Marquette Game Thread

[wildjays]

Creighton suffers a loss at Marquette on Saturday afternoon.
Matt DeMarinis and Jacob Padilla break it all down and more in the Bluejay Beat podcast. Available to our Patreon Subscribers.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bluejay-b ... =join_link

[WBR Tom]

Creighton suffers a loss at Marquette on Saturday afternoon.
Matt DeMarinis and Jacob Padilla break it all down and more in the Bluejay Beat podcast. Available to our Patreon Subscribers.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bluejay-b ... =join_link

Good stuff from Matt and Jacob. Here's my take in the postgame recap over on WBR -- simply put the Jays have to be tougher. Period.

https://whiteandbluereview.com/postgame ... marquette/

[JacobPadilla]

While I think there are some tweaks that they can make in their approach to hopefully produce different results, this largely comes down needing the guys to just play better. I think that's where the disconnect comes in the discourse with some vs. others. It's easy to lock in on the negatives and see them as fatal flaws that will always be there while forgetting about the positives and how everyone else has things they have to overcome as well.

Ashworth is the best example of this. There's no doubt he's been a miss to this point, but he was also a pretty darn good player before he came to Creighton and there's a reason the staff went after him and outside observers were high on the fit between him and Creighton. Even with the physical limitations, this thing would look a lot better if he was simply hitting shots anywhere close to his normal career rate (Matt detailed the difference in unguarded C&S looks this year compared to last year in the pod, and that has little to do with competition level). The only way this thing works is if he settles in at some point and gets back closer to the guy they thought he could be.

Saturday was one of Kalkbrenner's worst games of the season, and they need him to be better — which we know he is capable of based on his entire career.

Being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball and working a little harder/smarter on the defensive glass are things they can do better without changing personnel, and if they had done just a little bit better in those areas we'd be celebrating a road win over a top-10 team. The troubling part of the ball security part is it was a major focus after the Villanova loss with 9 days to think about and work on it, and it happened again.

[Jaybird]

Being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball and working a little harder/smarter on the defensive glass are things they can do better without changing personnel, and if they had done just a little bit better in those areas we'd be celebrating a road win over a top-10 team. The troubling part of the ball security part is it was a major focus after the Villanova loss with 9 days to think about and work on it, and it happened again.

The last time Creighton won a turnover battle was last February, at home against Nova. That's 27 straight games where we've given the ball away more than we've taken it (there was one push in there). Florida A&M, No Dak St, and Texas Southern all beat us in the turnover column, and now we're emphasizing ball security?. We're 18-9 in that stretch, btw, so we overcome it most of the time, but...overcome it enough? That's not the profile of a FF contender (although, admittedly, last season we missed it by an eyelash, or maybe by Nembhard's fingernail. But we had different guys who could help make up deficiencies).

We've got this turnover disparity down to an art form. One game last year--the return match against Nova--we had six TOs. It's hard to improve on that. That's next to nothing. It was our season-low. Except, Nova had 3, and we lost by double digits. We apply zero defensive pressure, and it shows.

Maybe "being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball" is all it'll take, and I admire your optimism, but it's hard to be all that confident at this point. When Bello handed the ball to a Marqueteer yesterday, then watched him sail downcourt while barely even turning in his direction (he could have missed the bunny; it happens)...well, screw it, looks like we're gonna have to live with this, and "being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball" feels very far away.

[sdebole059]

We can hope all we want. The team is what it is. Not mean enough to win against tougher teams.

[Chicagojayfan]

While I think there are some tweaks that they can make in their approach to hopefully produce different results, this largely comes down needing the guys to just play better. I think that's where the disconnect comes in the discourse with some vs. others. It's easy to lock in on the negatives and see them as fatal flaws that will always be there while forgetting about the positives and how everyone else has things they have to overcome as well.

Ashworth is the best example of this. There's no doubt he's been a miss to this point, but he was also a pretty darn good player before he came to Creighton and there's a reason the staff went after him and outside observers were high on the fit between him and Creighton. Even with the physical limitations, this thing would look a lot better if he was simply hitting shots anywhere close to his normal career rate (Matt detailed the difference in unguarded C&S looks this year compared to last year in the pod, and that has little to do with competition level). The only way this thing works is if he settles in at some point and gets back closer to the guy they thought he could be.

Saturday was one of Kalkbrenner's worst games of the season, and they need him to be better — which we know he is capable of based on his entire career.

Being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball and working a little harder/smarter on the defensive glass are things they can do better without changing personnel, and if they had done just a little bit better in those areas we'd be celebrating a road win over a top-10 team. The troubling part of the ball security part is it was a major focus after the Villanova loss with 9 days to think about and work on it, and it happened again.

Well put Jacob.

For Ashworth, he will shoot better. I feel like Mac's being too conservative by giving Bello as many minutes as he's been giving him, and it's starting to show the why Bello's better suited for a 15 minute a game role rather than 20 or more. Team needs Ashworth to play the way he can to hit it's peak, and just like Nembhard won't shoot 15% from 3 PT range all year, Ashworth won't keep missing open catch and shoots (amazing how many have rimmed in and out for him lately)

Kalkbrenner definitely needs to play better, but as you say, he has a long career showing he can play better than he did against Marquette

Ball Security, block out and hit the glass, get the ball to Kalkbrenner more consistently, and IMO, add some tweaks to get more open shots for Miller (and Ashworth - I want him to get more shots to let him get his way out of the slump), and maybe mess around with how we run the Pick and Roll with Trey a bit to get him some faster routes to the paint

As for the idea that the team isn't tough enough, mean enough- Alabama shows what this team can do when it's playing well

[TXJaysFan]

Being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball and working a little harder/smarter on the defensive glass are things they can do better without changing personnel, and if they had done just a little bit better in those areas we'd be celebrating a road win over a top-10 team. The troubling part of the ball security part is it was a major focus after the Villanova loss with 9 days to think about and work on it, and it happened again.

The last time Creighton won a turnover battle was last February, at home against Nova. That's 27 straight games where we've given the ball away more than we've taken it (there was one push in there). Florida A&M, No Dak St, and Texas Southern all beat us in the turnover column, and now we're emphasizing ball security?. We're 18-9 in that stretch, btw, so we overcome it most of the time, but...overcome it enough? That's not the profile of a FF contender (although, admittedly, last season we missed it by an eyelash, or maybe by Nembhard's fingernail. But we had different guys who could help make up deficiencies).

We've got this turnover disparity down to an art form. One game last year--the return match against Nova--we had six TOs. It's hard to improve on that. That's next to nothing. It was our season-low. Except, Nova had 3, and we lost by double digits. We apply zero defensive pressure, and it shows.

Maybe "being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball" is all it'll take, and I admire your optimism, but it's hard to be all that confident at this point. When Bello handed the ball to a Marqueteer yesterday, then watched him sail downcourt while barely even turning in his direction (he could have missed the bunny; it happens)...well, screw it, looks like we're gonna have to live with this, and "being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball" feels very far away.

The dumb turnovers are a problem. But the Jays lose the turnover battle in part because they don’t go for turnovers on defense. Their defensive philosophy is to get you to take the shot they want you to take, which from an analytical perspective, is one that a player is likely to miss. So instead of creating turnovers, they want you to take a poor shot and get the rebound or a Kalk block.

Creighton doesn’t need to win the turnover battle to win games or make a tourney run. But they do need to cut out the stupid turnovers, which have cost them in multiple games this season.

[Jaybird]

Ashworth is the best example of this. There's no doubt he's been a miss to this point, but he was also a pretty darn good player before he came to Creighton and there's a reason the staff went after him and outside observers were high on the fit between him and Creighton. Even with the physical limitations, this thing would look a lot better if he was simply hitting shots anywhere close to his normal career rate (Matt detailed the difference in unguarded C&S looks this year compared to last year in the pod, and that has little to do with competition level). The only way this thing works is if he settles in at some point and gets back closer to the guy they thought he could be.

Well, about that.

Ashworth's overall stat line last season was glittering. 46% from the field, an eye-popping 45% from 3land, and 16.2 ppg. Holy cow. Let's back up the NIl truck and sign this guy. But, sometimes, the numbers inside the numbers tell a little different story.

In Utah St.'s three games against San Diego State and their one-and-done NCAAT game vs. Missouri, the glitter came off his stats. He shot 38% from the field, just 28% from above the arc, and 12.7 ppg. In their other six games against tourney teams (3 vs. Boise, two against Nevada, and Oral Roberts), he shot a little closer to his season stats: 41% FG pct, 38% 3pt pct, and 15.3 ppg, but still below his overall numbers (numbers that were even more skewed by his singular performance against Oral Bob when he turned into Steph Curry and fired an insane 8 for 9 triples).

You could reason from all this that maybe he fattened up a little on substandard competition, but hit a bit of a wall against tourney-level opponents, especially our nemesis, SD State. What concerns me is that of the 18 reg season games left, maybe 14 are against teams that are better than anybody Ashworth played against last year, except SD St.

But there's something else. R2 led the team in minutes played in 17 of 38 games last year, by far more than any other one guy. (Scheierman was next with 10). You'd expect that from your point guard. You naturally want him out there whenever the game's on the line, and in nearly every other situation too. Nembhard would have led the team in that category his freshman season too if he hadn't missed the last eight games with a broken wrist. But, so far this year, Ashworth has led in minutes played only once, vs. ND St. Trey's taken on almost all the burden in that department.

Last year, Ryan played 47 of 50 minutes in our double OT game, including all ten min. of the overtimes. His first year, we had another 2OT game, and he played all ten of those minutes. This year, for our OT game, Ashworth rode the bench the entire time. He wasn't in foul trouble, he wasn't hurt. Mac just said later he wanted a bigger defender in there. (For the record, Ashworth is listed as one inch taller than Nembhard). Saturday, when we never trailed by more than six and led most of the way, Ashworth logged 20 minutes, the same as Bello, and by far the fewest of any starter. (The old cliche in football is that if you play two quarterbacks, you don't really have a quarterback. If we're playing two point guards 20 min each, do we really have a PG)? R2 played 20 or fewer minutes once last season, in a 30-point blowout win in early November.

I think the real question isn't what any of us think about our PG, and when, or if, he'll start to consistently put the "point" in point guard. The real question is whether Mac has any confidence in him in high leverage situations after nearly half a season and, if he doesn't (and there are troubling signs that that's the case), then where are we?

[go_jays]

While I think there are some tweaks that they can make in their approach to hopefully produce different results, this largely comes down needing the guys to just play better. I think that's where the disconnect comes in the discourse with some vs. others. It's easy to lock in on the negatives and see them as fatal flaws that will always be there while forgetting about the positives and how everyone else has things they have to overcome as well.

Ashworth is the best example of this. There's no doubt he's been a miss to this point, but he was also a pretty darn good player before he came to Creighton and there's a reason the staff went after him and outside observers were high on the fit between him and Creighton. Even with the physical limitations, this thing would look a lot better if he was simply hitting shots anywhere close to his normal career rate (Matt detailed the difference in unguarded C&S looks this year compared to last year in the pod, and that has little to do with competition level). The only way this thing works is if he settles in at some point and gets back closer to the guy they thought he could be.

Saturday was one of Kalkbrenner's worst games of the season, and they need him to be better — which we know he is capable of based on his entire career.

Being a bit smarter/stronger with the ball and working a little harder/smarter on the defensive glass are things they can do better without changing personnel, and if they had done just a little bit better in those areas we'd be celebrating a road win over a top-10 team. The troubling part of the ball security part is it was a major focus after the Villanova loss with 9 days to think about and work on it, and it happened again.

And defenses have a way of doing that. No matter how hard you work on something in practice... and even get it to the point that you feel like you have it corrected/fixed... it doesn't always show up in the game. And that's because you can NEVER, EVER, completely replicate the game in practice. That's one of the reasons that Osborne was so successful with the option. Opponents could work on it until the end of time in practice. But they could never replicate, especially at tempo, what they were gonna see when Nebraska ran it.

The atmosphere can also have an effect. And doing it against teammates is not the same as doing it against an opponent who you don't know that well. Just simply playing against unknowns can cause players to hesitate. And yeah, they see them on film. But that's not the same as in person.

We just couldn't hang with them in tempo. You could see it in our play. They were waaaaay more comfortable at a fast pace than we were. I know, historically, there are very few teams that can do that to us. But they are one that can.

My belief has always been, if you can play (whether it's physically, technically or tactically) faster than your opponent can think, then you've got the game in hand. Marquette did that, for the most part.

One way you can replicate it (to come extent anyway), is to make the court smaller, or have them play 5 on 6. I wonder if they do or have done that...

[Chicagojayfan]

As for the pace of the game, I don't think the pace bothered us as much as the problems we had protecting the offensive glass. Not only did we give up extra chances, we screwed our chances at getting transition. In 5 games that we've had with a pace of 70 factor or more, we've gone 4-1 including beating Alabama. Slow paces bother us a lot more, but in order for us to play with the kind of pace we want, we need to be effective in getting defensive rebounds

Some matchups are good and some are bad. In Marquette's case they turned us over 15 and 16 times last year as well. In particular the road game last year was an embarrassment for us. We turned it over 16 times, hit some 2 PT shots, but were 20% from 3 PT range, and had an offensive rating of 80.6 (2nd worst of the year last year with only that terrible NU game being worse). We struggled against their D last year and this year, but at least this year we shot the ball well, while also turning it over which made it a closer game

That road game last year was a complete embarrassment, but some seem to think Nembhard would have saved us right: Oh, yeah, last year on the road against Marquette Nembhard went 2/10, 1/6 from 3 PT Range, had 4 assists and 3 turnovers.. and for reference he shot better at home against them but had a 6/5 Assist/Turnover ratio in that game (Yay, but he would have saved us right????? /s