It’s been more than two months since Creighton and Marquette’s first matchup, which is an eternity in a college basketball season. On December 16 when the Golden Eagles won 69-58 in Milwaukee, CU was riding a five-game losing streak and playing without Big East Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner. He’d return six days later against Butler, and the Jays have only lost three more times since — an 11-3 mark over 14 games.
CU is a completely different team without Kalkbrenner in the lineup, as everyone in the league has become aware in the 14 games since his return. He’s all but sewn up a second straight DPOY award, with the choice only being strengthened by his absence (and the easy comparison of the Jays defensively with and without him). You can tell the difference he makes by watching, but the numbers are somehow even more eye-popping. Creighton scores four more points per 100 possessions with Kalkbrenner on the floor, and gives up 11 (ELEVEN!) fewer points defensively with him on the floor according to Hoop-Explorer.com.
That’s a 15-point swing from one player.
Kalkbrenner is the anchor of a defense that ranks 11th nationally in adjusted efficiency and first in the Big East, and 19th in raw two-point shooting percentage (opponents have made just 45.3% of their two-point shots against the Jays). Big East opponents have fared even worse, making just 43.7% of their two-point shots with an effective field goal percentage of 45.3%.
That’s an interesting subplot because Marquette is the best two-point shooting team in America, making 59.3% of their shots inside the arc. It’s a giant reason they rank third in both adjusted offensive efficiency (120.3) and effective field goal percentage (56.7) — as they’re just slightly above average from three-point range, making 35.3% of their threes, against a national average of 34.0%. In the first meeting, 21 of their 27 made baskets came inside the arc. 42 of their 69 points came in the paint. Their two primary big men, 6’8” Olivier-Maxence Prosper and 6’9” Oso Ighodaro combined to make 12-of-16 inside the arc, abusing freshman center Fredrick King.
“Ighodaro initiates a lot of offense from the center position and you don’t play teams that do that very often,” Greg McDermott said. “So you have to be pretty pretty intelligent with how you defend him, understanding not to get too stretched out and not to turn your head. They’re a great back-cut team and that’s part of the reason they score at the rim as much as they do.”
Can they have that kind of success against Kalkbrenner? Consider what he did to Marquette a year ago. In three games, he was the KenPom MVP all three times — three Bluejay wins, incidentally — totaling 55 points on 21-of-27 shooting with 28 rebounds (16 of them offensive), nine blocks and five steals. To say they had no answer for him on either end of the floor is not strong enough. He wrecked Marquette three times. And in their Big East Quarterfinal game last March, Shaka Smart went with a small four-guard lineup late in the game as a last-ditch effort to counteract his effect, and it still wasn’t enough.
If the Golden Eagles find it harder to score in the paint and especially at the rim against Kalkbrenner, they’ll find it harder to score, period — a likely reason oddmakers favor the Jays to win. Marquette shot just 6-of-21 from three-point range (28.6%) in the first meeting, and only attempted 14 free throws (making nine). They’re a team who doesn’t shoot particularly well from outside and doesn’t score much from the line.
One area they could generate offense is off live-ball turnovers. They converted 18 Bluejay turnovers into 18 points in the first meeting, and the Jays have, as we all know, been prone to silly turnovers.
“There are certain teams in our league that thrive on live ball turnovers,” McDermott said. “Certainly Marquette falls into that category, and we didn’t do a very good job of it in Milwaukee. We’ll have to be better (on Tuesday). You know they’re going to come at you in a lot of different ways. Defensively they’ve got really good positional length, they get their hands on a lot of things, so you really have to be smart in your attack. You have to be aggressive, but you know, you also have to be intelligent.”
The Jays were 4-of-20 from outside in that first meeting, with Trey Alexander (0-2), Arthur Kaluma (0-3) and Ryan Nembhard (1-6) all struggling mightily. You have to figure that’s unlikely to repeat itself, at least to that extent, at home. If they shoot even a little better, and the Jays keep the live-ball turnovers in check to limit Marquette’s chances of scoring in transition, Creighton will likely win this game. Statistically, they’ve been the best team in the Big East since Kalkbrenner’s return, playing like the #4 team in America according to BartTorvik.com’s sortable efficiency metrics. This is their chance to make the standings reflect that.
“It’s one of the biggest games we’ve played here in a while, probably back to that Seton Hall game when we were playing for the title,” McDermott said. “We’re going to get their best shot (Tuesday) night, and I hope they get ours.”
- Tip: 7:30pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler and Nick Bahe
- 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
- Cable Cutters: Available on all major streaming platforms
- Streaming on the Fox Sports app and website
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Tyler Clement
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 385 and on SXM app channel 975
- Marquette Radio: Marquette Radio Network
- Announcers: Steve “Homer” True and Tony Smith
Marquette has four players averaging in double-figures, led by Kam Jones (14.9 points, 72 made three-pointers). Jones scored nine in the first meeting on 3-of-7 shooting inside the arc and 1-of-4 outside. Olivier-Maxence Prosper (12.7 points and 4.7 rebounds) and Oso Ighodaro (11.7 points, 6.0 rebounds) anchor the paint; Prosper was a perfect 5-of-5 on two-pointers in the first game and 1-of-3 on threes and guarded most of the night by Arthur Kaluma, while Ighodaro was 7-of-11 against Fredrick King. Kaluma got in foul trouble in his matchup and played just 28 minutes. King likely won’t see the floor when Ighodaro is in the game unless Kalkbrenner is in foul trouble himself.
Point guard Tyler Kolek (11.7 points, 7.6 assists) was terrific, dishing out eight assists against zero turnovers in the first meeting with four steals. He didn’t shoot all that well, though, making 1-of-5 inside the arc and 1-of-4 outside.
Stevie Mitchell’s overall numbers don’t jump off the stat sheet (7.1 points, 2.7 boards), and he didn’t do a lot in the first game with four points and two rebounds. But he led the Golden Eagles in scoring with 17 points on 6-of-11 shooting in their win over Xavier last week, adding six steals, 10 deflections, four rebounds and an assist. He’s scored in double figures in two of the last three games.
Sixth-man David Joplin contributes 9.8 points per game and shoots 38.8 percent from deep. He scored 10 in the first game, though he only made 1-of-6 on two-pointers and 2-of-5 on threes.
Creighton is just 3-14 all-time against ranked Marquette teams, but has won its last two attempts. CU won at No. 10 Marquette in 2019, then toppled the No. 19 Golden Eagles in Milwaukee in 2020. CU is 0-9 in home games against top-25 Marquette teams.
Creighton is 5-5 in 10 games this season against top-25 teams. The Bluejays have scored 379 points (75.8 ppg.) in those five wins, and an identical 379 points in those five losses, as well. The difference is defense. Creighton has allowed 67.8 points per game in the five wins compared to 81.2 points per game in the five losses.
Each of the top four teams atop the Big East standings (Marquette, Creighton, Xavier, Providence) are a perfect 8-0 in conference home games this season with two weeks to play. Including non-conference action, that quartet is a combined 55-3 at home.
Marquette leads the 100-year old series with Creighton by a 57-39 margin, but Creighton has won seven of the past nine meetings. Fifteen of the last 18 meetings have been decided by eight points or less.
Creighton hasn’t played on February 21 in more than a decade, but the last time was one of the most memorable games in arena history. On February 21, 2012 they withstood 43 points from Colt Ryan and rallied from 14 points down in the second half to beat Evansville 93-92 in overtime.
Gregory Echenique and Doug McDermott scrapped for a rebound at the buzzer after Antoine Young’s game-tying shot missed — it was Echenique who was ultimately able to slap at the ball in desperation and bat it, volleyball style, through the basket to send the game into OT. Then Josh Jones took over, scoring five of the Jays’ final six points.
It capped a wild week, as the Jays had rallied from nine points down in the second half against Long Beach State three days prior, winning that one on a buzzer-beater by Young. CU won those two games despite leading in the second half for a combined 0.3 seconds.
The Bottom Line:
“It’s weird, but they never really left our mind — like, we’ve been waiting for this matchup again after the first loss that we had against them,” Arthur Kaluma said this week. “I feel like the season has been leading to this point, and we’re ready for the matchup. They’re going to get our best stuff tomorrow and we’ll see how it goes.”
Then he had a message for the fans, hilariously looking straight into the camera on the YouTube version of the press conference scrum as he delivered it.
“We need to be loud in here — like, really loud. We need all their energy. We’re gonna have something special for y’all (Tuesday).”
ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton a 71.3% chance of victory, and Vegas oddsmakers favor the Jays by 5.5. KenPom is slightly less optimistic, favoring the Jays by four with 63% odds of winning.
Kalkbrenner will be the difference, flipping the Jays’ biggest margin of defeat (11 points) in the first meeting into a win in the rematch.
#19 Creighton 78, #10 Marquette 72
