Following the win at Villanova on Wednesday, the Creighton men’s basketball team sits at second place in the Big East standings (4-1) — a half game up in the win column on the Wildcats, Seton Hall and St. John’s.
There may not have been a Creighton fan out there before Big East play began that expected the jays to be in this position five games in, and very few likely saw a win at the Finneran Pavilion coming following the collapse against the Pirates on Sunday. However, the Bluejays found a way to put the bad loss behind them quickly and secured their first Quad 1 victory thanks to a pick-and-roll clinic in the second half.
“It was big time,” Isaac Traudt said ahead of Thursday’s practice. “Last night was an awesome win for us, big confidence booster for us going into this huge game Saturday. I feel like we kind of gave one away against Seton Hall. I felt like we definitely should have won that game and made some mistakes late that we shouldn’t have, and I thought we cleaned that up last night against Villanova in another close one. So we definitely made some progress and it will be fun to go at it again Saturday.”
The Bluejays will host the Red Storm, who entered the season fifth in the AP Poll. However, they’ve since fallen out of the poll and head to Omaha with a 10-5 record, including a loss to Providence. Despite their struggles to beat elite teams (1-4 against KenPom top-50 teams, with the lone win against Baylor), KenPom still has St. John’s 23rd, featuring a top-25 defense and a top-40 offense.
“I know they’re very athletic team, pressure the ball, don’t let you inbound the ball very easily,” Nik Graves said. “Obviously we had a couple struggles against Seton Hall with that, so it’s just cleaning up a couple of things in that area and dealing with their athleticism.”
St. John’s’ opponent turnover rate of 21.1% is ranked 25th nationally. Creighton spent a significant chunk of its light Thursday practice working on in-bounding the ball and breaking full-court pressure.
“There are a lot of problems that you face when you play St. John’s, and it starts with their length and physicality and athleticism at the rim, and their ability to offensive rebound it and then protect the rim on the other end of the floor,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “It’s going to be important that they’re all ready to play and that they’re ready to play well.”
In addition to the turnovers, St. John’s ranks in the top-30 in shot-blocking and in the top-35 in limiting opposing 3-point attempts and assists. Offensively, the Red Storm is a little above-average in both 2-point and 3-point percentage. However, they also rebound 38% of their misses, good for 23rd in the country.
“It’s going to be a dog fight,” Traudt said. “They’re very, very physical, super talented, super strong. We’re going to have to give it our all … to really battle against those guys.”
The one who sets the tone is preseason Big East Player of the Year Zuby Ejiofor, the 6-foot-9, 245-pound big man who is averaging a team-best 16.1 points on 52.2% shooting, 7.7 rebounds (including 3.6 offensive) 2.9 assists and 2.3 blocks.
“Zuby is a different animal,” Traudt said. “He never gets tired, it doesn’t seem like. He’s extremely physical, very strong, battles on the boards every single play. We know that going into the game that we have to get a body or two on him every single possession to try to limit his game.”
Ejiofor shares the frontcourt with someone Creighton has seen before, just in a different uniform. Former Providence Friar Bryce Hopkins is healthy again and producing for the Red Storm, averaging 13.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 assists.
“He’s a terrific player, and his ability to score inside out and what he can do defensively has been pretty impressive … It’s a hard matchup,” McDermott said of the 6-foot-7, 225-pound Hopkins. “Obviously, they’re both extremely physical. Zuby is one of my favorite players in the league. He just gets so much out of his size and ability. He just maximizes what he is as a player, and he plays hard for 40 minutes every single night. So we need a great crowd out there. It’s a great opportunity for us and excited to be back home.”
Creighton will need its frontcourt at full strength to deal with the Red Storm, which includes Jasen Green, the starting five man who missed a big chunk of the first half against Villanova with a shoulder issue. However, Green returned to the game and came up big in the second half.
“He’s been dealing with it for a while, and if it gets hurt, hit or pulled a certain way, it really bothers him, as you could see last night,” McDermott said. “But our training staff and strength staff have done a good job to strengthen it and try to protect it the best we can on a daily basis in practice. But he’s giving us a lot. He got some huge rebounds in traffic, and he’s really been a cornerstone of this team.”
St. John’s also has three guards averaging double figures in scoring. North Carolina transfer Ian Jackson (6-foot-5, 195 pounds) is third on the team at 11.1 points per game — in just 20 minutes per game. Stanford transfer Oziyah Sellers (6-foot-5, 190 pounds) is scoring 10.6 points per game while shooting 39.3% from deep. Arizona State transfer Joson Sanon is at 10.0 points per game and is shooting over 40% from 3 (though he’s under 36% inside the arc).
The point guard position has been the source of much of St. John’s struggles, with all of the guards focused primarily on their own offense. Ejiofor is leading the team in assists.
The Bluejays are hoping for a great crowd for Saturday’s tipoff, set for 1 p.m. CT on FS1 with Tim Brando and Donny Marshall on the call.
“I think it’ll be awesome,” Traudt said. “I think it’ll be, hopefully, our best home environment so far. Obviously, a
very, very good opponent is coming in and a game that we really want to win, obviously. So it’ll be a blast. I think it’ll be really loud.”
