No. 22 Creighton men’s basketball secured its 19th straight win over DePaul on Tuesday night, blowing out the Blue Demons in Chicago 84-58.
The 19 straight wins are the most in program history against a single team, as are the 11 straight road wins over the Blue Demons. Only Gonzaga has a longer active winning streak on the road over one school (20 straight against Pepperdine).
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Taking Care of Business
Creighton (12-4, 3-2 Big East) scored on its first possession, 28 seconds into the game, and the Bluejays led the rest of the way. Creighton scored in its first five possessions to jump out to an 10-2 start. The lead hit 20 before the five-minute mark of the first half, it crossed the 30-point barrier before the 10-minute of the second half and all of the starters had checked out for good before the six-minute mark of the game.
“Our efficiency at the start of that game was through the roof,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “We had 25 points on 12 possessions and were getting stops, were getting defensive rebounds, getting out in transition, making the extra pass, moving our bodies and moving the ball, and that resulted in some pretty good looks at the basket.
“And then we really emphasized at halftime let’s make sure we don’t give them a breath, and I thought that starting group the first eight minutes held them to six points and was able to take a 17-point game out to a 25- or 35-point game in the first 10 minutes. Road wins are never easy; you don’t take them for granted.”
Creighton has faced a handful of teams ranked outside the top-150 on KenPom like DePaul (246th), and the veterans haven’t always put them away early. That wasn’t the case on Tuesday night, and the result is less wear and tire on their tires plus some valuable minutes for the team’s young reserves.
Trey Alexander and Baylor Scheierman are first and third, respectively, in the Big East in minutes per game. They played 27 and 25 minutes against DePaul. Ryan Kalkbrenner only played 23 minutes as well.
Instead, we saw 15 minutes from sophomore Fredrick King and 10 apiece from the freshman trio of Isaac Traudt, Jasen Green and Josiah Dotzler. Sophomore Johnathan Lawson played the last six minutes as well.
“They give us great looks in practice and they do what they do so we can do what we do, and we can’t do anything without them,” Scheierman told John Bishop during a post-game radio interview. “So having them get some meaningful minutes, especially in Big East play, it’s always great to see.”
Creighton outscored DePaul in King’s minutes by six as he contributed four points, four boards and a steal. Traudt snapped out of his 3-point drought to go 2-for-3 from deep and grab two offensive rebounds. Dotzler scored a couple of nifty layups and picked off a pass. Green corralled three rebounds and dropped a dime to King for a layup.
“It was good to get those guys out there and have some film to study that they can learn and grow from … We had some interesting lineups out there at times and a couple tough matchups, but when you haven’t played a lot and all of a sudden you’re in a Big East game, and Tony [Stublefield] left his starters in there for, really, most of the game which was good for our guys to play against his top group,” McDermott said. “That’s how you learn, that’s how you grow, that’s how you get better is to have that experience and then get back, watch it on film and learn from it.”
Big Three Balled Out
I mentioned the team’s stars had a relatively short night, but the big three of Scheierman, Kalkbrenner and Alexander still nearly outscored the Blue Demons on their own.
Scheierman bounced back from his season-low nine points against Providence to put up 20 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three steals while shooting 6-of-9 from deep.
Kalkbrenner matched him with 20 points on 7-of-10 from the field and 6-of-9 from the foul line with nine rebounds and four blocks.
Alexander’s 3-ball cooled off again at 2-for-7, but he still put up 17 points and four assists without a turnover.
There aren’t many teams in the country, let alone the Big East, that have a better top three than Creighton does, and when all three are rolling the Jays will be hard to top. Creighton scored 1.469 points per possessions in the first half before shooting 5-of-16 from deep in the final 20 minutes to give DePaul a chance to make the final margin look ever so slightly more respectable.
Steven Ashworth still wasn’t able to find his 3-point shot (0-for-5), but he did knock down a pair of mid-range pull-ups and tie his season high of seven assists without committing a turnover. Creighton only had one turnover in the first half and six for the game, four of which came in the final five minutes from the reserves.
DePaul is a very bad basketball team, but so was Georgetown. Creighton executed at a much higher rate on Tuesday than it did against the Hoyas a week prior.
Tough Stretch Ahead
Creighton faced two of the top four teams in the conference to open league play and fell to 0-2, blowing a double-digit lead in both games.
The Bluejays have now played the bottom two teams in their last three (with a game against a ranked Providence team who had lost its second-leading scorer the game prior in between). The Jays went 3-0 in those games and are now above .500 in league play heading into a much tougher stretch.
Creighton will return home to host a St. John’s team led by Rick Pitino that just beat Villanova on its home court by 10. The Red Storm has won nine of its last 11 after dropping two of its first three.
Then the Jays will hit the road again to take on No. 4 UConn and a Seton Hall team that is off to a 4-1 Big East start including wins over the Huskies and No. 11 Marquette.
With what’s ahead, it was vital for Creighton to work out some of the issues that led to the collapses against the Wildcats and Golden Eagles, and it appears they’ve done so. With a light night on Tuesday, the Jays should be fresh heading into the big game on Saturday against the Johnnies.
“We lost our first two and one of them at home, so our backs were against the wall,” McDermott said. “If we want to get back in this league race, we had to go on a little bit of a run. So we did what we had to do and now we’ve got a tough St. John’s team coming to our place on Saturday afternoon.”
