Creighton got back on track on the road and scored its first Big East win on Tuesday as the Bluejays pulled away from Georgetown for a 77-60 win.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Righting the Ship
Creighton’s first two Big East games saw the Jays post new season-highs in turnovers with 16 against Villanova and 18 against Marquette, and the giveaways cost the Jays dearly as they opened conference play 0-2. At halftime, Creighton was on pace to continue that trend Tuesday with 11 turnovers in the first 20 minutes.
The Jays looked out of sync and turned it over nearly every way possible. They were loose with the ball, their footwork was shoddy, their passes were off-target or mistimed and the offense just generally looked like a mess, especially with shots not falling from the perimeter.
Georgetown capitalized early to take a lead, and even when the Hoyas went scoreless for roughly seven minutes Creighton wasn’t able to create any real separation, taking a four-point lead into halftime against a Georgetown team play without its leading scorer, Jayden Epps.
The team we saw come out after halftime looked like a completely different squad. Georgetown’s defensive issues certainly contributed, but the Jays scored on 14 of their first 17 possessions and turned the game into a rout. Coach Greg McDermott said he saw much better urgency from his team in the second half.
“We led by 14 in the second half against Villanova and let it get away,” McDermott said. “We had a double-digit lead early against Marquette and lost a game that was a two-point game with three minutes to go. That’s tough, especially when you’ve got some veteran leadership like we have. I thought they refocused and were ready to play this game, and I thought Georgetown did a good job of disrupting our flow that first half.”
Creighton led by as much as 24 in the second half before a late Georgetown run. The Jays didn’t shoot much better from 3 in the second half than they did in the first, but they made up for it by shooting 17-of-21 inside the arc. A lot of that success came off much better ball and man movement as 15 of the team’s 21 field goals were assisted.
“I thought we shared the basketball better in the second half, made the extra pass a little bit better,” McDermott said. “Our pace was good, and you can only have pace if you if you get stops and you get rebounds. It’s been hard for a lot of teams to get rebounds against Georgetown this year; they’re one of the best in the country with their offensive rebounding percentage. So that was a big emphasis for us in practice this week and I thought we executed it pretty well.”
Additionally, Creighton only turned the ball over three times, and all three were dead-ball turnovers. All in all, Creighton scored 1.633 points per possession in the second half and looked a lot more like the team Creighton fans thought they’d see this season. McDermott said his halftime speech centered largely on ball security.
“I brought up the last four possessions; it was 28 to 20 and we had a chance to stretch it out and turned it over four in a row, and some of it was self-induced, I think,” McDermott said. “Georgetown certainly was aggressive and was switching some screens, but they had been doing that all half and we have to be better than that. The second half I think our pace wore into a little bit and we took better care of the basketball. We’re a pretty good offensive team if we get a shot at the rim.”
Attack Mode
While better ball security and crisper movement was largely responsible for the second half explosion, the trigger man for a lot of that was Trey Alexander. The junior guard scored seven points on seven shots and turned the ball over five times in the first half.
When Alexander struggles this season, so will the rest of the team. He did not struggle in the second half.
Alexander was far and away the best player on the floor, scoring 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting, three assists, one steal (that he took the other way for a layup) and zero turnovers. He finished the game with a season-high 25 points on 11-of-17 shooting, five assists and four rebounds. He also went 3-for-5 from deep after shooting 2-for-14 over his previous four games.
“It was really good,” McDermott said. “He’s continued to work at it and you’d like to think that things are going to adjust to the mean. We’ve had a couple guys — Steven Ashworth is the other one. He’s one of the best shooters in the country last year and he struggled there for a few games but he continues to work at it and shoots it well in practice, just like Trey has. Trey finished the first half, I think he turned it over three out of four possessions and he was really upset with himself at halftime. I told him after the game I was really proud of the way he kind of refocused and reset himself and left that in the past and got ready to play the second half.”
Ashworth didn’t find his jumper, finishing 1-for-5 from 3, but he dished out a season-high seven assists with just two turnovers and added a layup. Francisco Farabello chipped in a couple of floaters just outside the lane. Baylor Scheierman again kept the team afloat early while others took time to settle into the game and finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds and four assists, shooting 4-of-6 inside the arc in addition to 3-of-7 from deep. It appeared all of Creighton’s ball-handlers were more intentional with their drives and determined to get into the paint, none more so than Alexander.
McDermott credited Ryan Kalkbrenner for a lot of those opportunities. He put up 12 points, nine rebounds and four blocks, with much of that production coming in the second half.
“We wanted to get it deep and wanted to make sure if we weren’t throwing it to Kalkbrenner, we were looking at it,” McDermott said. “Having their necessity to help and send another guy allowed us to get some dominoes going offensively, and I thought our guys got him touches more. I thought he really ran the floor exceptionally well, and when he runs the floor, it creates things because not one guy is going to guard him down there in transition. We were able to get into the teeth of the defense and get a lot of points of the paint that second half.”
McDermott Moving on Up
Tuesday’s win was the 110th of McDermott’s Big East regular season coaching career, tying long-time Villanova coach Rollie Massimino. Only 10 men have ever won more Big East games than McDermott, and they’re almost all legendary figures among the coaching ranks: Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Jay Wright, John Thompson Jr., Mike Brey, John Thompson III, Lou Carnesecca, Ed Cooley, Jamie Dixon and Rick Pitino.
Head @BluejayMBB coach Greg McDermott tied Rollie Massimino in @BIGEASTMBB wins at 110.
"I didn't have any idea I was there, I guess that means I'm old. … If you hang around long enough you're either going to win some games and break some records or you're gonna get fired." pic.twitter.com/OC2Xvfwoqn
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) January 3, 2024
Only Villanova has won more Big East games since Creighton joined the conference 10 years ago, and McDermott has been at the helm for all of them. What he’s done in leading the program through the conference transition and continuing to elevate its profile in recruiting and on-court success is remarkable, and that often gets forgotten when the team hits a rough patch like it’s been in recently.
