After losing Jasen Green against Xavier, it appears Creighton men’s basketball will have its starting five man back in the lineup as the Bluejays head to Marquette for a late tipoff Tuesday night.
Green appeared to aggravate his shoulder injury late in the first half against the Musketeers and did not return to the game. However, the five-day break proved sufficient to get him back in action as he returned to practice Monday, and Coach Greg McDermott said he expects Green to play in Milwaukee.
The news is less encouraging for Owen Freeman, who missed the Xavier game with an illness.
“He’s got another issue with one of his legs,” McDermott said after practice Monday. “He practiced yesterday, but he did not practice today.”
Creighton’s lineup has been in constant flux this season as injury, illness and other factors have forced McDermott and his staff to figure things out on the fly for the 12-8 Bluejays, who have alternated wins and losses since a 3-0 start to conference play and sit at 6-3 in the Big East, tied for third with Villanova.
“It’s part of coaching,” McDermott said. “Things happen, injuries happen, illnesses happen, so you’ve got to be ready for about anything, and this year has certainly been a get ready for anything type of year.”
Aside from the center situation, the latest wrinkle McDermott has to deal with is a more positive one as freshman Hudson Greer is coming off his best game since returning from the injury that sidelined him for over a month. His minutes have been spotty since the medical staff cleared him for action, playing five minutes at Seton Hall, zero at Villanova, 10 against St. John’s (most of them with the game already decided), none against Georgetown, two at Providence and nine against the Musketeers.
“It’s been hard, because we were playing better when he came back and he wasn’t in shape,” McDermott said. “When you miss with something like that, it’s not like you’re on the side running and staying in shape. You have to rest it, so he had to stay off of it. He’s getting in better basketball shape. I think you saw that with some of his quality minutes the other night. So hopefully we can continue to move in that direction as we go forward.”
Greer said he’s navigated his ramp-up process by staying in the gym, getting extra conditioning and getting extra shots up so that he’s ready when his number’s called. The extra work hasn’t gone unnoticed inside the McDermott Center.
“A lot of the time I see him even before practice working out with our Gas,” Fedor Žugić said. “I think he did a pretty good job of buying in, and he’s kind of doing whatever we need him to do. It’s not always pretty. Sometimes he has to do some dirty jobs like rebound and fight guys in the paint that I know sometimes he doesn’t want to do, but he still does it. Props to him. He’s very mature and knows what he wants.”
Greer said he paid close attention to how the others operated and locked in on the coaches’ points of emphasis while he was unavailable, and those mental reps have helped him now that he’s getting back into game shape and is ready to contribute on the court again.
“I think I’m really close,” Greer said. “I honestly feel like I’m there. Obviously, I haven’t had the opportunity to show it, but I feel like this past game was definitely the start of it, for sure. Who knows how the season is going to end up being, but I just know with me and my guys, that we’re going to do the best that we can, and we’re going to get, hopefully, to the mountaintop.”
Greer chipped in eight points off the bench against Xavier after scoring just six in his first three games back combined. He didn’t attempt a 3-pointer in any of those first three, but with Creighton trailing by one late in the first half, Greer knocked down 3s on back-to-back possessions to put the Jays back in front heading into halftime, a sequence McDermott highlighted in his post-game press conference.
“I think for me, I play with a lot of confidence, and I’m just a confident person, just because I know the work I put in,” Greer said of letting it fly in those moments. “I feel like going into every game, I’m prepared for that game. I feel like if I didn’t put the work in, then I wouldn’t be ready for the moment. But I know that each and every time I step out on the court, I’m going to be prepared, whether it’s working out or in the film room, just doing the necessary things.”
Greer was still out the first time Creighton played Marquette, an 84-63 win for the Bluejays in Omaha that included an offensive explosion from Nik Graves, who sparked a 25-2 Creighton run that took less the four minutes.
Marquette has only won two games since that first meeting and sits in last place in the Big East with a 2-8 record. At 7-14 overall, the Golden Eagles are the lowest-ranked team in the conference on KenPom at 124th. They’ve struggled mightily to shoot the ball from everywhere on the court, ranking 286th in effective field goal percentage (48.5%). Marquette is dreadful from the 3-point line (30.3%, 325th) and, despite the third-shortest average 2-point attempt distance in the country, they’re only shooting 50.5% inside the arc (217th).
Marquette hasn’t been particularly good on defense either this season (ranking 127th in adjusted defensive efficiency overall, not too far behind its offense at 135th), but the one area in which the Golden Eagles excel is taking the ball away. Marquette has the 20th-highest steal rate in the country at 12.9%, and the Golden Eagles love to play in transition.
“[The key is] taking care of the basketball,” McDermott said. “Marquette thrives on live-ball turnovers, trying to disrupt your offense with their defensive activity, so we have to take care of the basketball. That really cost us the Providence game, those turnovers that led to easy baskets. We’re going to have to do a better job there. Nigel James is playing at a really high level, averaging 20 a game in conference play. Chase Ross is still very, very talented. They have a lot of pieces, they’ve lost a lot of close games, and they’re especially good at home.”
James, the lightning-quick freshman point guard, led Marquette with 23 points in the first meeting, though it took him 22 shooting possessions to get there. He’s averaging 19.6 points on 50.7% from the field and 48.9% from 3 plus 5.6 assists in Big East play to lead the team.
“I played Nigel James plenty of times in AAU, so I know what I’m getting from him … He was on one of my teams for a camp, and he dunked on one of my AAU teammates at 7-foot, so that was that was a rude awakening for sure to see it,” Greer said. “They may list him at 6-foot, but I don’t know. But he’s a great player, man. I can’t compliment the guy enough.”
Sophomore forward Royce Parham has elevated his play in conference and is second on the team in scoring at 12.4 points. Chase Ross is leading the team in scoring overall this season at 15.6 points per game, though that’s dropped to 12.3 per game in Big East play as he’s shooting just 33.9% from the field. Creighton held him to nine points on 3-of-13 shooting in the first game, with Josh Dix taking the primary assignment on the high-flying wing.
Turnovers were a wash in the first meeting, with Creighton taking better advantage of its extra possessions with six more points off turnovers. However, that was at CHI Health Center Omaha. All seven of the Golden Eagles’ wins this season have come at Fiserv Forum, where Marquette is 7-5.
“They’re a whole different beast at home,” Žugić said. “We know how Marquette plays. They want those deflections, they want all the steals, they want to be physical with you. I thought we did a pretty good job at home. If we stick to the same game plan, we won’t have any problems there either.”
Tipoff is set for 8:30 p.m. CT on TNT and TruTV with Brian Anderson, Grant Hill and Andy Katz on the call. Fans can also stream the game with an HBO Max subscription.
