Heading into Wednesday’s rematch with Providence, the biggest question for the Bluejays is the status of Marcus Zegarowski. Their star point guard has missed the last two games with a hamstring injury, and while they won without him against St. John’s, they missed him greatly in Saturday’s loss at Butler. The faster pace and style of the game against the Red Storm played to Shereef Mitchell’s strengths; the lower possession, half-court nature of the Butler game magnified his weaknesses.
With Providence next, another lower-possession grinder is probably on tap. That makes Zegarowski’s return even more critical. But the Jays are playing his status close to the vest.
“I think it’ll be a gametime decision,” Greg McDermott told the media on Tuesday. “He’s ramped it up a little bit more this week, but now we have to wait and see how it reacts.”
Speaking of injuries, Friars point guard Jared Bynum suffered a lower body injury in the first meeting with the Jays, and has missed the last two games since the injury. In 11 games, he has registered 49 assists and just 13 turnovers, so his absence is a significant one. He’s not been a full participant in practice since the injury, according to the Providence Journal’s Bill Koch, and is not expected to play tonight.
The Friars have lost three straight games that were decided late — the 67-65 loss to Creighton and a 74-73 loss to Xavier, both lost on buzzer beaters, and a 79-69 loss to Marquette that was a two-point game heading into the final four minutes. And their scheduled game against Georgetown on Saturday was postponed due to the Hoyas’ COVID pause. So they’ve had a week to mull over those losses and plot their return to the floor. Not exactly the situation Creighton would like heading into a fairly important game for the trajectory of their season.
At 6-2 in the league, Creighton has two losses to teams not currently projected to make the NCAA Tournament. Villanova, despite a lengthy pause due to COVID, remains undefeated at 4-0. So CU can’t afford a third loss, especially at home.
Picking up a crucial win starts with continuing their containment of David Duke. Memories of what he did in Omaha one year and four days ago are still fresh — their star guard scored 36 points, 24 in a scorching second half where he made 9-of-11 overall and 4-of-5 from three-point range.
He leads the Friars and ranks third in the Big East in scoring (19.9 ppg), leads the team in assists (4.8 apg), and is second on the team in rebounding (5.8 rpg). Duke is shooting 44 percent (87-197) from the field, including 47 percent (30-64) from behind the arc, and is a team best 82 percent (55-67) from the free-throw line. He’s terrific at making plays for himself and for teammates, and the Jays successfully held him down with rotating defenses — though “holding him down” meant 13 points and four assists, still solid numbers.
Nate Watson has earned equal attention from defenses. The 6’10” senior is leading the Friars in rebounding (7.2 rpg), and also ranks second on the team in scoring (18.3 ppg). In 13 games this season, he has recorded four double-doubles and four games with 20 or more points while shooting 63 percent (95-151) from the field. The Jays defended him well in Providence, as he scored 13 points on 4-of-11 shooting. But the problem with Watson is that he can blow up a well-executed defensive gameplan with brute strength. Of his four offensive rebounds in that first game, two came off of his own missed shot where he more or less used the rim to pass the ball to himself. The other two came against better-positioned Bluejay defenders who were not powerful enough to box Watson out of the way. There’s no way to scheme for that.
Two players took advantage of the attention paid to Duke and Watson in that first game: A.J. Reeves hit several shots in transition and ended with 10 points, and Noah Horchler hit a pair of threes on the way to 12 points. Reeves isn’t unexpected; he averages 9.2 points and is shooting 39% from three-point range. Horchler is; he’s a fringe rotation player that plays around 12 minutes a game and has made six 3’s all year. Two of them came in that first game vs Creighton.
- Tip: 6:00pm
- Venue: CHI Health Center Omaha
- TV: FS1
- Announcers: Adam Alexander, Bill Raftery
- 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
- Streaming on FoxSportsGO
- Radio: 1620AM
- Announcers: John Bishop and Taylor Stormberg
- Streaming on 1620TheZone.com and the 1620 The Zone mobile app
- Satellite Radio:
- Creighton broadcast: Sirius channel 146, XM 202
- Providence broadcast: XM channel 382
- Nate Watson (238 pts) and David Duke (259 pts) have scored 52 percent (497 pts) of the team’s 964 points this season. Nine other players have combined to score 467 points.
- The Friars are 1-3 in their last four games, but have shot 48 percent (37-77) from three-point territory in those games.
- The Friars have had four games postponed due to opponents having COVID issues (Xavier on Dec. 12, UConn on Dec. 17, DePaul on Dec. 17 and Georgetown Jan. 16).
- Denzel Mahoney scored 29 points on Saturday at Butler after scoring 24 the previous Saturday vs. St. John’s. Those rank as his two highest-scoring games as a Bluejay. He had 23-second-half points at Butler, making him the first Bluejay with 23 or more in a half since Doug McDermott set a (since broken) Big East Tournament record with 27 points in the first half vs. DePaul on March 13, 2014.
- Saturday’s loss at Butler dropped Creighton to 9-6 under Greg McDermott in overtime contests. Oddly, each of Creighton’s last six overtime games have been won by the team to control the jump ball in the extra session.
- Speaking of tips, Providence heads into Wednesday having won 32 of its last 33 jump balls to start the game. PC has also won the tip in all four overtime sessions in that span. The Friars are 20-12 in those contests. The only jump ball that Providence has lost in that 33-game stretch came on Jan. 2nd vs. Creighton, when Christian Bishop won the tip vs. Nate Watson.
Providence owns a 16-12 lead in the series, but Creighton has won four of the past five meetings. CU is 4-3 against PC in Omaha, including three straight victories.
Wednesday marks Creighton’s 10th meeting against Providence as a ranked team, more than any foe in program history. The Bluejays are 5-4 in the first nine meetings when ranked against PC, including a 3-1 mark in Omaha.
When they last met 18 days ago, the Jays blew a double-digit lead but were saved by a buzzer-beating dunk from Christian Bishop.
In 2014, Creighton shot 9-for-9 from three-point range on its first nine possessions in a 96-68 rout at No. 4 Villanova. Ethan Wragge made nine trifectas overall and finished the night with a career-high 27 points. That night was the last time (before tonight) that Bill Raftery broadcast a Creighton game on January 20th.
The Bottom Line:
Despite recent success against them, Providence is always a difficult matchup for the Bluejays. The Friars’ physicality is a problem, and David Duke and Nate Watson both do a good job of drawing fouls and knocking down free throws. CU has to somehow defend them without excessive fouling, and they have to do a better job on the glass than they did 18 days ago — the Friars are going to get offensive boards and second chances, but 19 offensive rebounds is too many. Offensively, they have to be ready for a lot of different looks — Providence likes to switch to a zone from time to time, and their length disrupts passing lanes and covers up mistakes.
Still, KenPom favors the Jays by nine. Vegas has the Jays as a 8.5 favorite. ESPN’s BPI gives Creighton an 84.2% chance of victory. They must know something.
Bluejays 70, Providence 64