Creighton will have played 10 games in 31 days after tonight, a grueling stretch where they haven’t had more than three days off in between games. It started exactly one month ago today with an 80-76 road win at Butler on January 11; they’ve won every game since. The upside to that regular schedule of games is that it came at a time when CU was playing well — and they’ve taken advantage of it.
The downside is that they’re running on fumes, as Greg McDermott said on Monday, from the combination of schedule, travel to and from the east coast, and a cold bug working its way through the locker room. Ryan Kalkbrenner played through an illness that kept him from practicing in the days leading up to Marquette; Steven Ashworth and others have been fighting off illness, too.
“It’s just the gauntlet of what the Big East requires of you,” Ashworth said. “Every team’s going through it. Nobody is looking at anybody else’s schedule and saying, ‘Too bad for them.’ We’ve all got to play each other.”
“We really did nothing (Sunday) except for a walk through, and we’ll do some live stuff today,” McDermott noted. “Then we’ll hook it up (Tuesday) and hope there’s enough adrenaline in this building to get us through.”
That shouldn’t be an issue. It’s Dollar Beer Night, rally towels are awaiting fans at their seats, the two-time defending national champion Connecticut Huskies are in the building — and so is Red Panda, who will perform at halftime.
“Red Panda and Dollar Beer Night, that’s a pretty good combo,” McDermott said, then added jokingly, “If we can get (Dan Hurley) up on that bike, it might top it all. But I’m not sure he’ll do that.”
UConn comes in at 8-4 in the Big East following a 68-62 loss to St. John’s on Friday night. They’re 4-4 in their last eight games, and on Monday they fell from the AP Top 25 for the first time in 53 weeks. Hurley was dismissive of a question about his team’s ranking, telling reporters on Monday that “No one gets crowned in February.”
“Obviously, in today’s world there’s going to be very quick reactions and all types of hot takes,” Hurley added. “You win a game at Marquette, you’re back and you’re the team that now, once they’re healthy, everyone’s gonna be afraid of. And then you lose a close game at home to a really good team (St. John’s), and you stink again.”
Injuries have derailed the Huskies somewhat. They played without star freshman Liam McNeeley for a month, and now that’s he’s back, Solo Ball (wrist), Hassan Diarra (knee) and Ahmad Nowell (shoulder) are dealing with nagging ailments that they’ve played through — albeit at less than 100%.
“If we were healthier and played a little bit better and coached better, we could very easily be a two-or-three-loss team at this point of the year and have a completely different take on things,” Hurley said. “So right now we’re focused on that, getting a couple possessions better. We’ve made some strides defensively. We’ve made some strides by out-rebounding St John’s in that game, which not many people have been able to do. But now we’ve got to deal with the turnover issue, and now we just got to get a team that could kind of stay healthy and just be able to play out the rest of its season and try to get to its ceiling.”
Point guard play has been a problem, especially with Diarra playing through a knee injury. He had six turnovers against St. John’s and four against Marquette; UConn had 47 as a team in the two games. It’s left Hurley to consider other options at point guard — Nowell, Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney, or even the 6’7” McNeeley, which would be an unorthodox choice.
“We’ve talked about moving McNeeley over and kind of going a little bit more positionless, and just playing a bigger lineup,” Hurley said. “I guess if you’re going to turn the ball over anyway, it’s better to be taller.”
McNeeley missed a month with a high-ankle sprain, a stretch that included the first meeting this season. A four-time Big East Freshman of the Week winner, McNeeley returned Friday against St. John’s and promptly unleashed an 18-point 11-rebound double-double. Most of his scoring came from the line — he was 2-of-6 inside the arc, 2-of-9 outside, and 8-of-10 on free throws.
Liam McNeeley 👀
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) February 8, 2025
HE’S BAAAAAAAACK‼️😤 pic.twitter.com/UOErRyy9wi
— UConn Men’s Basketball (@UConnMBB) February 8, 2025
“McNeeley has just played the one game since he’s been back, and obviously he’s a top 20 draft pick if that’s what he chooses to do,” McDermott said of the freshman phenom. “He’s really sound with the basketball, makes really good decisions, gives them another playmaker off the dribble. He can hit from the three-point line, he’ll take you into the post against smaller guys and he can score there too. They’re a different team with him on the floor, and we haven’t seen him yet so we’re going to have to adjust a little bit on the fly.”
Who draws the defensive assignment on McNeeley will be interesting. Jasen Green and Mason Miller tag-teamed UConn’s leading scorer, Alex Karaban, in the first meeting — he finished with eight points, less than half his average on 3-of-12 shooting, including 0-of-3 from three, and took just two free throws.
CU’s gameplan asked them to stay attached to Karaban and not worry about switching or helping. But with McNeeley back, that tag-team effort becomes trickier because there’s another big shooter and playmaker to worry about.
And with Solo Ball continuing to improve (he’s upped his average to 15.0 points per game, and in league games Ball is scoring a team-high 17.3 points per game, seventh in the conference), they’re a different team than CU beat in Storrs. Ball made seven 3-pointers a week ago in their win over Marquette, finishing with 25 points. He’s made 75-of-154 from three for the season (45.5%) and was 3-of-5 from the perimeter in the first meeting.
In that first game, UConn was 6-of-19 from three-point range, 11-of-18 on layups and dunks, and 9-of-21 on non-rim 2s. And they only attempted five free throws. Creighton’s ability to steer teams into taking the shots it wants them to take was in full effect in this game — they took UConn completely out of rhythm by running them off the three-point line and then once inside the arc, Kalkbrenner forced them to take low-percentage, high-arching two-point jumpers from awkward distances.
UConn finished shooting 44.8% from the field yesterday, their 2nd worst performance of the season at the time (and fourth-worst now). They missed 19 shots inside the 3-point arc. Here’s their shot chart from that game:
According to Ryan Cassidy (@ryancassidycbb), Kalkbrenner significantly changed 13 of them. This thread has clips of eight of them with analysis of each.
UConn has scored more than 70 points just once against Creighton since rejoining the Big East, and it was an overtime game. The Huskies have had a top 30 offense in all five seasons, and top 10 each of the last three. But against Creighton’s defense, they’ve scored 74 (66 in regulation), 66, 59, 55, 62, 69, 53, 62, 66, and 63. Unsurprisingly, Creighton is 8-2 in those 10 games.
“There’s a level of physicality you have to have when you play against UConn,” McDermott said. “Having said all that we don’t want to put them on the foul line 25 times, so we have to be physical with intelligence. We would like to win that analytical battle of the free throw line every game we play, not just against UConn. But it’s hard when the games are that physical and and obviously, you know, Marquette plays a very physical aggressive style and very similar to what we’re going to see from UConn especially when it comes to their ball screen coverages.”
- Tip: 8:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: CBSSN
- Announcers: Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas and Evan Washburn
- 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
- Creighton Radio: 1620AM, 101.9FM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Simulcast on SiriusXM channel 383 as well as on the SiriusXM App
- National Radio: Westwood One
- Announcers: Kevin Kugler and Nick Bahe
- Broadcast nationally on Westwood One radio affiliates
- Streaming on WestwoodOneSports.com, via Alexa-enabled devices by asking Alexa to “Open Westwood One Sports”, or on the Varsity and TuneIn apps
- Tarris Reed Jr. had a big day against St. John’s with 12 points and a career-high-tying 15 rebounds, while Solo Ball scored 13 points and hit a trio of 3-pointers.
- 6’7” Jaylin Stewart had been starting in place of McNeeley, and he scored 14 points in the first meeting with a pair of threes. With McNeeley back, he’ll slide back into the sixth-man role he occupied early in the season — but as a better player, after a month of more extensive playing time.
- Alex Karaban has played the full 40:00 in four of UConn’s last seven contests. The captain currently ranks second in the Big East and top-50 nationally logging 35:40 per game.
- Steven Ashworth has made 97.6% of his free throw attempts this season (83-of-85). Not only does that put him on pace to shatter the Creighton single-season record (Kyle Korver’s 90.8% mark in 2002-03), but he’s also ahead of former Missouri State guard Blake Ahearn’s NCAA record (97.5% in 2003-04).
- Creighton owns 99 dunks as a team this season, with 61 of them coming from Ryan Kalkbrenner. He now has 297 for his career, which is 176 more than any other Bluejay player since Greg McDermott’s arrival in 2010. The next closest? Martin Krampelj’s 121.
- Creighton is 10-0 all-time in home games against teams with the nickname of Huskies, with seven of those coming by double-figures. (The non-UConn schools? Houston Christian four times, and St. Cloud State and Northern Illinois once each.)
Creighton is 8-2 all-time against UConn, with the 10 meetings taking place in four different cities since 2020. The 10 games have been decided by a total of 69 points, with eight of those decided by single-digits.
Creighton is 4-0 against UConn in Omaha, including an 85-66 win last year. All four of those UConn teams were ranked.
On February 11, 2023 Creighton beat UConn 56-53 in game that was more wrestling match than basketball. The Jays made just two shots in the final 12 minutes of the game, and they scored just 11 points in those 12 minutes with seven of them coming from the line. But their defense held UConn to just 13 points in the final 14 minutes of the game, three days after holding Seton Hall to seven points over the final 12 minutes.
With just over two minutes left and the Jays ahead by three, Ryan Kalkbrenner intercepted a pass intended for Adama Sanogo at the rim; it led to Trey Alexander creating his own shot off the dribble and scoring at the rim between two defenders.
But that was their final field goal of the day. So it was up to the defense to hold, and they did. Jordan Hawkins got to the rim with a chance to pull the Huskies within a point, but his shot airballed — Kalkbrenner was in the area, but didn’t touch the ball. Just being there was enough.
“He spooks people at the rim, man,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “The guy is such a presence, and when he’s not there, you’re thinking about him. Jordan had that opportunity at the rim late but when you have a defensive center who’s as good as anyone in the country, that’s in the back of your mind when you go in there. Even when he’s not necessarily there.”
And when Alexander missed the front-end of a one-and-one opportunity, it set up a roller-coaster ride of emotions. UConn appeared to tie the game on a three-pointer by Hawkins off an offensive rebound of a missed three by Adama Sanogo, and at first glance it certainly appeared that’s what happened.
With UConn’s bench celebrating what they thought was a game-tying shot, Hurley said he asked associate head coach Kimani Young if it was a three or a two. Young told him it was going to be reversed upon review — Hawkins’ foot was over the line.
“So, that lowered my expectations, quickly,” Hurley said. “He’s always honest with me. Some assistants lie to you to make you feel better.”
“It’s a game of inches,” Greg McDermott added. “Jordan Hawkins’ foot on the line…sometimes you get lucky.”
The Bottom Line:
Creighton is favored by 3.5 in Vegas, and by 5 on KenPom. ESPN’s BPI gives them 60.6% odds of victory, and KenPom 67%.
Bluejays 76, Huskies 68