After a quick business trip to Chicago, No.22 Creighton men’s basketball will be back at CHI Health Center Omaha on Saturday to host a red-hot St. John’s team at noon CT.
The Red Storm has won five of its last six games, with the only loss coming at No. 4 UConn, and sits in a three-way tie with the Huskies and Seton Hall atop the Big East standings.
However, the Johnnies aren’t the only ones on a hot streak. While Baylor Scheierman has been Creighton’s rock for most of the season and was one of three Big East players on the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 Watch List released on Wednesday, junior guard Trey Alexander is leading the team in scoring in conference games.
Through five Big East games, Alexander is averaging 19.4 points, 6.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists while shooting 52.9% from the field (38.1% from 3) and 75% from the free-throw line. After a six game stretch that saw him average 11.0 points on 29.6% shooting, Alexander has done a much better job of getting to his spots and hitting shots over the past month.
“I think it just comes with playing at my own pace,” Alexander said. “A couple of games this season when I wasn’t playing at my best I was kind of letting the game speed me up and kind of just hurrying things a little bit. So I think that as I was watching film, I was trying to make sure that that I was just taking my time in being able to get to those spots. As a basketball player, you know what spots you can get to a what spots aren’t there at that point in time. So it’s really just a feel for the game and just knowing when to pick my spots has been the biggest thing.”
The Red Storm tripped up twice in their first four games under new coach Rick Pitino — against Michigan at home and against Dayton at a neutral site — but now sits at 12-4 after surviving a comeback attempt from Providence on Wednesday. Coach Greg McDermott said he wasn’t surprised by the Johnnies’ early struggles and subsequent improvement considering Pitino flipped almost his entire roster after taking over the job.
“I think part of it is 11 new guys in a new system, trying to figure out what Coach Pitino’s expectations are and figuring out each other,” McDermott said. “And he saved some stuff for conference play that has showed its face now, some different defensive looks that they did not use in nonconference play. So they’ve got a lot of versatility across that lineup. They’ve become pretty good on both ends of the floor.”
St. John’s has risen to No. 35 on KenPom — 30th on offense and 62nd on defense. The Johnnies are also 35th in the NET.
Leading the way is senior center Joel Soriano, one of just two players who remained at St. John’s following the coaching change (the other being junior forward Drissa Traore who is averaging 8.6 minutes per game). The 6-foot-11, 255-pound Soriano is averaging 17.3 points, a Big East-leading 10.1 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game while shooting 64.8% from the field. Saturday’s game will feature two of the premier big men in the conference in Soriano and Ryan Kalkbrenner.
“He’s a great offensive rebounder,” Alexander said of Soriano. “I think he averages almost four offensive rebounds a game, which is big … I think if we’re able to control him on the offensive glass, I think Kalk will be able to handle the low post; I think we’ll be just fine in terms of his low-post presence. But obviously the biggest thing is trying to keep them off the glass and just keeping them from going on those runs to where they feel like they can switch up those defenses, and that’s kind of when you’re when you’re at their will is when they’re able to just throw it a lot of different things at you.”
Soriano averages 4.1 offensive rebounds himself, but he’s not a one-man wrecking crew. As a team, the Red Storm is third in the country in offensive rebounding percentage. Four different Johnnies average better than one offensive rebound per game including 6-foot-6, 225-pound wing Chris Ledlum (2.8 per game) and 6-foot-7, 196-pound wing RJ Luis (2.3 per game). Defensive rebounding jumps out as the biggest key to a Creighton victory.
“It’s huge because we like to operate in transition,” McDermott said. “You can’t operate in transition unless you get a stop and a rebound. They’ve just absolutely beat people up on the offensive glass; I think they lead the country in second-chance points. So not only do they chase them down, they’re really efficient once they get that offensive rebound in turning them into points. Obviously our makeup isn’t quite what theirs is, so fundamentally we’re going to have to make sure we execute our block-outs and try to create some space and then stick our nose in there and go get the ball.”
Fortunately, Creighton is eighth in the country in limiting opponent offensive rebounding percentage. The one time this season Creighton hasn’t really cleaned up the defensive glass was the Marquette game, and it cost them dearly.
“I think they were just more physical and they wanted it more than us,” redshirt freshman Isaac Traudt said. “That’s kind of what it came down to. So we just have to obviously make sure that doesn’t happen.”
In addition to the offensive rebounding, what makes St. John’s unique is the blend of defenses Pitino employs, sometimes more than one on a single possession. It starts with full-court pressing and extends into the halfcourt with different zones and aggressive on-ball pressure.
“You just can’t get paralyzed by whatever they’re doing,” McDermott said. “You just have to keep moving. It’s a little more difficult against a team like St. John’s to run some set plays that go from A to B to C. You just have to move yourself and move the basketball and trust in each other to make plays. That is why the importance of defensive rebounding is so critical, so that we can get out and operate in space before that defense is set.”
In addition to Soriano, St. John’s has four others averaging double-digit scoring led by point guard Daniss Jenkins, who followed Pitino from Iona to St. John’s. The 6-foot-4 guard is averaging 13.0 points, 6.1 assists and 4.1 rebounds. Luis (UMass) has missed 10 games but is putting up 11.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game since getting healthy. Jordan Dingle, a 6-foot-3 transfer from Penn, is chipping in 10.5 points per game while Ledlum (Harvard) is at 10.4 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. Freshman Brady Dunlap has stepped it up since league play started as well, averaging 12.3 points while hitting seven of his 13 3-point attempts in three games.
Pitino will become the fifth person to coach a game inside the CHI Health Center after entering the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, joining Jay Wright as active Hall of fame coaches Creighton has squared off against. Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Self and Jim Boeheim all coached in Omaha during the 2018 NCAA Tournament Regional at CHI. Saturday will be the first meeting between Pitino and McDermott, two of the three active coaches with more than 100 career Big East regular season wins.
“I think it’ll be fun for our fans,” McDermott said. “Obviously, we’ve had some great teams and great coaches come through there over the years, and he’s another one to add to the list. His résumé speaks for itself and whatever it is, seven or eight Final Fours, whatever he’s been to. He’s also a successful NBA coach.
“So he’s one of the best college basketball coaches to ever coach the game and I’m not sure our fans will greet him with a lot of warmth and an excitement on Saturday, and we’re not exactly rolling out the red carpet from a weather perspective either. We hope to make their stay in Omaha pretty miserable.”
FOX will televise the game on Saturday with Brandon Gaudin and Nick Bahe on the call.
