No. 15 Creighton dominated the last 30 minutes of play on Sunday to hand Nebraska an 89-60 loss on its own court.
The Huskers took a 23-22 lead around the 9-minute mark of the first half, and from that point forward it was all Bluejays. Creighton closed the first half on a 30-14 run then built the lead up north of 30 late in the game to improve to 7-1. Four Bluejays scored in double figures and two of them recorded double-doubles.
Here are three takeaways from the Creighton win.
Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold
The Cornhuskers shocked the Bluejays in their house a year ago, handing the seventh-ranked Jays a 63-53 loss.
On Sunday afternoon, the Jays enacted their revenge, blowing out the Huskers in Pinnacle Bank Arena to tie the largest margin of victory in the I-80 Rivalry. Creighton last won by 29 points in 1932, a 47-18 Bluejay victory.
“I think especially when it’s a rivalry game as big as this, you never want to lose those games,” Ryan Kalkbrenner said. “So losing last year, you definitely have a little more attention to detail, you feel like you owe them one after last year. So I think one through 15, one through 16, however many guys we have, we were really locked in the last two days for prep. Our scout team gave us a great look and our starters and bench guys were locked in on what Nebraska does, so we knew what we were getting into and were well prepared for this game.”
Creighton scored 89 points, but the Bluejays shot below their season averages form the field and from 3. In fact, Creighton attempted the same number of triples as it did in last year’s game with 40, a program record, and only made four more.
Last year, 40 attempts resulted in a 10-point loss. On Sunday, it was a 29-point win, largely because of the Bluejays’ defense — and ice-cold shooting from the Huskers. Nebraska shot 33.8% from the field including a frigid 2-for-22 from deep.
Creighton handed Nebraska its first loss of the season after a 7-0 start and improved to 2-0 against Big Ten competition this season.
Checking Boxes
Heading into Sunday’s clash, both teams boasted top-25 offenses according to KenPom. Nebraska had topped 80 points in every game but one while dominating teams in free-throw rate and winning the 3-point battle as well. The Huskers crashed the offensive glass hard and they shared the ball well.
The Cornhuskers didn’t do any of that on Sunday, resulting in what Coach Greg McDermott called a “really good win” because of the respect he has for Fred Hoiberg and what his team had accomplished this year.
“I’ve been really impressed with how connected they are on both ends of the floor and for us to come in here and do this to them is really a credit to our guys’ preparation and focus,” McDermott said. “Obviously we made some shots in the first half and that that allowed us to create some separation, but our guys played together and we assisted on 17 baskets. Nebraska is a big assist team; they only had six assists. We really wanted to fight them on the boards and we were able to out-rebound them. And then the free-throw game was the one that we felt we couldn’t lose if we were going to come in here and win and they attempted 14, we attempted 13.
“So we really checked the box on the goals that we had moving into this and then we executed pretty good stuff, not only on the offensive end but the job we did defensively as well.”
Creighton put together one of its patented offensive onslaughts to end the first half, totaling 32 points in the last 9:15 of game time while scoring on 12 of its last 18 possessions. Creighton’s offense left the door slightly ajar to start the second half, but the Huskers couldn’t barge their way through as the Bluejays’ defense took over and allowed them to extend the lead even further.
Keisei Tominaga was the only Husker in double figures, but he scored 16 of his 20 in the first half as the Bluejays held him to 2-for-8 shooting after halftime.
“I think we were there all the time,” McDermott said. “This has been a pretty efficient basketball team and we held them to 28% [in the second half] on their own floor. They had 22 3-point shots, but I think they took the 3-point shots that we wanted them to take, not necessarily the 3-point shots that they wanted to take. We had the guys shooting it that we wanted to shoot in it and made some of the other guys’ looks pretty tough.
“To execute all that, it sounds easy, but it’s hard when you’re out there going 100 miles an hour and I think our guys had a great understanding of who we can help off of a little and who we have to press up on.”
Bombs Away, Baylor
Baylor Scheierman shot 2-for-9 from 3 in his first opportunity to play in the Nebraska-Creighton rivalry a year ago.
The Aurora native made the most of his second opportunity. By halftime he had tied his career-high with six 3-pointers (set against Omaha during his junior year at South Dakota State), dropping 20 points in the first 20 minutes to lead Creighton to a 15-point lead at the break.
Scheierman cooled off in the second half, missing all seven of his 3s including three or four straight rim-outs to end the game, but his teammates picked him up and Nebraska was never able to take the lid off the rim from deep to dig into the deficit.
“It started off badly; I missed my first four shots and then I kind of got hot a little bit,” Scheierman said. “Obviously I think in the second half, there was a lot of room for improvement, especially on the offensive end. I don’t think we really played our best in the second half, especially me missing a lot of open shots. It means a lot, obviously, in this game, to be from Nebraska and be able to have a have a decent performance, but credit to my teammates for finding me. I think most of the shots came in in the rhythm of the offense.”
Creighton did a good job of getting Nebraska into rotation and moving the ball, creating great looks for multiple shooters throughout the game. Steven Ashworth went 3-for-7 from 3. Mason Miller hit both of his attempts. Francisco Farabello shot 2-for-3 from deep and chipped in a layup plus three assists off the bench. The Jays didn’t shoot it as well as they are capable of and still outscored Nebraska by 36 points from the arc.
“We kind of knew that they like to help from the low side and so we if can rip it baseline, they were going to overreact and we had to fill behind and get to the top and the corner to space them out,” Scheierman said. “We knew where they wanted to help from and this year we got three, four shooters on the court and so having them in the corner and the top and the corner, they have to pick and choose who they’re going to guard and we were able to get some open shots off that.”
Scheierman finished with a game-high 24 points, 10 rebounds and three assists, yet after the game he was frustrated by the rim-outs in the second half more than anything. He wanted even more.
