Pregame Primer: Final Week of Regular Season Commences Tonight as Providence Comes to Town

Picked to finish third in the Big East, Providence lost four of their first five league games — including an 0-3 start — and has never recovered. Heading into the season’s final week Ed Cooley’s team sits at 6-10 and is tied for last place. But because the Big East standings are a tire fire, they could conceivably still finish in the top six by winning out this week (with a lot of help).

Meanwhile, at 7-9 Creighton sits in a tie for sixth, and enters Wednesday night’s game knowing the door has opened a bit for them to grab the #3 seed all for themselves — thanks to Butler “upsetting” Xavier on Tuesday, the only team in the middle of the league who can finish with a better record than CU at this point is Georgetown (8-8). And with the Hoyas finishing the season on senior night at Marquette this weekend, it’s unlikely they’ll get to 10 wins. If the likeliest scenario has Georgetown finishing 9-9, what would that look like?

St. John’s (8-9) has one conference game left, at Xavier (8-9); one of them will tie Georgetown for third, one will tumble all the way to the play-in round.

Seton Hall (7-9) finishes with two home games, but they’re against Marquette and Villanova. Good luck with that, Pirates.

That leaves Creighton. With home games against Providence and DePaul left — two teams they’ve already beaten on the road — the Bluejays are favored to finish 9-9 in the league. Assuming Georgetown finishes 9-9, Creighton would own the tiebreaker by virtue of their season sweep. If St. John’s is also 9-9, then the tiebreaker gets tricky because they swept Creighton and split with Georgetown. According to the Big East rulebook, the tie is broken by grouping the teams into a “mini conference” and the team with the best record against each other comes out on top. St. John’s is 3-1 against the other two. Creighton is 2-2. Georgetown is 1-3. So St. John’s would be the #3 seed, Creighton would be the #4, and Georgetown would be #5.

If it’s Xavier who finishes 9-9, it’s equally messy because they split with both Creighton AND Georgetown. In that scenario, Creighton gets the #3 seed — they’re 3-1 against that grouping, while Xavier is 2-2 and Georgetown is 1-3.

But that’s for Big East Tournament seeding. In terms of the big enchilada — the NCAA Tournament — the rest of Creighton’s season is a single-elimination situation. They’ve played themselves into the NCAA Tournament at-large conversation with three straight wins (including a road win at #10 Marquette). But a loss before next weekend in NYC — any loss, to any opponent — ends those hopes.

Every game is an elimination game. Tonight against Providence is a win-or-go-NITing game. Saturday against DePaul is the same. Next Thursday in NYC, ditto. And depending on what else happens around the country, next Friday could be, too. But in a season that looked lost a month ago, we’re discussing realistic scenarios to the NCAA Tournament during the last week of the season. Greg McDermott, his staff, and his players  have done a commendable job of turning the ship around, and if they can keep the winning streak going for another week, they’re poised to earn an invitation to the Dance.

Against that backdrop, the Friars and Bluejays play for the first time since New Years Eve when CU won 79-68. In that game, Creighton did a lot of things very well:

• They kept Providence off the glass. The Friars had just seven second-chance points, their second-lowest total through 16 league games. PC grabs an offensive board on 32.1% of their missed shots, second-best in the league.
• They kept Providence off the free throw line (mostly). The Friars are a horrible offensive team in the half-court, with a non-transition effective field goal percentage of 46.3% — which ranks 317th in the country. But 22.1% of their points have come from the line, the highest mark in the Big East. They were 13-20 from the line in the first meeting.
• Creighton was sure handed with the ball, committing just 12 turnovers. The Friars rank first in the Big East in turnover rate (forcing a turnover on 21.6% of opponent’s possessions). And they use those turnovers to score in transition, making up a bit for their poor execution in the half-court offensively.

Doing those three things again will go a long way towards securing another win. Individually, there are three players to keep an eye on:

• Preseason All-Big East selection Alpha Diallo leads the Friars in points (16.4), rebounds (8.0), assists (3.1), steals (1.6) and minutes (35.4) per game. Creighton struggled to defend him in the first game, as he scored 18 points — including 9-of-13 from the line. He had a double-double, grabbing 10 rebounds in that game as well
• Nate Watson (12.0 ppg., 5.3 rpg.) has been red-hot over the last six games, upping his scoring to 17.3 points over that span while shooting 61.5%. He played just 14 minutes in the first meeting because he couldn’t defend Creighton’s small lineup. It will be fascinating to see if Ed Cooley once again looks elsewhere — or if he rides with Watson, for better or worse
• A.J. Reeves (11.0 ppg.) is their third-leading scorer, and the only player on the roster who makes more than 35% of his three-pointers — he’s 37-for-86 (43%). Reeves did not play in the first meeting due to injury, and he’s not been the same player since returning; he was 24-for-53 on threes before, and just 13-of-33 since. And he’s coming off an 0-for-6 night at Butler last game.

• Tip: 7:00pm
  • Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
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• Red-shirt senior Isaiah Jackson has come off the bench in 22 of the team’s 29 games this season. He has scored in double figures in 12 of the team’s 29 games and he ranks fourth on the squad in scoring (8.9 ppg). Jackson is third on the team in rebounding at 4.8 rebounds per game. But in the first meeting, he scored just two points with four rebounds.
• Maliek White has scored in double figures twice in 16 Big East games this year — 11 versus St. John’s last week, and 13 in the first meeting against the Jays. He averages 5.9 points a game, and took advantage of CU’s focus on Alpha Diallo to take a team-high nine shots inside the arc in that game.
• Through the team’s 16 Big East Conference games, the Friars rank third in points allowed (71.1 ppg). The team also ranks second in steals (8.3 spg.) and second in turnover margin (+2.5). Opponents are averaging 15.1 turnovers per game versus the Friars, the highest rate in the league.

• Creighton hasn’t won multiple regular-season games in the month of March since 1953-54. They haven’t won consecutive regular-season games in the month of March since 1951-52 and last won consecutive regular-season conference games in the month of March in 1947-48 as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. (Of course, before joining the Big East they rarely played more than one regular season game in March. But it’s still a fun stat.)
• Creighton forced Marquette into 22 turnovers on Sunday while picking up 15 steals. The 15 steals were the most by a Bluejay team since it compiled 17 vs. Tulsa on Dec. 19, 2012. Davion Mintz had a career-best six steals, the most by a Creighton player in a single game since P’Allen Stinnett had seven on Dec. 15, 2008 vs. Southern.
• Marcus Zegarowski has been a better shooter since breaking his hand, if you can believe that. Small sample size alert, of course, but the last four games have been high-pressure, so it can’t be totally discounted either. He made 48.1% of his shots, 46.2% of his threes, and 76.9% from the line over the first 21 games — and has made 52% overall, 50.0% of his threes, and 83.3% of his free throws since.