Even in the midst of a season filled with peaks and valleys, last’s week’s road trip for Creighton men’s basketball was extreme. The Bluejays played arguably their best and worst basketball in a four-day span, taking down then-No. 5 UConn before falling to No. 17 St. John’s in a complete rout.
After splitting the road trip, Creighton stands at 14-14 overall and 8-9 in Big East play, good for fifth place, just one game back of Seton Hall. Coach Greg McDermott’s message in the locker room after the St. John’s game was to focus on the positives and try to build off what they accomplished in Storrs.
“I was proud of the guys,” said Blake Harper, one of the heroes of the UConn win. “I feel like nobody really believed in us. That’s what we were saying the whole trip, really, it’s what we’ve got in this locker room that’s going to get us out of here. We went to UConn and handled business. St. John’s, we came up short, but at the same time, we’re right back here in practice. So it’s kind of ups and downs for the whole season. We’ve just got to stay levelheaded, and we’re back to work right now.”
Beyond shot-making (nearly 50% from the field, 48% from 3 and 85% from the foul line), McDermott highlighted a few of the key areas that contributed to the UConn win that he hopes the team can carry forward as they seek to finish the season strong.
“I thought the guys were really connected,” McDermott said. “I was very pleased with our pace, both in the full court and half court. That’s something that we really emphasized in practice leading up to that, so to see that unfold the way that we wanted was good to see. Obviously, you go into an environment like that, you’ve got to be able to withstand some of their runs, and they certainly had several of those where the crowd really got in the game, and we were able to not let that impact us in a negative way.”
McDermott said the team practiced really well leading up to the St. John’s loss, but it didn’t translate to the game — with the Johnnies having a lot to do with that. Wednesday will provide another chance to put that work into action as DePaul (14-13, 6-10) visits CHI Health Center Omaha. The Blue Demons snapped Creighton’s 23-game series winning streak with a game-winning layup late from Brandon Maclin in a 72-71 DePaul victory on Feb. 11.
“We felt like we let one slip away from us,” Josh Dix said of the Blue Demons. “They’re a good team, they’ve got a lot of good guards that can go and their bigs are tough in the paint. They crash the glass and get a lot of rebounds. I feel like we kind of have to handle the boards better. We played with really good pace against UConn going up the floor, and I think if we can get the boards and go, that’ll hurt them.”
DePaul scored 15 of its 20 second-chance points in the first half of the first meeting, though the Blue Demons only corralled 10 offensive rebounds overall. Part of that is they shot 52.8% from the field, with layups or dunks accounting for 22 of their 53 shot attempts. They scored 46 points in the paint (compared to just 12 for Creighton).
The one leading the charge in the first meeting was 6-foot-8, 235-pound senior forward NJ Benson, who finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds. He’s averaging 11.2 points on 64% shooting and 7.3 rebounds this season and is a constant lob threat for the Blue Demon attack despite being undersized at the five.
CJ Gunn, a 6-foot-7 senior wing, is averaging 14.0 points, while point guard Layden Blocker is just ahead of Benson at 11.5 points per game. Those three are returners while transfer Brandon Maclin has elevated his play in the Big East, joining the other three in double figures at 11.3 points per game in conference play.
“They’ve been able to keep some guys from last year that were really key players for them,” McDermott said. “Benson’s playing a high level, CJ Gunn’s playing at a high level, so I think it starts there, and then they’ve added some good pieces. Defensively, they’ve been extremely sound all season long.”
The first offensive performance against Creighton is something of an outlier for a DePaul team that has struggled offensively all season, ranking 181st in adjusted offensive efficiency and 192nd in 2-point percentage at 51.5%. The Bluejays can’t afford to let the Blue Demons feast in the paint again, and they’ll have to find a better way to crack what has been a top-50 defense this season. DePaul is limiting opponents to 47.1% shooting inside the arc (29th nationally) and held Creighton to just 1-for-6 on layups and dunks. The Jays can’t rely on shooting 14-for-27 from 3 again, which still wasn’t enough to get a win the first time.
“They won at Seton Hall, they played well at St. John’s on the road, they had Xavier down 18 in the second half at Xavier and lost that game, they had Villanova down 18 points in the second half at Villanova, so they’ve had some near misses on the road. It’s a team that, I think, really believes. They’d won two in a row coming into that Providence game, and they’re on the free-throw line with a chance to win it, and unfortunately, missed a couple free throws. So they’re playing at a pretty high level right now.”
Harper acknowledged the team had too many lapses in Chicago, and the emphasis in practice this week is cleaning that up for round two.
“Really just focus on the game plan and focus for all 40 minutes,” Harper said. “I feel like certain times at DePaul, we let the ball roll, and I feel like just now, we’ve got no more room for error, and we’ve got to tighten all that up.”
The loss should be fresh in the Bluejays’ minds with the teams playing each other twice in a two-week span. McDermott is hoping that plus the importance of these last three regular season games for Big East Tournament seeding will be enough motivation to get the best out of his team.
“I hope we have a little extra juice and energy,” McDermott said. “We lost a close one we had an opportunity to win. DePaul executed well down the stretch on both ends of the floor. But we’re playing for a lot. We’re trying to chase that four seed and, at worst, end up as a five, and that’s important as you enter the Big East Tournament, to play one less game. So we’ve got plenty to play for. We haven’t had the year that we had hoped we would have, but when we have one of our worst years in a long time, and we’re talking about fourth place in the Big East, I guess that’s not all bad.”
McDermott shared that Josh Dix, Austin Swartz and Jasen Green are all dealing with minor injuries while a couple players are battling an illness (Nik Graves was absent from practice on Monday). He was hopeful that everyone would be back on the court Tuesday to put the final touches on DePaul preparation.
Tipoff on Wednesday is set for 8 p.m. CT and the game will be streamed on Peacock (as well as NBC Sports Network for YouTube TV subscribers), with Paul Burmeister and Nick Bahe on the call. Creighton is also encouraging a fans to wear blue as it partners with ABIDE for its annual Blue Out.
