The Creighton men’s basketball team is currently navigating uncharted waters, coming off back-to-back 20-point losses for the first time during Greg McDermott’s tenure.
After falling at Marquette by 24, the Bluejays returned home for the Pink Out on Saturday and lost to No. 2 UConn, 85-58. Creighton (12-10) is still in the top half of the Big East thanks to its strong start to Big East play, sitting in fifth place at 6-5 with a two-game lead on four teams all tied at 4-7, including its next opponent in Georgetown. However, the Bluejays are clearly trending in the wrong direction.
After climbing as high as 40th in KenPom, the Bluejays have fallen to 74th after losing four of their last six. To further contextualize the team’s current struggles, since Jan. 9, Creighton is the lowest-rated high-major team in the country on BartTorvik at a76th — largely because the Bluejays have the 331st-ranked defense during that span. Creighton has given up at least 83 points in six straight games.
Five of those six opponents shot over 50% from the field, with three of them over 56%. Three of those teams scored 50-plus points in the paint (Georgetown 50, Providence 50, Marquette 52) while the other three knocked down double-digit 3s (St. John’s 12, Xavier 12, UConn 16). Creighton has tried various things to make teams pick their poison, and it’s been deadly for the Jays no matter what path the opposition takes.
The Bluejays have scored 86, 88 and 93 points in three of those games, putting themselves in position to steal two of them, but trying to outscore the opposition in a shootout hasn’t worked in the last two as the Jays have gone ice cold from 3 (7-of-34 against Marquette, 5-of-21 against UConn).
There’s no quick fix for this year’s team, and there’s no quitting either. Nine regular season games remain for the Bluejays to find something that works, and McDermott is starting with the little things in the hopes that they add up down the road.
“You just keep working; that’s all you can do,” McDermott said after the UConn loss. “As I told them, you want your goal to be, as a teammate, what can I do to make my teammates’ job easier? Can I talk a little better? Can I talk a little early? Can I talk a little louder? Can I make sure he understands what we’re supposed to do next? Can I demand more of him on the practice floor so that when the game starts, we’re better? We just need to take another step with that.”
Creighton isn’t going to get any bigger or quicker mid-season, but communication, attention to detail and effort can all improve, and that’s what the coaching staff is focused on. The team needs to rally together and make those strides quickly in order to prevent the losing streak from reaching three as the Bluejays prepare for a rematch with the Hoyas on Wednesday.
“When times get tough, especially in this era of college athletics and social media, it’s really hard to be a college athlete when things aren’t going well, because nameless people will speak to what you are or aren’t doing, and that makes it a little harder to be motivated go to work the next day,” McDermott continued. “That’s where the connection in the locker room is so important. Our fan base can fracture and be upset with what’s going on, but our locker room can’t.
“We have to stick together as a coaching staff and a team, and we’ve got to hit the practice floor Monday and we’ve got to go to work against the Georgetown team that obviously probably feels like we stole one when they were here, which we did. They’ve won three in a row and two-point loss to UConn right before that, and a lucky win for us. So we’re going to get their best shot. We’ve got to have two good days in preparation for that game.”
Creighton escaped at home against Georgetown on Jan. 13, pulling out an 86-83 win in overtime after trailing by seven with less than two minutes to play in regulation. The Bluejays won that game thanks to a career-high 33 points and some late-game heroics from sophomore Austin Swartz. The Jays overcame foul trouble to junior Jasen Green, who finished with six points and two rebounds in 21 minutes.
The loss was the fourth in a six-game losing streak for the Hoyas (12-10). Since then, they’ve won three straight — 81-78 at Providence (Coach Ed Cooley’s first win at Providence after leaving the program to take the Georgetown job in 2023), 70-61 against DePaul and 77-64 at Butler.
Leading scorers KJ Lewis and Malik Mack are both shooting under 40% from the field on the season, but each of them is capable of going off in any given game, as Lewis did with 26 points against the Friars. Mack led the Hoyas with 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting in the first game against Creighton, picking apart the Jays’ struggling ball screen defense. Four-man Caleb Williams is shooting 45.5% from 3 in conference play and went 4-for-4 from the field (2-for-2 from deep) against Creighton.
What makes Georgetown a particularly tough matchup for Creighton is its pair of 7-footers in the middle, Vincent Iwuchukwu and Julius Halaifonua. The latter scored 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting off the bench in the first meeting. However, Halaifonua did not play against Butler because of a back injury and is listed as questionable on the pre-game availability report.
Georgetown has been an improved 3-point shooting team at 35.9% in conference play, albeit at lower volume, but the Hoyas have struggled mightily inside the arc at 47.6% — the same percentage they’ve allowed their opponents. They don’t necessarily block a lot of shots, but their size in the middle has resulted in the third-farthest average 2-point distance in the league.
Wednesday will serve as a homecoming for sophomore Blake Harper, a Washington, D.C., native. Harper made his return to the starting lineup against UConn and finished with 11 points and five rebounds in 25 minutes. He said he’s looking forward to heading home and seeing his friends and family, many of whom will be in the building at Capital One Arena.
Peacock will stream the game and NBC Sports Network will televise it for YouTube TV subscribers, with Paul Burmeister and Brenden Haywood on the call. Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m. CT.
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