997 (the 1999-00 and 2004-05 teams under Dana Altman did it, too.) That number will fall as competition ramps up, but how much?
Last year, Trey Alexander (41.0%) and Steven Ashworth (42.9% at Utah State) shot over 40% from three for a full-season. Baylor Scheierman made 36.4% for the Jays a year ago, after making 46.2% and 44.0% his last two years at South Dakota State. All are north of 37% so far this year. Francisco Farabello, Mason Miller and Isaac Traudt are all north of 45% in smaller roles. That’s six of their top eight rotational players shooting 37% or better from behind the arc.
Yes, they’re taking a historic number of threes. They also have a historic number of really, really good shooters from three-point range. With this many shooters, you want them to take wide-open threes.
And they’re getting wide-open looks because of the other part of this equation — Ryan Kalkbrenner. Through four games, he’s made 21-of-27 (77.8%) of his shots inside the arc. And this is nothing new; he was 213-of-296 (72.0%) last year and 170-of-256 (66.4%) two years ago. Armed with 2+ years of film and stats showing that he’s basically automatic if he catches the ball at or near the rim, teams have decided that it’s a better gamble to take away the shooter who makes 75% of his shots at the rim and let the Jays try to beat them from outside — even with all of those shooters.
If you project out his 27 shot attempts through four games over a full season (he played 34 games each of the last two seasons), he’s on pace for just 216 shots this year. That’s a significant drop, and an indication of just how much teams have sold out to take him out of the offense.
It’s not just Kalkbrenner, either. Hurrdat Sports’ Jacob Padilla pulled numbers from Synergy’s database this week for the full roster, and across the board the Jays have been lethal inside the arc. Nationally, Creighton is in the 96th percentile in layup efficiency and 78th percentile in dunk efficiency. Individually:
- Alexander: 11-17 on layups, 4-4 on dunks, 15-21 overall
- Kalkbrenner: 8-12 on layups, 7-7 on dunks, 15-19 overall
- King: 6-10 on layups, 3-4 on dunks, 9-14 overall
- Scheierman: 7-8 on layups, 1-1 on dunks, 8-9 overall
- Farabello: 4-4 on layups
- Traudt: 2-3 on layups
- Ashworth: 1-2 on layups
- Miller: N/A
The totals for those eight players:
- Layups and dunks: 54-72, 1.5 PPP on 18 possessions per game
- Threes: 52-127, 1.23 PPP on 31.8 possessions per game
The bottom line through four games: yes, Creighton is shooting a lot more threes, but it’s not necessarily by design. Teams are focused on taking away shots at the rim as the number one task on their scouting report, which is leading to more open looks from three than CU would otherwise have. And they’re letting it fly.
As they head to Kansas City for the Hall Of Fame Classic this week, their first opponent has executed a similar gameplan in their first four games. Loyola Chicago’s opponents have scored six fewer points per 100 possessions inside the arc (45.4) than the D1 average (51.1); conversely, opponents have scored six more points per 100 possessions outside the arc (35.8, versus the D1 average of 29.6). They’ve held those four opponents to just 40.5% shooting on two-pointers, nearly 10 percent better than the D1 average of 49.8%.
Despite just two rotational players taller than 6’8″, they’ve done a solid job of taking away shots at the rim. One of those players is 6’8″ senior Dame Adelekun, a transfer from Dartmouth. After scoring 17 total points with seven boards through three games, he exploded over the weekend with a 22 point, 11 rebound, three block performance against New Orleans that saw him make 6-of-9 inside the arc and 10-of-12 at the line. That’s the type of player he was in the Ivy League for Dartmouth when he was a second-team all conference selection a year ago; his offensive rebound rate (10.7%) and two-point shooting percentage (57.3%) were near the top of the league.
The other is 6’10” freshman Miles Rubin, a three-star, consensus top-200 recruit who the school has publicized as the highest-rated high school signee in Loyola history. He immediately found himself in the starting lineup, and is averaging 6.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.
6’5″ Des Watson, a transfer from inside the A-10 after playing two years at Davidson, is their leading scorer and top offensive threat. Watson is averaging 15.8 points per game, shooting 47% from three (9-of-19) while being a volume shooter — he’s taken 26.6% of his team’s shots when he’s been on the floor.
6’6″ senior Philip Alston is their only other player averaging in double digits at 10.3 points per game. Alston was named an A10 Preseason Second Team selection, as he was Loyola’s leading scorer and rebounder last season averaging 14.6 points and 5.6 rebounds per game, and blocked a team-high 33 shots.
He will not play this week after suffering an ankle injury. In his place, Oral Roberts transfer Patrick Mwamba will likely get the start. The 6’7″ senior averaged 7.9 points and 5.4 rebounds off the bench for ORU.
It will be the first taste of action away from CHI Health Center for Creighton’s newcomers, and that can be a learning curve. “Especially for some of the new guys, it’s kind of easy to get comfortable at home, but it can be a little uncomfortable going the road,” Ryan Kalkbrenner said this week. “But that’s when the older guys just got to kind of guide the way for some of the younger guys. It’s just fun. We’ll get the tournament style a little bit, with back to back games. You have to show a little toughness there on the second day, and you get to learn a lot about yourself when you do that. You learn about your team. So I’m looking forward to it a lot, and it’ll be a lot of fun.”
- Tip: 3:00pm
- Venue: T-Mobile Center, Kansas City, MO
- TV: CBSSN
- Announcers: Jason Knapp and Steve Lappas
- 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, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Tyler Clement
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- 6’0″ senior Braden Norris leads them in assists at 4.8 per game, good for fifth-most in the A10.
- Loyola was tabbed eighth in the Atlantic 10 Preseason poll after finishing their inaugural season at 4-14 last year, with a 10-21 overall record after coming over from the MVC.
- The Ramblers return 125 combined starts (80.6%) off of that team. Additionally, Loyola welcomes back 74.2% of its scoring, 71.4% of its rebounding and 75.5% of its assists totals from a season ago.
- Creighton has made 3,997 three-pointers in 454 games under Greg McDermott, putting it just three triples away from 4,000. Since McDermott’s hiring in 2010, the only team nationally with more than 4,000 three-pointers (through games of Nov. 19) was Belmont (4,144).
- Trey Alexander leads Jays in scoring (21.0 ppg.), rebounding (7.3 rpg.), assists (6.7) and steals (1.5) per game. He leads the Big East in points and assists, ranks sixth in shooting percentage, and is tied with Villanova’s Eric Dixon for 10th in rebounds (7.25). He is the first Creighton player to open the season with four straight games of 20+ points since consensus National Player of the Year Doug McDermott in 2013-14, and might be headed for big things himself.
- Alexander is a perfect 14-for-14 at the free throw line this season, stretching his streak of makes to 23 in a row dating to late last season. He’s made 175-for-210 (83.3%) of his career attempts at the charity stripe, a figure that ranks third-best in program history. Only Mike Caruso (84.4% from 1968-71) and Kyle Korver (89.1% from 1999-03) are better.
Loyola leads the all-time series with Creighton by a 12-7 margin, but the teams have never met on a neutral floor. The Ramblers won eight of the first nine meetings, but more recently the teams have alternated wins and losses in the past seven meetings.
The teams have met just three times since 1982, including Creighton’s 70-61 NIT win in 2019 in the most recent meeting. Greg McDermott is 3-1 against Loyola. He won twice as head coach at UNI and is 1-1 as Creighton’s coach against the Ramblers. He has never coached against Drew Valentine.
This week in 2017, Creighton last played in the Hall of Fame Classic in KC. They defeated UCLA 100-89 on November 20, and lost to Baylor 65-59 the next night.
In the wild win over the Bruins, the Jays scored 100 on a ranked team for just the second time in program history, joining their 2014 win over #6 Villanova where they scored 101. It was also the first time anyone has hung 100+ on UCLA in a 40-minute game since Arizona did it in February of 2004.
Creighton’s three newcomers combined for 40 points. Ty-Shon Alexander scored 12 on 4-8 shooting and had three assists. Manny Suarez had six points and five boards. And Mitch Ballock had 22 points, three boards and three assists. It was Ballock who electrified both the crowd and his team, though, with four huge three-pointers and an array of drives to the rim.
The Bottom Line:
Creighton has an 88.5% chance of victory according to ESPN’s BPI, and is favored by 18.5 by Vegas oddsmakers. KenPom predicts a 14-point Bluejay win. With Alston out for Loyola, I think the Jays will win by more than that.
Creighton 85, Loyola 66