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Creighton basketball 2019-2020

nice win on the road. 67-60.

Total team win. Big contributions in different ways by just about everyone who played. 3s weren't falling and they still win. That's two in a row where they had to win with a little toughness and resiliency. Good sign.

The big east...at least the top...is down this year. Balanced quality but X and Nova aren't exactly top 5 or 10 teams. If they can stay healthy they can be a factor.
 

Massey Ratings - College Basketball : NCAA D1 Ratings

Computer ratings and rankings for CB (College Basketball), with links to team predictions, scores, and schedules.
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I guess I haven't been paying close enough attention. Big east at #1 as we wrap up non conference play. Jays at 19. Butler at 6. Nova at 14. Everyone in the top 60 except Providence.

I stand by the "not as tough" at the top as there probably won't be any BE team spending a lot of time in the top 10 but the balance and quality means there probably won't be any off nights. 12-6 could win it outright...2nd through 7th will probably go down to the last couple games.
 
Textbook game on what they want to do this year in last night's game against Marquette.

- Played great D against Howard and used a scheme to give them problems across the board
- spread out the ball on O and spread out their D while running the court hard
- Pace was good enough to get Wojo to yank his bigs in trying to keep up

Some teams will have better bigs offensively that may make this more difficult, but there really aren't a ton of traditional center's running around college ball these days
 
Yeah, that was about as well as you could expect or want that game to go. Hard to say how good Marquette is. Their Purdue win looked good early but it's not looking like Purdue has much. Decent win over USC and a win v. a mediocre KSU.

Howard has killed the jays in the past. He didn't score for about the first 16 minutes and ended with a relatively quiet 18. Ed Morrow is STILL around. 8 and 6 for him. Dude is a physical specimen.

The jays team has some pieces. Zegarowski is playing all conference level ball. His 3% is down just a little from last year but he's becoming the guy that when the clock runs down you can count on him driving and creating something. That's so important as games come down to the wire. He brings a toughness that CU has lacked. Obviously, Alexander and Ballock are guys that look familiar if you've watched CU. They make a pretty good scoring tandem. When both are on, CU is hard to beat. Alexander is a little softer on offense than I'd like but such is life...although he does lead the team in rebounding. Mahoney is a guy who can bang around a little on the inside which, again, CU has lacked. The big missing piece is Epperson. That one hurts.

This was a huge win because now they go on the road to Butler, home against Nova, at Xavier and at G'Town. That's as tough a 4 game stretch as they will play all year. If they can emerge from the first 5 at 3-2 that would be pretty solid.
 



Just when I think CU exhibits some long wished for toughness....yesterday happens.

CU went something like 4-21 from 3. Normally, that spells a big loss on the road. And 14 (or whatever it was) isn't a small loss but it was within 5 or so most of the game. Butler poured it on at the end to widen the margin. But what was disappointing was Alexander only shooting 5 times in the first 38 minutes. He's supposed to be one of the studs but disappears in tough road games. Zegarowski played well in the first half but got frustrated in the 2nd half....possibly trying to do too much as he saw Alexander NOT doing anything offensively.

Some say "well, this game would have been over at halftime last year". OK. But the end result is the same and the MO is very similar...don't hit 3s and they can't win.

Jumping around again...this is a top 10ish team on the road and Butler just isn't a great match-up for CU. What is obviously concerning is THESE are the games that get you from the first weekend of the dance to the 2nd. And they still can't win them.

The Big East road is going to be a total beyotch this year. If CU can get more than 2 wins I'd be very impressed. That means they need to lose no more than 2 at home...and that might be tough. The goal is 9-9. 8-10 MAY get them dancing...probably should because those 8 games would have some really good wins and the 10 losses would have maybe 1 bad loss (that being providence who is all of a sudden 2-0 in conference).

Nova at home Tuesday. Of course, Marquette did CU no favors by beating them yesterday so they are going to be pretty focused on not starting conference play at 1-2
 
that loss to Nova was a bad one. I don't care how good nova is...you have a double digit 2nd half lead at home? You gotta close that out in this league this year. Crapping the bed at home is a mortal sin when you know you are not going to be road warriors.

Zegarowski had a rough game and the other two of the big 3 didn't step up to make up for it. Bishop did have a nice game though. Mahoney has been a disappointment....never met a shot he didn't like. He is dreadful from 3 and what does Mac do in crunch time? Runs a play specifically designed to get him a shot from 3. :Confused:

Of course, Xavier lost the other day...at home i think....so they will be laser focused on not dropping another one right away. Jays better not go 3 for 22 from 3 again or it will be another double digit loss. They lose the next 2 and the season could spiral in the wrong direction. I think the chances of them losing those 2 is greater than 50-50.
 
Very disappointing loss to Nova, but good bounce back at Xavier. The team is in a bit of a shooting slump but somehow managed to hack out an ugly W on the road. Lol....that’s as deep as my analysis gets.
 




BubbaGene said:
Very disappointing loss to Nova, but good bounce back at Xavier. The team is in a bit of a shooting slump but somehow managed to hack out an ugly W on the road. Lol....that’s as deep as my analysis gets.
Click to expand...

Defense and rebounding kept the team in it yesterday until the shots started falling -- and the D isn't an accident, they've played good D almost this entire season.

Love the Ballock that goes and gets shots and creates. He sparked the team at the end of the second half and hit big shots down the stretch despite Xavier tying a guy to his waist all over the court in the second half. 19 pts on 7/13 shooting, 8 boards and 3 assists. Helps that Alexander looked to get going on the road in the second half after doing nothing in the first.
 
Good bounce-back win. Doesn't make up for the Nova choke. I mean if your goal is to go 9-9, make the dance at an 8 or 9 seed and go home...sure. But at some point if you want to finish top 3 or even win it all you can't have chokes like that. 3-1 right now is way better than 2-2 because they have a CHANCE to go 4-0 over the next couple weeks. 7-1 puts you squarely in the mix to compete for a title and ranked (for whatever that's worth).

Anyway, hit 9 3s on the road for 40%. That's what they need to do to win on the road. They don't need 15-20 3s. They just need to hit a good % of the ones they take. 16-19 from the line goes a long way too.

Ballock got shut down for about 12 minutes in the 2nd half but still scored 19. The 8 boards were big too. They gave up 15 ORB but negated that by getting 13 of their own. Kelvin Jones came up big with 8 boards, 2 assists, 2 blocks in 14 min. If he can give them that on a fairly regular basis that goes a long way toward helping blunt the size issues (yeah yeah) CU faces. Bishop was huge in the 2nd half...all 10 points in the 2nd (5 assists is big too).

Next 4 include roadies at G'Town and Depaul and home v. Providence and Xavier. None of those games will have a spread exceeding 4 points so 4-0 will be a challenge. Creighton would be a favorite on a neutral site v all 4 teams so it's not Mt. Everest.
 
bilsker said:
Anyway, hit 9 3s on the road for 40%. That's what they need to do to win on the road. They don't need 15-20 3s. They just need to hit a good % of the ones they take. 16-19 from the line goes a long way too.

Ballock got shut down for about 12 minutes in the 2nd half but still scored 19. The 8 boards were big too. They gave up 15 ORB but negated that by getting 13 of their own. Kelvin Jones came up big with 8 boards, 2 assists, 2 blocks in 14 min. If he can give them that on a fairly regular basis that goes a long way toward helping blunt the size issues (yeah yeah) CU faces. Bishop was huge in the 2nd half...all 10 points in the 2nd (5 assists is big too).
Click to expand...

This Xavier game was apparently much "prettier" I originally gave it credit for although I missed a portion of it and lots of the good lookin stuff (end of first half, beginning to about middle of second half). I still worry how they'll hold up as they get through conference play....
 
Seriously didn't see the AP #25 ranking coming. Won't likely last long but it's always nice to see.
 



bilsker said:
Seriously didn't see the AP #25 ranking coming. Won't likely last long but it's always nice to see.
Click to expand...

Yup, get ranked .... get beat. Tough game for CU last night. They scored 80 pts., but still seemed to not get any rhythm going. At least that is how it appeared to me. They had a chance at the end, but just couldn't keep GU from putting it in the basket. It was a winnable game.
 
SSDD. Wasn't able to watch but an unsurprising result. A 4 game stretch they could sweep and put themselves in contention...but instead will go 2-2 or 1-3 and have them fighting to stay out of Wednesday BIg Eeast Tourney play. Blah blah blah.
 

Life in the Big East for CU in 2020...nail biting games home and away. Jays led by a small margin for a good portion of the game only to spend the last part of the game trailing by up to 5 points. Free throws by Alexander and a monster 3 by Zegarowski help the jays pull it off at the end. Defense actually gets some credit at the end as well.

David Duke....yeah...that's the guy's name...absolutely torched CU but in the end it wasn't enough. Zegarowski didn't start due to illness and he played like he was sick for most of the game. PC clearly worked to run cu off the 3 pt line but they hit 8 of the 16 they got off topped off by Z's winner.

This season will gray the rest of my hair.
 
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