KANSAS CITY, MO. — There wasn’t much for Creighton fans to be thankful for on Thursday as the No. 8 Bluejays suffered their first loss of the season in blowout fashion.
Colorado State completely shut down Creighton’s offense and picked apart its defense in the second half to secure a 69-48 win in the Hall of Fame Classic championship game at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
Creighton shot 27.9% from the field, the lowest since a 50-48 loss to Providence on Jan. 12, 2016 (25.8%). The Bluejays had failed to hit the 30% mark from the field just three times in the previous 10 years. On Thursday, Creighton shot 20.7% from 3 (6-of-29) and wasn’t much better inside the arc at 34.4% (11-of-32).
Colorado State point guard Isaiah Stevens finished with 20 points, seven assists and six rebounds to earn tournament MVP honors. Ryan Kalkbrenner made the all-tournament team for the Jays, averaging 20.5 points and 6.0 rebounds.
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Offensive Futility
Both teams boasted top-25 offenses in the country heading into Thursday’s clash, setting the stage for a high-paced, high-scoring shootout in the tournament championship.
After the first few possessions, it looked like that’s what we were going to get. It didn’t last long, however, as bricks began to pile up and the game turned into a rock fight. Eventually the Rams found a rhythm, but Creighton never did.
The Bluejays failed to reach the 50-point threshold for the first time since the 2022 Big East Tournament final.
In the first half, Creighton had three different scoring droughts of at least three and a half minutes, missing seven straight shots early, seven straight midway through the half and its last eight shots of the half.
Despite shooting 22.9% from the field with no free throws in the first 20 minutes, Creighton only found itself down eight at halftime with plenty of time to get back into the game.
Unfortunately, it took nearly three minutes for Creighton to score in the second half as the Rams extended their lead to 13. Kalkbrenner scored inside to end the drought, the first of five straight Creighton possessions with points. However, the Jays didn’t get enough stops on the other end to make more than a small dent in the deficit and Colorado State pulled away when Creighton cooled off.
Coach Greg McDermott said his team missed some good looks early and the Rams upped the physicality as the game went on, preventing the Jays from getting into any kind of rhythm. When the shots didn’t fall early, it began to snowball more and more as the game went on.
“I think the biggest thing is we can’t let it affect how we play the next possession,” Kalkbrenner said. “I think maybe in the first half, it got to us a little bit, and in the second half it starting to get to us a lot more. When we saw shots not falling, we weren’t as sharp as we are defense. We had a few defensive lapses and especially on those nights with shots aren’t falling is when you really really need to be perfect on defense, and we didn’t do that today. There’s a lot of great stuff to learn from that.”
Essentially, everyone who played significant minutes for Creighton had a bad game, which is a recipe for a blowout loss.
Kalkbrenner was Creighton’s most effective option, finishing with 12 points and seven rebounds, but he shot 6-for-10 from the field with two turnovers and Creighton never really established him as a consistent threat.
“I just think they did a good job making me think someone was coming when maybe they weren’t, or maybe they were coming,” Kalkbrenner said. “They threw a few different looks at us. But I think at the end of the day when we’re missing shots like that, we’ve got to do better getting shots at the rim, whether it’s me in the post or just driving and setting our feet. Either way it goes, we’ve just got to see it go in and figure out how to get some easy looks when they’re not falling.”
Trey Alexander followed up his first bad game of the season with an even worse one. He made just one shot all day, finishing with three points on 1-for-16 from the field, 0-of-5 from 3 and 1-of-2 from the line with just one assists and two turnovers. At one point in the second half, he Euro-stepped his way to the basket for an uncontested layup… that rimmed out. It was that kind of day for Alexander and the Jays.
Baylor Scheierman was the only other Bluejay in double figures with 13 points, six rebounds and three assists, but he shot 4-of-17 from the field including 3-of-10 from 3. The 6-foot-7 wing had shot 10-of-12 at the rim heading into Thursday and missed two uncontested bunnies. He also rolled his ankle battling for a rebound at one point in the second half but was able to return to the game soon after.
Steven Ashworth scored eight points on 2-of-7 shooting. Isaac Traudt only attempted four shots in 18 minutes, hitting two of them for five points in his second start with Mason Miller still sick. The bench contributed just seven points, four of which were in garbage time.
After climbing all the way to No. 2 in adjusted offensive efficiency on KenPom after hitting 14 3s against Loyola Chicago on Wednesday, the Colorado State game dropped Creighton 12 spots to No. 14.
Work to Do Defensively
Thursday was the first time Colorado State failed to top 80 points in a game this season. Typically, if Creighton holds its opponent under 70 the Jays are going to come out on top, and often going away. Offense was definitely the story of the game.
However, Creighton still had a chance to get back in the game early in the second half despite the putrid first 20 minutes offensively, and the Jays couldn’t get the stops needed to make it happen.
Colorado State shot 54.5% from the field including 4-of-7 from 3 and only turned the ball over four times in the second half, putting up 42 points. Stops and transition opportunities sparked many of the big runs that Creighton put together in the first five games, but that just didn’t happen against the Rams. Creighton finished with two steals, three blocks and zero fast-break points.
Colorado State shot 47.6% for the game including 26.3% from 3 after a frigid 1-for-12 first half and out-scored Creighton 34 to 20 in the paint.
“They were one of the better 3-point shooting teams in the country; we did a good job on that part of the game defensively,” McDermott said. “I thought we were indecisive with some of our switches, which allowed some scores at the basket that we wanted to try to eliminate. Thirty-four points in the paint in a game like this was way too many. That’s usually a battle that we need to try to win.”
Creighton has a strong defensive foundation, but the Jays still have some polishing up to do on that end and there wasn’t quite enough teeth to the defense to cover for how poorly the team played offensively on Thursday.
Learning Experience
Creighton’s first loss a year ago also came on Nov. 23 in a holiday tournament final. The 2022-23 Jays went on to lose their next five (though Kalkbrenner’s illness had a lot to do with that). Despite the six-game losing streak, however, that team rounded into form and advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history.
One loss is always just that — unless you repeat the same mistakes.
“There’s a lot to learn from it,” McDermott said. “Anybody can be an unselfish group and be together when things are going well. It’s when you have a little adversity you find out ‘OK, what are we really made of?’ I’m confident — we have a couple of days here after an off day tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday, to work on ourselves, before we turn our attention to Oklahoma State next week. We haven’t had that in a while because of the all the game prep, so that will be good for us to really spend some time on ourselves.”
Though the Hall of Fame Classic took Creighton away from CHI Health Center Omaha, it was still a home environment as the majority of fans in Kansas City were sporting Creighton blue. Creighton will hit the road for its first true away contests next week with trips to Oklahoma State on Thursday and Nebraska next Sunday, which will provide a different kind of adversity than this team has faced thus far.
