Ninth-seeded Creighton men’s basketball knocked off 8-seed Louisville in front of a mostly Cardinal-red crowd at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, on Thursday. The Bluejays’ reward is a Saturday evening date with the overall No. 1 seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament: Auburn.
“Looking forward to an incredible opportunity tomorrow against an awesome team,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “Auburn has essentially been the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for about six weeks. They’ve played at such a high level for such a long time. We’re faced with a lot of challenges: their length, their athletic ability, their physicality, their pace. They’re a hard team to prepare for in a short period of time because of the things that they do, and obviously they have one of the best scorers in the country that’s been a model of consistency all season long.
“There are a lot of challenges, but we’re excited about the opportunity, and ready to let it roll and see what happens.”
The Tigers are 29-5, and all five of their losses have come to KenPom top-20 teams. Three of those five losses came in their last four games prior to the NCAA Tournament, but they all came to teams that earned top-three seeds in the field of 68: No. 3 Texas A&M, No. 2 Alabama and No. 2 Tennessee. The Tigers beat 16-seed Alabama State 83-63 in the first round on Thursday. Auburn features the No. 2 offense and the No. 12 defense in terms of adjusted efficiency on KenPom, giving the Tigers a No. 4 overall ranking.
Against the Tigers this season, teams have only attempted 34.9% of their shots from the 3-point line (well below the national average of 39.1%) and have shot 29% on those looks (fifth nationally). Nearly 49% of Creighton’s looks on the season have come from deep, and their 11 3-pointers were a big part of the Jays’ first-round win against Louisville.
Auburn is one of the best shot-blocking teams in the country as well, stuffing 16.2% of opponent attempts (fourth nationally) and holding teams to 47.1% shooting inside the arc (42nd), but the Tigers also foul at one of the highest rates in the country, surrendering a 29% free-throw rate (314th). Conversely, Creighton has one of the lowest foul rates in Division I history.
The game will feature arguably the two best big men in the country in Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner and Auburn’s Johni Broome, a 6-foot-10, 240-pound national player of the year frontrunner.
“Obviously, he’s a super talented player,” Kalkbrenner said of Broome. “He’s got good touch around the rim, and is a really good passer, which makes it really hard to guard him because if you double him, he will pass out of it. But as a competitor and basketball player, you want to go up against the best guys in the game, and I get an opportunity to play against him. So I’m excited and I’m looking forward to it. As a competitor, that’s what you want.”
Broome starts next to another traditional big man in Dylan Cardwell (6-foot-11, 255 pounds), but the former will slide to the five for roughly half the game based on Auburn’s usual rotation. He’s averaging 18.7 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.2 rebounds this season.
“He gets the basketball so quick inside,” McDermott said. “He sets it up with some shot fakes and head fakes that we’re going to need to stay disciplined on. He’s one of the best offensive players in the country at his position, and I’ve got one of the best defensive players in the country in Ryan Kalkbrenner.”
Kalkbrenner — who was among the four finalists for the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year award announced on Friday — said mental preparedness and intelligence will be as important as physical strength and skill against a player as versatile as Broome. McDermott said the Jays can’t let him beat them both as a scorer and distributor; their plan will be to do their best to shut off at least one aspect of his game.
“We can’t be in a situation where he’s beating us every which way,” McDermott said. “That maybe sounds easy. It’s very difficult to do. I think our guys understand the plan that we’re going to try to put into place and we’ll see if it works. If it doesn’t, we’ll adjust and try something else.”
What makes Broome so dangerous — in addition to his prodigious talent and skill — is that Auburn has four guards shooting better than 37% from 3 spacing the floor around him. One of them is 6-foot-6 senior Miles Kelly, who led the Tigers with 23 points while shooting 7-of-15 from 3 on Thursday.
“They have so many guys that can shoot it with range, and Kelly is certainly one of them,” McDermott said. “Tahaad Pettiford shoots it 6 feet behind the line with ease, so it stretches that defense out a little farther. If you’re going to help on Johni Broome, you have to come from farther and your recovery is more difficult. So Bruce [Pearl] has done a great job of surrounding a great interior player with the right kind of players on the perimeter to make that group work.
“We just have to — like we did yesterday, I thought a lot of Louisville’s 3-point shots were challenged. And they’re still going to make some of those because they have guys that can really make tough shots, but we just can’t give them the easy ones, we can’t give them the step-in 3s with nobody there. That will be our charge. Whether we can execute it, it’s yet to be seen.”
As a team, Auburn is shooting 43.4% on unguarded catch-and-shoot 3s, 40.6% on 2-point jumpers outside 17 feet and 52.4% on runners, posing a formidable test for Creighton’s drop-coverage scheme. The shooting ability of Auburn’s guards is what has stood out to Creighton’s Jamiya Neal on tape thus far.
“I have not watched Auburn a lot this year; I did not know those guys can shoot like that,” Neal said. “They shot some really tough shots. I thought I shot tough shots, but they can all shoot tough shots. Even the guys off the bench are shooting it deep. And defensively they’re just pests. They’re relentless, they switch, so we definitely have to be on our Ps and Qs tomorrow for sure.”
Auburn starts 6-foot-4, 205-pound senior Denver Jones (10.6 points and 2.6 assists per game) alongside Kelly (11.9 points per game, 39.9% from 3) and 6-foot-7 wing Chad Baker-Mazara (12.4 points and 2.7 assists per game) in the backcourt. Pettiford, the 6-foot-1 freshman, plays heavily off the bench, averaging 11.2 points and 2.9 assists while shooting 37.4% from 3. Chaney Johnson, a 6-foot-7, 225-pound wing, also plays significant minutes off the bench and is contributing 9.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.
Where Creighton chooses to put Steven Ashworth and who guards Broome to start the game are important questions McDermott and his staff are working to determine. Matchups will become a bit more straightforward when the Tigers go to their bench.
Fedor Žugić told Hurrdat Sports’ Ana Bellinghausen that the swelling is down in his ankle after playing 12 minutes and contributing four points and two assists on Thursday. He’ll be good to go against the Tigers, an encouraging report for a Creighton team that will need all the firepower it can muster against the Tigers.
The Bluejays (25-10) will be competing for their fourth Sweet 16 appearance in the past four years, an opportunity that isn’t lost on Kalkbrenner with his career coming to an end.
“I’ve been really lucky to be a part of so many good teams at Creighton, and I’ve been lucky to be here at the time I’ve been here,” Kalkbrenner said. “It’s not just me that’s done it. It’s been Mac, all my teammates. It’s been an awesome ride, and I don’t want it to end yet, so we’re going to try to extend it one more weekend.”
Tipoff on Saturday is set for 6:10 p.m. CT on TBS and TruTV with Brian Anderson, Jim Jackson and Allie LaForce on the call.
“[We have to] be ready for a fist fight because that’s what this game is going to be.”@AnaBellMedia spoke with @cucoachmac on what to expect against the No. 1 overall seed Auburn tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/rIk29x0hoF
— Hurrdat Sports (@HurrdatSports) March 21, 2025
