Ah, Omaha. The land of Warren Buffett, mail-order steaks, and Creighton basketball.
The Hoyas will get to see what all the hype from Peyton Manning was about as they travel to take on #15 Creighton in a 9pm tilt tonight. Let’s break down some key things to watch for from this matchup.
On Creighton’s side, they’ve returned four starters from last year’s squad that won a share of the Big East regular season title. Collectively, the Bluejays are as dangerous as ever. In conference play this year, they’ve scored an average of just over 78 points per game and as a unit, have been shooting 37.3% from beyond the arc on an average of just under 27 attempts a game.
Despite the strong 13-4 record (and 9-3 start to conference play), the Bluejays showed some signs of weakness in their past two games. Their most recent game was a close win against a Charlie Moore-less DePaul squad in which they had trailed 60-59 with just over three minutes to go. In the game before that, they were the beneficiaries of Seton Hall blowing a 16-point lead, with the Bluejays eking out a 85-81 win in the final seconds as Creighton was buoyed by 17 made threes.
Creighton is led by star point guard Marcus Zegarowski, who was named preseason Big East Player of the Year and a preseason All-American. He hasn’t quite lived up to those lofty expectations with his points and assists per game being a tick down from last year, but he’s been turning the corner as he was named the Big East Player of the Week for his efforts against DePaul and Seton Hall. For those two games, he averaged 18.5 points and 4 assists, in addition to shooting 52.2% from the field, 53.3% from three-point range, and 83.3% at the line.
He’s one part of the dangerous Creighton backcourt, as Denzel Mahoney has also emerged as a threat in his own right, leading the entire squad in points per game with an average of 15.2.
How does all this affect tonight’s game?
The past two Creighton games have shown that they do bleed, but they are also equally as likely to step on your throats. Despite sputtering performances in the two recent games, the Bluejays have shown they were capable of making timely runs that proved lethal. In the Seton Hall game, it was reserves Ryan Kalkbrenner and Shereef Mitchell who spurred a nine-point run to swing the game back toward Creighton. In the DePaul game, the Bluejays closed on a 10-2 run.
Part of the danger is that you don’t know who’s going to come after you. Greg McDermott recruits people to the middle of bumf*** nowhere, feeds them corn, and unleashes them as lethal shooters.
Simply put, Creighton can shoot the lights out from beyond the arc. If the Hoyas are to have any chance tonight, they need, need, need to put the clamps on from beyond the arc. That’s easier said than done, as Georgetown has a putrid three point-defense (if it can be called that) with more holes than a colander.
In addition, the Hoyas need to exploit the size advantage. Creighton’s frontcourt doesn’t have the same depth and experience as the Hoyas do. Jacob Epperson and Christian Bishop are the only returners from last year’s Bluejays team who are over 6’5”. This relative lack of depth and experience in the frontcourt should be exploited by the Hoyas, who can run Jamorko Pickett and Qudus Wahab out at the same time to try and bully the Bluejays on the glass and in the paint.
If Georgetown is to hold any hope of pulling off the upset, they’re going to need to carry over the limited turnovers and strong performances from role players such as Chudier Bile and Don Carey from Saturday’s win against Providence. The Hoyas also did a great job in that game of dictating the pace at which the game was played at. If the Hoyas can do it again tonight, they can get Creighton’s studs gassed. McDermott likes to ride his backcourt starters pretty hard, with Zegarowski and Mahoney averaging 33 and 31.7 minutes per game, respectively. Tiring those two out (and hopefully reducing their output) could go a long way in securing the upset.
Will’s Prediction (9-3 on the season): Creighton 80, Georgetown 65
This game is going to be on national television, which is going to be brutal. At least it’s at 9pm. I’m not optimistic about this game at all. The Bluejays are just too potent an offense for this Georgetown’s squad’s defense to contain. I know the Bluejays are going to make a ton of open threes, and I’m going to scream into my pillow for each one of them.
Jacob’s Prediction (10-2 on the season): Creighton 82, Georgetown 71
I’m less pessimistic than Will, if only slightly. Though Georgetown is clearly overmatched by a talented Creighton squad, the Hoyas showed a lot of fight against Providence, and I expect that same mentality to continue. Perhaps more importantly, the Bluejays have allowed inferior opponents (read DePaul) to hang around for far longer than they should have, giving me hope that the Hoyas can keep this competitive. That being said, Creighton has a lot of experience in close games. I’m predicting that the Hoyas cut the deficit to one or two possessions with four or five minutes to play, but the Bluejays slam the door with a couple dagger three-pointers and sound shooting at the charity stripe.
