Creighton men’s basketball scored its biggest win of the season at Villanova on Wednesday thanks to a second half that saw the Bluejays shoot a blistering 66.7% from the field in the second half.
Creighton scored 46 points in the final 20 minutes despite hitting just three 3-pointers. A few days after the Jays couldn’t make anything down the stretch at Seton Hall, they found something that worked over and over again in the second half: operating out of ball screens. Pick-and-rolls produced 25 of Creighton’s 46 points in the second half.
The Bluejays shot 12-of-17 from the field and only turned the ball over once, scoring 1.399 points per possession. They connected on a lob to the roller once, knocked down one 3 on a pass, and everything else came from the mid-range area.
“Villanova plays a deep drop with Duke Brennan back there, just plugging up everything really,” Blake Harper told 1620 the Zone after the game. “So really just the mid-range and the free-throw line area and elbows are going to be open within the pick-and-roll. So it was just kind of picking the poison for them, because we’ve got J-Green who’s a lob threat going back there and we’re surrounded by shooters, as you can see — Austin Swartz, Josh Dix, I could go on and on. Just being patient, man, I feel like that helped us a lot tonight.”
Let’s break it all down.
Swartz Sets the Tone
Creighton set the tone on its first possession of the second half, running a Spain pick-and-roll. In Spain, a second screener (usually a shooter), looks to set a back screen on the ball-screener’s man before popping out to the perimeter. This puts the defense in conflict, making it harder to recover to the roller without leaving the shooter open or having to switch. Watch it play out below.
Isaac Traudt sets a solid back screen and his man, Matt Hodge, is too slow to recognize the lob. Villanova also doesn’t tag from the weak side corner, so Austin Swartz allied to Jasen Green for the oop.
After opening the half with a pass, Swartz began hunting his own shot, taking advantage of the gap in the middle of the Villanova defense. The two buckets below were on back-to-back possessions.
On the first one, Green set a solid screen as Brennan initially followed above the free-throw line, but the Wildcat big man began falling back as Green rolled hard to the rim. With his man, Acaden Lewis, trailing the play, Swartz got to his spot at the right elbow, set his feet and knocked down the shot. With Traudt’s man tagging on the roll this time, Swartz also had the option to find Traudt for a 3, but his eyes got big as soon as he came off the screen.
Villanova scored on the other end then set up in a 2-3 zone, but the Bluejays went back to the same action, setting a screen on the right up defender to create a middle driving opportunity. Swartz saw Brennan hanging back below the logo and felt Lewis trailing him, so he side-stepped into the right-elbow jumper. Money again.
At that point, the Jays knew Swartz was feeling it, and they got the ball back into his hands as quickly as they could. After a stop, Dix advanced the ball to Swartz and Green immediately set another ball screen before the Wildcats had a chance to get their defense set.
Swartz didn’t even create that much separation on this one, but with Brennan again hanging back, he had enough to get the shot off and buried it. He hit three free-throw line jumpers in the span of three possessions, producing an 8-2 run (including the alley-oop) to pull Creighton within a point less than three minutes into the second half.
Now we fast forward a few minutes to Creighton’s next pick-and-roll bucket, as the ball found its way back into Swartz’s hands. This time it was Owen Freeman setting the screen — although he never actually got it set.
Swartz refused the screen before Freeman even got there with a behind-the-back dribble to get back to his right hand and attack. This time it was the smaller Hodge guarding Freeman, and he initially came out to the 3-point line to meet the action. However, he continued to retreat to the Big East logo while Devin Askew peels off to cover Freeman rolling as the two switched. Swartz saw Hodge backpedalling, however, and his eyes got big once again. That’s way too much space for a guy on a heater.
While Swartz did most of his damage in this game on the ball, he’s also evolved into Creighton’s best spot-up shooter, which Ty Davis knows full well. Here, Freeman set a ball screen, and for some reason, Askew left Swartz. Mistake.
Davis hit him with the live-dribble crosscourt pass and Swartz stepped into the easy 3 to tie the game. He accounted for 11 of Creighton’s first 23 points of the second half to pull his team level with the home squad.
Harper Heats Up
That’s where Harper took over. The Creighton staff likes to get the ball to Harper in baseline out-of-bounds plays, putting him in positions to do what he does best. Here, that’s a pick-and-roll out of the corner.
Green set the screen, allowing Harper to get Malachi Palmer on his hip. He attacked the lane as Brennan initially showed before stepping back to take away the dump-off to Green. Harper got to the far side of the lane, avoiding the swipe from Davis’ man and elevating off two feet for the finish over the top with his dominant left hand. It should have been a foul because Palmer never quite got back into legal guarding position and made contact, but Harper was strong enough to finish through it.
Two possessions later, Creighton went back to Harper, with Green handing it off to him before flipping into a ball screen to the outside — allowing Harper to attack to his left hand.
Harper got a step on Bryce Lindsay and put him in jail (where the ball-handler uses his body to keep his trailing defender behind him). With Green occupying Brennan, Harper elevated and finished off the glass, again playing through a foul as Lindsay grabbed him from behind.
A couple minutes later, Creighton ran another pick-and-roll with Harper, this time from the right wing. Same result.
Harper got his body in front of Hodge, rose up off two feet and finished the floater over Brennan with his feet planted just outside the the charge circle.
Dix Closes the Deal
Now we’ve reached the Josh Dix portion of the program. Swartz carried them early, Harper handled middle relief and Dix stepped in as a the closer with three of Creighton’s last four buckets.
Leading by five with just under six minutes to play, Green set a high middle ball screen for the senior guard, with Brennan hanging all the way back at the Big East logo again.
Lindsay fought back in front of Dix just below the free-throw line, so he stepped back and created plenty of space for the mid-range jumper to make it a seven-point game
Villanova answered with a 3 to keep its hopes alive, so Creighton went back to the high ball screen for Dix. This time, the Wildcats took away the free-throw area with Brennan playing higher up and the wings pinching in. so Dix snaked it, hesitated then split two Wildcats to jump stop just beyond the block.
Brennan showed a bit more aggressively this time, allowing Askew to recover as the shot clock was winding down. Villanova defended the play really well, but Dix decided that didn’t matter with the tough turnaround fadeaway to beat the buzzer.
Similarly, Villanova defended the pick-and-roll fairly well on Dix’s final bucket. Creighton ran another high ball screen with Brennan playing above the foul line and with Askew helping off Swartz to take away the right elbow. Dix still found his way to a kill spot.
Tyler Perkins did a good job of fighting over the screen and getting back in front of Dix, but the senior crossed back over and attacked to his left hand. He jump-stopped just outside the block and rose up for the short jumper, with Perkins unable to get a hand up. Green occupied Brennan enough to make him a nonfactor as well.
The Bluejays knew going into the game that they’d have opportunities to attack Villanova’s ball screen defense. Peacock listened in to Creighton’s huddle during the under-12 timeout, and even at that point Coach Greg McDermott was calling for less handoffs and more ball screens. The results were mixed in the first half, but the second half was an absolute clinic as Swartz, Harper and Dix all got into a rhythm.
McDermott called Dix an “elite mid-range player” after the game, and he’s not wrong. At Iowa last season, Dix shot 47.8% on roughly three off-the-dribble 2-point jumpers per game. He’s gotten off to a somewhat slow start this season, but with Wednesday’s performance he climbed back above 40% on the year. That shot has become a real weapon for Swartz as well, who is 11-for-22 on pull-up 2s so far this season.
“We’ve tinkered with drop ourselves some, so we’ve played against it a fair amount, and they executed it extremely well,” McDermott said. “They got to their spots and made some big shots and then just made enough 3s to keep them honest in that regard.”
