After wins at Villanova and at Providence, the Creighton men’s basketball team’s winning streak has reached eight, with five of those wins taking place outside Omaha. Now the Bluejays return home to host a pair of conference title contenders at CHI Health Center Omaha.
“Those two games are really, really difficult to win, playing at Villanova and at Providence,” Ryan Kalkbrenner said before practice on Thursday. “They’re two hard places to play, so to walk away from that with two wins is huge for us. A lot of teams won’t be able to get two wins at those places. It just keeps building momentum for us moving forward, especially in this big week.”
Add the UConn win on Jan. 18 and Creighton became just the fifth team in the last 35 years to beat all three of those teams in their own building in the same season. Perhaps the biggest part of the recent surge has been the team’s 7-foot-1 center, who was named a finalist for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, given annually to the nation’s top big man, on Friday. Kalkbrenner has scored 20 or more in six of the eight games, averaging 23.0 points on 66% from the field (42.9% from 3) and 76.1% from the free-throw line plus 9.4 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game with a 3.2 assists-to-turnover ratio during the streak.
That included a Big East-high 35 points against the Friars on Wednesday as Kalkbrenner tied his career high in field goal attempts with 23, a far cry from earlier in the season when the Jays struggled to get him the ball.
“Mac always comes up with great game plans, and Steve-o is an amazing point guard; he’s going to find me when I’m open,” Kalkbrenner said. “Mac always makes it a point of emphasis to find me down low and we were able to do that last game. The guards are always looking for me, and they’re super talented, so there are going to be some games like that where I get a lot of looks.”
In addition to Kalkbrenner’s offensive dominance, Creighton ranks ninth nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency during the winning streak. Creighton (17-6, 10-2 Big East) has climbed to 30th in KenPom, 31st in Torvik and 34th in the NET rankings and sits just one game back of first-place St. John’s in the Big East standings.
“I think we’ve improved gradually,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “And with improvement, and obviously with success, comes confidence. I think they believe in each other. I think they have each other’s back. They pick each other up during tough times, and that’s really important this time of year. You don’t have guys with their own agendas, and we don’t. Nobody really cares right now who gets the credit, who scores the points. They really want to win and they’re able to play whatever role I ask them to play in that particular game.”
The last team to beat Creighton is the one the Jays will welcome to the CHI Health Center on Saturday afternoon: No. 11 Marquette. The Golden Eagles won 79-71 in Milwaukee on Jan. 3 in a game that saw Kalkbrenner shoot 4-of-11 inside the arc and Steven Ashworth go 1-for-13 beyond it.
“We were still trying to find ourselves then, without question,” McDermott said of the loss. “Everything that went on in November, December, with injuries and illnesses, we just didn’t have a lot of practice time to grow. We showed some signs at Marquette, took the lead early. We had a bad finish to the first half, bad start to the second half and then got down 15 but got back in and gave ourselves a chance to win the game in the last three or four minutes. So there were some signs then, it just wasn’t as consistent.
“I think we’ve been a little bit more consistent as time has gone on, especially on the defensive end of the floor. The offense has come and gone, which that happens, especially on the road. But defensively, we’ve been pretty solid, and I think we’re a better defensive team that we were then.”
The Golden Eagles (18-5, 9-3) head into Saturday’s meeting following back-to-back losses at home against No. 19 UConn (who will visit Omaha on Tuesday) and at No. 12 St. John’s. They also took a home loss to Xavier on Jan. 18. Marquette is sitting at 20th in KenPom — 25th in adjusted offensive efficiency and 18th on the other end — and 19th in the NET rankings.
“Marquette has lost to two really good teams; that doesn’t surprise me, because Xavier and UConn are really good basketball teams,” McDermott said. “We had a hard time getting into our offense against Marquette the last time, and when we did have good looks, we didn’t knock them down. If we expect to be successful tomorrow, we have to take care of the ball, which we did there for the most part, and then we’re going to have to make some shots.”
Marquette ranks second nationally in turnover rate on offense (12.9%) and fifth in forcing turnovers (23.7%). In Big East play alone, the Golden Eagles force turnovers twice as often as they commit them (24% versus 12%, both rates good for first in the league). In the first meeting, Creighton only turned the ball over 13 times, but the Golden Eagles converted those takeaways into 21 points on the other end. The Bluejays also shot 7-for-31 (22.6%) from 3.
Continuing to play through Kalkbrenner will be a key for Creighton against a Marquette team that lacks in size and interior rim protection. They make up for that with their guards and wings flying around and providing strong help side defense, which means Creighton will have to be decisive when trying to feed their big man.
“They make up for their lack of size with activity,” Kalkbrenner said. “So if you can match their activity level, they can’t just grow six inches overnight for them. If you can find a way to match their activity level, that gives you a great chance, because they’re really good at getting the steal on the post entry or tipping a ball when we’re bringing it down and not keeping it high.”
On the other end, Marquette provides a unique challenge for Creighton’s defensive system as the Golden Eagle bigs are all comfortable playing on the perimeter and shooting 3s, making it difficult for Kalkbrenner to play drop coverage on ball screens or play strong help-side defense in the paint. In the first meeting, Creighton inverted matchups for most of the game with Kalkbrenner guarding shooting guard Stevie Mitchell, who prefers to drive rather than shooting from the perimeter.
“We’ve moved Ryan around on different guys to try to keep him in the paint some, and he’ll guard Ben Gold some as well, and [Royce] Parham, who’s playing really well, shooting the basketball well,” McDermott said. “They provide challenges, not just to us but to everybody, because they really invert your defense and make you pull your shot-blockers away from the basket. So guarding the dribble, those one-on-one matchups become really important, because you’re not always going to have the comfort of having Kalk behind you at the rim.”
Tipoff on Saturday is set for 1 p.m. CT on FOX with Kevin Kugler and Robbie Hummel on the call. McDermott is calling on the fan base once again to create an electric atmosphere at the CHI Health Center.
“I think it’ll be crazy in here tomorrow, at least I hope it will be,” McDermott said. “I think everybody understands the importance of this game. We’re in the hunt for a conference title, which is where we want to be, and it’s all in front of us. It’s in our control. So we need to make this as difficult on Marquette tomorrow as we possibly can.”
