Colorado State Game Thread

[drbluejay]

It's almost impossible to not have a standout player in a game but it just happened.
At this point in the season, we don't have a point guard.
3 point shooting did not lose this game for us.
Put me down as thinking there might be some illness throughout the team.

[Chicagojayfan]

It's almost impossible to not have a standout player in a game but it just happened.
At this point in the season, we don't have a point guard.
3 point shooting did not lose this game for us.
Put me down as thinking there might be some illness throughout the team.

I'm thinking the same. I saw Jacob noted on twitter that Baylor and Trey were a combined 2/18 from 2 PT range... If I felt that was going to happen more than once this year (yesterday), I'd be a lot more worried than I am. There are teams that never have a game like this, but it's not all that uncommon for Creighton. In the past 3 years we've had

5 games w/ under 80.0 offensive efficiency in 2021-22, 10 total of under 90.0 offensive efficiency
1 game w/ under 80.0 offensive efficiency last year, 5 total of under 90.0 offensive efficiency

So far this year we have 1 under 80, at 71.6, but that is comparable to the 73.6 vs. Nebraska last year, and comparable to multiple games back in 21-22
- Providence Feb, 26 - 79.7
- Butler: Feb 8th - 77.5
- Nova: March 12 - 77.4
- Kennesaw State: November 11th - 76.1 (ouch) - somehow we ended up winning that one 51-44
- Nova: January 5th: 68.3 (officially the worse offensive game of the past 3 years)

And while I don't think Ashworth played well yesterday (nobody did really), it's not hard to look at the above games and see some lines where we had a 2/7, 8 assists/6 turnover line, or a 3/13, 0/2 assist/turnover line, or 3/13, 4 assist/4 turnover line. I remember us really struggling after Iowa State/AZ State pretty much created the book on how to play Nembhard by hard pressure up high and a key adjustment for us was to get the ball into Alexander's hands. Now teams are making a book on Alexander and we'll have to adjust as well.

Give Colorado St. Credit they played really well, but we had a terrible day, albeit the kind of terrible day that happens a couple times a year and usually early in the year. I put yesterday as a better performance than the Kennesaw State Game 2 years ago (that team ended up 13-18 on the year!) and about even with Nebraska last year and after that NU game we found out Kalk was sick. I'm guessing Alexander and probably more guys were sick and tried to gut it out for the team on a day when the shots weren't falling

I keep going back to Baylor and Alexander going 2/18 from 2 pt range. Not all were easy shots, but some were and it's not like we didn't get any open shots. We just didn't hit them. I don't think it indicates any fatal flaw in this team's construction any more than the NU game last year indicated a fatal flaw in that team

[Altmanforprez]

Honestly, I'm not as worked up about that loss as I would have thought, some days you just don't have it and yesterday we realllllllly didn't have it.

Credit to CSU, they came out with a great game plan and executed it about perfectly. We had to hit shots to get them out of it and they weren't falling for anyone.

The good news is Mac has plenty of film to work with the guys on during their week off. If illness was a factor, they'll be able to get healthy and move on from that beating.

The bad news is the flaws we saw in the first handful of games were completely exposed by CSU. Defensively we weren't horrible, but it was far from what we've seen the last couple of seasons. I wonder if we’ll see more of Dotzler and Green as we work into conference play, those guys have length that we seem to lack in those positions, but it’ll come down to if Mac trusts them. Offensively that was an all-time clunker, love or hate Kaluma, the one thing he did well was get to the rim and make something happen when it was needed. So far we’ve fully relied on Trey to make those plays, but when he’s off we need to have someone else be a threat and right now I’m not sure who that’s going to be on the roster.

[Jayday]

I agree with most of what has been said on this page. We miss R2 right now. Kaluma too to a degree but I think with Miller and Green getting healthy and more experienced that will be less of an issue. Trey has all the tools, he may have been sick as well but I sometimes wish he would force the issue a little more when teams are playing him physical like that. He is normally incredible with that fadeaway but there are times when I wish he would just go into the chest of his guy more and force a foul. I remember years ago thinking how much trouble we had in games when the refs allowed physical defense with few foul calls so none of this is really new to Creighton. I think this year we are less athletic and it really hurts in these rock fight games. I do like what I have seen from Dotzler and I hope Mac experiments more with him in rotations before BE play

[Helmzy]

Do we have anyone that can physically get to the hoop from the perimeter? Trey usually can, Baylor when he wants to... but I don't think anyone else can and has a chance of finishing a layup. I wish we went after someone in the portal that could do that instead of redshirting 2 guys in an "all in" year. Would make it a lot easier for everyone imo

[GoJays2020]

Does anyone happen to know CU’s record for fewest points scored in a half? 19 must be close

[ictjay]

Dotzler 6’4” athletic point guard.

[Jaybird]

Does anyone happen to know CU’s record for fewest points scored in a half? 19 must be close

We exploded for 18 in the 1st half against Nova in the '22 BE title game, so first half futility isn't such a newfound phenomenon. Still only trailed by one at the break in that game, before losing a close one.

[PhoenixBluejay]

Dotlzer

[JacobPadilla]

Re-watched the game.

First, here's what I wrote, with comments from Mac and Kalk.

https://hurrdatsports.com/creighton-men ... ado-state/

As for the re-watch, I come away thinking that game really was much more of everybody just having a bad day at the same time than some sign that this team is doomed to mediocrity. More specifically, any time all three of Kalkbrenner, Alexander and Scheierman play poorly on both ends against someone with a pulse, Creighton is almost assuredly going to lose.

On defense, there were far too many miscommunications where one guy switched and the other didn't leaving a shooter wide open. There were also just straight up lapses where guys got caught flat-footed or ball-watching or whatever. Baylor and Trey were involved in most of those.

Colorado State is uniquely equipped to attack a drop defense because of Isaiah Stevens. I don't think Creighton will face a better point guard this season. He consistently made the right decision and picked them apart, either rising up for the mid-range jumper or sucking in Kalkbrenner and dropping it off last-second for an easy finish. TBH, I thought Kalkbrenner was off in his positioning and activity with that drop most of the time. He just wasn't as disruptive or impactful as he is capable of being.

That being said, Colorado State hadn't scored below 80 before that game, and they only scored 69 against Creighton. They got into a rhythm in the second half to prevent Creighton from clawing back into it, but the offense was the problem, full-stop.

And I don't know, man. There were some things they definitely need to do better and some tweaks I'd like to see, but I really do think they just missed a ton of good shots. There are so many possessions where they executed pretty well, made good decisions and got nothing out of it because they couldn't make anything from anywhere on the court.

Colorado State was really physical. Lot of hand checks and body bumps and slaps not called. They were also playing pretty aggressively, helping off to plug the gaps to prevent Creighton's guards from getting downhill cleanly and sending multiple bodies at Kalkbrenner on post touches or rolls to the rim (but not the same number each time). If Creighton shot anywhere near its average, it would have backfired. But they just couldn't throw it in the ocean.

On think Trey in particular needs to improve on is being more direct with his drives. Too often he rounds his drives out rather than attacking in a straight line and getting the defender on his hip for follows or direct paths to the rim. Creighton also needs to do a better job making solid contact on screens and getting downhill off them, though they set a lot of ghosts as well which is a different story.

Everybody's down on Ashworth now, but he wasn't anywhere near Creighton's biggest problem (and I don't think Creighton wins that game with Nembhard in his place based on the way he's been playing this season). I didn't think he got picked on defensively to the degree that some might have implied and he made some good plays on offense.

The truth is Trey is the primary playmaker on this team. Ashworth is the organizer and floor spacer at point guard; that's his role on this team and it's one I think he's capable of filling well. He's going to make teams pay for loading up too much on the other guys at points this season and win CU some games.