The Bluejay Underground: A Creighton Sports Message Board

Stats are pretty similar except in a couple categories that you would expect... Steals and Fouls. Using the Kenpom Adj EM to calculate the spread... should be Vols -1.5 And the stats seem to bear that out. So it will come down to... who can impose their will on the other guy.

So final score 74-73?... But who's the 74 and who's the 73?

SOS
Jays 27th
Vols 11th

Scoring
Jays 80 - Opp 69
Vols 79 - Opp 67

FG%
Jays 49 - Opp 42
Vols 44 - Opp 39

3 Pt%
Jays 37 - Opp 32
Vols 34 - Opp 31

FT%
Jays 78 - Opp 78
Vols 75 - Opp 71

Rebounds
Jays 38 - Opp 33
Vols 39 - Opp 35

Assists
Jays 17 - Opp 11
Vols 16 - Opp 11

TOs
Jays 11 - Opp 8
Vols 11 - Opp 13

Steals
Jays 4 - Opp 6
Vols 8 - Opp 7

Blocks
Jays 4 - Opp 3
Vols 5 - Opp 3

Fouls
Jays 11 - Opp 15
Vols 17 - Opp 18

Tennessee reminds me a bit of the SD State teams in how they want to play D. Their losses have a few similarities along those lines, they didn't lose any games with 15 or fewer fouls called on them, and are 2-3 with 22 or more fouls called on them. We've also played those types of defensive teams in the BE, so we can beat teams like that, even if we don't get a tight whistle, but it will be much harder for us if the refs ignore the whistles like they did with SD State

Rebounding is another similarity for the teams that beat them. In the 8 losses they lost the rebounding battle 6 times and the other 2 were close enough to be a push

We'll need to shoot more around our norm to win this one. Purdue beat them with an eFG% of .389, but demolished them on the boards and got to the FT line a lot in the game (30 fouls called on Tennessee and 48 FT's by Purdue.. ouch)

They route a ton of shots through Knecht (6-6) so we will be trying to run him off the line from 3 PT. Rare you see a guy go up in PPG/Points per minute when jumping up in conferences, but his USG at Northern Colorado was 19.8% and 28.2% and is now 32.1% (by comparison Trey leads CU at 26.7% this year) - their Big Aidoo gets a lot of dunks and shots at the rim from their 3 PT shooting, but was nullified (fouled out vs. Edey) so that will be a matchup to watch

My keys are the same as they've been most of this year. Rebound and limit turnovers. Do that and we have a good chance of getting enough possessions to have a bounce back game with our shooting

Chicagojayfan wrote:Tennessee reminds me a bit of the SD State teams in how they want to play D. Their losses have a few similarities along those lines, they didn't lose any games with 15 or fewer fouls called on them, and are 2-3 with 22 or more fouls called on them. We've also played those types of defensive teams in the BE, so we can beat teams like that, even if we don't get a tight whistle, but it will be much harder for us if the refs ignore the whistles like they did with SD State

Rebounding is another similarity for the teams that beat them. In the 8 losses they lost the rebounding battle 6 times and the other 2 were close enough to be a push

We'll need to shoot more around our norm to win this one. Purdue beat them with an eFG% of .389, but demolished them on the boards and got to the FT line a lot in the game (30 fouls called on Tennessee and 48 FT's by Purdue.. ouch)

They route a ton of shots through Knecht (6-6) so we will be trying to run him off the line from 3 PT. Rare you see a guy go up in PPG/Points per minute when jumping up in conferences, but his USG at Northern Colorado was 19.8% and 28.2% and is now 32.1% (by comparison Trey leads CU at 26.7% this year) - their Big Aidoo gets a lot of dunks and shots at the rim from their 3 PT shooting, but was nullified (fouled out vs. Edey) so that will be a matchup to watch

My keys are the same as they've been most of this year. Rebound and limit turnovers. Do that and we have a good chance of getting enough possessions to have a bounce back game with our shooting

I haven't seen them play. But wondering how much of a midrange game they have. Seems like it's dunks and 3s or bust, maybe? Anybody seen game video of them? If they don't, that bodes well for us. We'll run them off the 3 point line and hopefully Kalk will limit the dunks.

go_jays wrote:

Chicagojayfan wrote:Tennessee reminds me a bit of the SD State teams in how they want to play D. Their losses have a few similarities along those lines, they didn't lose any games with 15 or fewer fouls called on them, and are 2-3 with 22 or more fouls called on them. We've also played those types of defensive teams in the BE, so we can beat teams like that, even if we don't get a tight whistle, but it will be much harder for us if the refs ignore the whistles like they did with SD State

Rebounding is another similarity for the teams that beat them. In the 8 losses they lost the rebounding battle 6 times and the other 2 were close enough to be a push

We'll need to shoot more around our norm to win this one. Purdue beat them with an eFG% of .389, but demolished them on the boards and got to the FT line a lot in the game (30 fouls called on Tennessee and 48 FT's by Purdue.. ouch)

They route a ton of shots through Knecht (6-6) so we will be trying to run him off the line from 3 PT. Rare you see a guy go up in PPG/Points per minute when jumping up in conferences, but his USG at Northern Colorado was 19.8% and 28.2% and is now 32.1% (by comparison Trey leads CU at 26.7% this year) - their Big Aidoo gets a lot of dunks and shots at the rim from their 3 PT shooting, but was nullified (fouled out vs. Edey) so that will be a matchup to watch

My keys are the same as they've been most of this year. Rebound and limit turnovers. Do that and we have a good chance of getting enough possessions to have a bounce back game with our shooting

I haven't seen them play. But wondering how much of a midrange game they have. Seems like it's dunks and 3s or bust, maybe? Anybody seen game video of them? If they don't, that bodes well for us. We'll run them off the 3 point line and hopefully Kalk will limit the dunks.

Hoop-Math's data shows that 21.9% of Tennessee's shots have been midrange jumpers. Five rotational players shoot 40% or better on those shots.

For comparison, Akron was at 22.3% and Oregon 25.1%. Providence was at 16.0% and Villanova was 17.9%. So Tennessee takes slightly more than the last two Big East opponents CU played, and slightly less than the first two NCAA Tourney opponents.

go_jays wrote:

Chicagojayfan wrote:Tennessee reminds me a bit of the SD State teams in how they want to play D. Their losses have a few similarities along those lines, they didn't lose any games with 15 or fewer fouls called on them, and are 2-3 with 22 or more fouls called on them. We've also played those types of defensive teams in the BE, so we can beat teams like that, even if we don't get a tight whistle, but it will be much harder for us if the refs ignore the whistles like they did with SD State

Rebounding is another similarity for the teams that beat them. In the 8 losses they lost the rebounding battle 6 times and the other 2 were close enough to be a push

We'll need to shoot more around our norm to win this one. Purdue beat them with an eFG% of .389, but demolished them on the boards and got to the FT line a lot in the game (30 fouls called on Tennessee and 48 FT's by Purdue.. ouch)

They route a ton of shots through Knecht (6-6) so we will be trying to run him off the line from 3 PT. Rare you see a guy go up in PPG/Points per minute when jumping up in conferences, but his USG at Northern Colorado was 19.8% and 28.2% and is now 32.1% (by comparison Trey leads CU at 26.7% this year) - their Big Aidoo gets a lot of dunks and shots at the rim from their 3 PT shooting, but was nullified (fouled out vs. Edey) so that will be a matchup to watch

My keys are the same as they've been most of this year. Rebound and limit turnovers. Do that and we have a good chance of getting enough possessions to have a bounce back game with our shooting

I haven't seen them play. But wondering how much of a midrange game they have. Seems like it's dunks and 3s or bust, maybe? Anybody seen game video of them? If they don't, that bodes well for us. We'll run them off the 3 point line and hopefully Kalk will limit the dunks.

They're solid inside of 17 feet: 41.3% on 4.3 attempts per game (69th percentile in efficiency and 48% in frequency). Beyond 17 feet, they're at 35.9% on 1.9 attempts per game (51st in efficiency and 24th in frequency). So they're capable, but it's not what they prefer. They're very capable taking runners as well.

Only 36.1% of their shots come at the rim (27th percentile in frequency).

They're not actually elite in any one area offensively, they're just solid to good almost across the board. What's interesting is they're 13th in assist rate, and Creighton's defense tends to force you into winning individually. That'll be something to watch.

This talk about the Tennessee offense is interesting, but it is their defense that bothers me the most. According to Kenppom they have the third best defense behind only Houston and Iowa State. That scares me a lot.

If there were a game to get a good whistle it would be this one

GoatGibbs wrote:If there were a game to get a good whistle it would be this one

Since Purdue has a dominant big man and we might end up playing them, I thought I would check the box score in their game against TN.

In the TN v Purdue game early this season, there were a combined 51 fouls called and 78 FT’s shot. 30 fouls on TN.

Maybe, I’ve gotten too used to Creighton not fouling but that sounds like a LOT to me and like a very not fun game to watch.

TN’s big man fouled out in 13 minutes. Even Edey had 4 fouls and only played 26 minutes.

SeattleJay wrote:

GoatGibbs wrote:If there were a game to get a good whistle it would be this one

Since Purdue has a dominant big man and we might end up playing them, I thought I would check the box score in their game against TN.

In the TN v Purdue game early this season, there were a combined 51 fouls called and 78 FT’s shot. 30 fouls on TN.

Maybe, I’ve gotten too used to Creighton not fouling but that sounds like a LOT to me and like a very not fun game to watch.

TN’s big man fouled out in 13 minutes. Even Edey had 4 fouls and only played 26 minutes.

Great info, thank you!

The Jays are the least fouling team at 11.4 per game, while Rocky Top is 6 more per game. So 30 is a lot! That's crazy!