Creighton men’s basketball took down DePaul 75-65 in the Jays’ penultimate home game of the season Wednesday night.
With the win, Creighton improved to 20-8 overall and 13-4 in the Big East. This is Creighton’s 10th straight season with 20-plus wins and 14th in Coach Greg McDermott’s 15 years in Omaha.
“It’s awesome,” McDermott said. “We’ve had a lot of good players, obviously. Coach [Chris] Holtmann talked before the game, or one of his assistants, about what a great place this is to play and how into it the fans are. It doesn’t happen without everything in place. We’ve got a great fan base and an institution that’s supported us, and fortunately, we’ve been able to attract good players.”
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Short of the Standard
Wednesday wasn’t exactly a 40-minute display of execution on both ends for Creighton. For long stretches, the game was a bit of a slog. Good looks didn’t go down and DePaul mucked up Creighton’s offense with physicality. On the other end, the Blue Demons hit some tough shots (and got some friendly rolls) to stay in it.
However, for one stretch in each half, Creighton looked like a well-oiled machine.
In the first half, Creighton trailed 22-18 nearly 12 minutes into the game thanks to a quick 9-2 run for the Blue Demons with Ryan Kalkbrenner on the bench. The big man checked back in after that and quickly scored inside, triggering a 16-3 run over the next five minutes to build a nine-point lead. The run included three dunks and a pair of 3s as the Bluejays pushed the pace.
DePaul made another push to trim its deficit to four at halftime, then in the second half, after Creighton stretched the lead to 11, the Blue Demons rallied to within five.
Leading 50-45 with just under 13 minutes to go in the game, Jasen Green tipped in a miss, triggering a 15-0 Creighton run in four and a half minutes to push the lead to 20 with eight minutes and change to play. That run included three triples and another dunk.
McDermott said the key to those runs was his team getting consistent stops, and what that triggered on the other end.
“When we get out in transition, whatever their help plan was on Kalkbrenner, it’s really hard to put that together in transition,” McDermott said. “We were able to get it up the floor and get it into him, and Fred had a couple plays there in the first half. DePaul, Coach Holtmann’s teams don’t quit, and they don’t beat themselves, generally.”
Outscoring DePaul by 28 points over a roughly 10-minute span (and a 16-1 edge in second-chance points) was enough to offset an otherwise sub-par effort as the Blue Demons shot 44.6% from the field including 36.4% from and scored 11 points off 13 Creighton turnovers.
“A ton of credit to DePaul,” McDermott said. “They’re shorthanded. They played harder, they were grittier. The one thing we did do a good job of was on the glass, on both ends, and that ended up being the difference in the game. But 13 turnovers, unacceptable; 50% from the field, basically, in the second half by DePaul is not acceptable. We’re going to have to be better.
“We’re going to go into a hornet’s nest [at Xavier] on Saturday, and if we if we think this is good enough, we’re kidding ourselves.”
No Answer for No. 11
DePaul was without three of its top eight players including its top two forwards. The Blue Demons started 6-foot-9, 210-pound JJ Traynor at the five with 6-foot-10, 215-pound freshman Théo Pierre-Justin as his backup. Those two combined to play roughly 25 minutes, which meant DePaul went nearly 15 minutes without a player taller than 6-foot-7 on the court.
All of that is to say that the Blue Demons didn’t have anyone who could hold his own against the 7-foot-1, 270-pound Kalkbrenner, who finished with 25 points on 12-of-17 shooting and 13 rebounds, including six on the offensive end.
“I think we knew we had a little bit of an advantage down there, and I think that was a pointed topic in practices leading up to this,” Kalkbrenner said. “The guards just did a good job of looking when I was open or skipping it when there were two guys on me.”
Kalkbrenner scored a game-high 12 points in the first half, but nearly half Creighton’s shots were 3-pointers as the Jays shot 4-of-14 from deep. The message in the locker room at halftime was to feed the big man, a directive the players clearly received.
Kalkbrenner scored Creighton’s first 11 points of the second half, hitting his first five shots. The first non-Kalkbrenner points came from Jamiya Neal on a wide open mid-range jumper (aided by Kalkbrenner’s gravity) at the 14:25 mark.
“I told them at halftime, I’m not saying you have to throw it in every time you catch it, but you have to look every time you catch it,” McDermott said. “And we did a better job of getting it up the floor in transition with the pass instead of the dribble, and that created a little bit better passing angle. Ryan kept the ball high and made quick decisions. Guys got him the basketball. That was the advantage that we had. If they’re going to play small on the other end and kind of invert our defense, we had to make sure we made them pay for it on the offensive end.”
Kalkbrenner’s veteran point guard, Steven Ashworth, added 16 points on 6-of-10 from the field (4-of-7 from 3), six assists and four rebounds. The highlight of the game was an alley-oop from Ashworth to Kalkbrenner in transition with the pass coming from just across the midcourt line.
Creighton fans only have one more game remaining to celebrate the two fifth-year seniors at CHI Health Center Omaha, with senior day coming up after a two-game road trip.
Bluejay Bench Produces
While Kalkbrenner and Ashworth found a rhythm offensively, the rest of the starting lineup never really did. The other three combined for 13 points (one shy of what Green scored himself against Georgetown). However, the bench picked up the slack, outscoring DePaul’s 21-10.
“We needed it because Jasen only gets five, and Jackson [McAndrew] three, and Jamiya is in foul trouble and only gets five,” McDermott said. “Points had to come from somewhere. Fortunately, Isaac [Traudt] knocked down some shots, Fedor [Žugić] knocked down some shots, and then Mason [Miller], while he didn’t score, those two offensive rebounds in the first half, with which both led to baskets, were a huge turning point for us to create a little bit of separation as we went into halftime.”
Traudt scored eight second-half points for the second straight game, hitting a pair of 3s and adding a pair of free throws. Miller grabbed three rebounds in his first five minutes on the court, two of which led to Žugić buckets, and Creighton won his 13 minutes by 13 points. Fredrick King chipped in a couple of buckets inside in less than six minutes on the court.
The key bench piece was Žugić, however, who played a big part in the first half when Neal picked up his second foul and took a seat until the break. The Montenegrin guard ended up playing 13 minutes in the first half and a season-high 23 overall. He backed his man down for a tough bucket inside early then knocked down a second-chance 3 and drive to the rim for an emphatic slam during Creighton’s 16-3 first-half run. He added a pair of free throws in the second half to finish with nine points, tying his season high.
“It’s great to get out there,” Žugić said. “I love it. I enjoy it. Tonight was really good for me, getting my groove back before the big tournament starts and before the do-or-die games start. It was just great to be on the court for so long tonight.”
The extended run was a positive development for the team ahead of the trip to Xavier. Žugić played 20 minutes in the first game against Xavier as the Musketeers played a lot of guard-heavy lineups.
