Strong Guard Play Leads Creighton Men’s Basketball to 92-69 Win Over Utah Tech

Creighton men’s basketball took down Utah Tech 92-69 at CHI Health Center Omaha Monday to improve to 8-5 on the season and head into the holiday break on a three-game winning streak.

Four players scored in double figures and all 11 healthy Jays found the scoring column at least once as the Creighton pulled away in the last 10 minutes to secure the 23-point victory.

“These games before the holidays always scare me, especially as I watch more and more film on Utah Tech and how impressed I was with the way that they played …” Coach Greg McDermott said. “Fortunately, I thought the starting group did a great job of getting into getting us off to the start that we needed to, then I thought we relaxed a little bit. We got a little sloppy. Defensively, our coverages weren’t quite as good.

“But we’re in such a better place than we were 10 days ago, and I’m proud of the guys for that. I think they’ve bought into each other a little bit more and bought into what we’re asking them to do and keeping the game maybe a little simpler than we were before, and the results have been better because of that. I’m really proud of the way that we’ve finished these last three games before break.”

Here are three takeaways from the game.

Leading the Way

Point guard play has been a major issue for Creighton at times this season. That certainly wasn’t the case on Monday night.

The three primary lead guards for Creighton — Ty Davis, Nik Graves and Josh Dix — combined for 28 points on 9-of-14 from the field and 7-of-8 from the foul line with 13 assists and zero turnovers. With those three setting the tone, the Bluejays shot 54% from the field and assisted on 23 of their 34 field goals.

“The guys that had the ball in their hands really did a terrific job of making the right decision,” McDermott said. “When the ball moves like that — I thought there were a few times we were unselfish to a fault, that we turned down some pretty wide-open shots. But I would rather try to correct that than the ball not moving. We’ve made a lot of strides in that area of the game over the course of the last couple of weeks, and that’s an area we need to continue to grow in.”

Dix impacted the game significantly in every facet, scoring 17 points on 4-of-6 from the field (3-of-5 from 3) and 6-of-6 from the line. He also grabbed six rebounds, dished out five assists and secured a career-high five steals.

Davis made his fourth-straight start and chipped in five points on a pair of layups (including a three-point play) and four assists in 18 minutes. After the Jays were minus-22 with the sophomore on the floor against Marquette, they outscored the Trailblazers by 15 with him out there Monday, tied for third-best on the team.

Graves added six points, four rebounds and four assists in 22 minutes off the bench. He’s starting to develop some chemistry with Jasen Green in the pick-and-roll, finding him for a pair of alley-oops on back-to-back possessions in the second half. Graves also set up an Owen Freeman layup and an Isaac Traudt 3-pointer. After doing most of his scoring damage from the perimeter against Marquette, all three of his buckets Monday came at the rim.

Collectively, that trio’s assists produced 33 points — seven 3-pointers, four layups and two dunks. Dix accounted for nearly a third of Creighton’s point himself via scoring or distributing.

Changing the Plan and Flipping the Switch

Creighton only led by nine at halftime, and the Trailblazers managed to stay in the game for a good chunk of the second half by continuing to score. They ended up shooting 50% from the field and poured in 42 points in the paint — a far cry defensively from what Creighton had done recently (Marquette and Xavier both finished with 28 paint points and shot under 37% against the Jays).

McDermott shouldered some of the blame for that.

“Our ball screen coverages tonight, I wasn’t very happy with myself, with the position I put them in with the one-day prep,” the head coach said. “You had to keep it as simple as we could, and we didn’t have Jasen, Josh or Owen at practice yesterday, so it was kind of a skeleton crew for our one-day prep. We made a switch with about 10 minutes left in the game, and that’s when we forced some turnovers, and it was good to see.”

With 10 minutes to play, the Bluejays led by 13 — 69-56. The rest of the way, Creighton forced nine Utah Tech turnovers. What’s more, the Jays scored on all of them but one. Overall, Creighton forced 15 turnovers and converted them into 28 points on the other end. Eleven of those turnovers were steals, allowing Creighton to trigger its transition attack.

“I think just a little bit more ball pressure, and our bigs were doing a better job of kind of coming up to the level of the screen, and that made it tough,” Austin Swartz said. “We did a really good job rotating on the backside, and we were able to get some steals and go out in transition to get some buckets. I think we just turned up the pressure a little bit and were in the right spots on defense.”

Following the win, Creighton is up to 39th in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom. After the loss to Kansas State, the Bluejays stood at 10th nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency according to Bart Torvik. They’ve risen to 43rd since then, and they rank 18th during their three-game winning streak.

Shot-Making Supreme

Utah Tech’s aggressive style of defense, featuring plenty of double-teams and flying around to cover for each other, stymied Creighton’s offense at times. The Jays didn’t open with a shot clock violation like they did against Marquette, but they did get deep into the clock on numerous occasions. At least six times in the first half, Creighton fired up a 3-pointer in the final three seconds of the clock. Four of them went in.

“Thank goodness we threw in a few at the end of the shot clock,” McDermott said. “I think we made four in the first half, and Coach [Jon] Judkins wanted to know how we work on that part of our offense. It takes a little bit of good fortune and sometimes, some nights, those shots go in, and sometimes they don’t.”

Dix hit two of those buzzer-beaters and Swartz hit the other two. The latter said the key to making plays late in the shot clock is staying poised.

“We don’t necessarily walk on that in practice, but sometimes we turn good shots into great shots, and sometimes it comes to the end of the shot clock because you’re a little too unselfish, if you will,” Swartz said. “But I’ve been in those situations my whole life, so just used to it.”

The buzzer beaters — both from well beyond the line — were part of Swartz’s game-high 19 points. He shot 7-of-12 from the field and 5-of-9 from 3. Isaac Traudt added three triples and 13 points while Fedor Žugić and Blake Harper each hit one off the bench. As a team, Creighton shot 13-of-33 (39.4%) from 3.

After a frigid start to the season, Creighton has hit double-digit 3-pointers in six of its last eight games and has shot better than 37% in five of them. The Bluejays are up to 127th in the country in 3-point percentage overall at 34.8%.

The Jays were incredibly 3-point heavy early, with 22 of their 33 shots in the first half coming from beyond the arc (despite shooting 8-of-11 inside of it). However, there was a stretch in the second half, when Creighton really started to open it up, that the Jays made 10-of-11 shots — four 3s, three dunks and three layups — as the offense diversified and their stops fueled their transition game.

“They’re one of the best teams in the country at not allowing you to score quickly,” McDermott said of Utah Tech. “They switch a lot of screens, they keep their defense together, it’s hard to get into the teeth of it. Your opportunity to score quickly is in transition, and we were able to do that some, but there’s a reason their defensive numbers say what they do. They keep you from hitting them quick. They’re very disciplined, and they’ve got great positional length.

“I think as you watch this team over the course of the year, I’m guessing that Utah Tech’s going to win their fair share of games.”