Creighton looks to wrap up the No. 2 seed in the Big East tournament with a win against Butler on Saturday in Omaha, Neb.
The Bluejays (21-9, 14-5 Big East) topped Seton Hall 79-61 on the road on Tuesday behind 20 points, nine rebounds and two blocks from Ryan Kalkbrenner. The senior center leads Creighton in scoring (19.1 points per game), rebounding (8.8) and blocks (2.7). Kalkbrenner has 246 career blocked shots in conference play, just one shy of Patrick Ewing’s Big East record.
Steven Ashworth averages 16.6 points and a team-leading 6.9 assists per game. Jamiya Neal does a little bit of everything for Creighton as he chips in 11.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game.
A win against Butler (13-17, 6-13) would give the Bluejays 15 Big East victories this season, which would rank as the program’s most since they joined the league 12 years ago. It would also guarantee Creighton gets the No. 2 seed in next week’s conference tourney over UConn and Marquette.
Against Seton Hall, Creighton shot 62.8 percent from the field and 52.4 percent from 3-point range. On the season, Creighton shoots 47.5 percent from the field and 34 percent from beyond the arc.
“We’ve been working on (shooting) but basketball is a weird game,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “It’s hard to explain why some nights you shoot 40 percent from (3-point range) and 20 percent the next. If you take the right shots, you hope the end that’s going to pay off.”
As Butler plays out the string, the Bulldogs dropped a 91-78 home game to Xavier on Wednesday. Leading scorer Jahmyl Telfort (16.1 points per game) paced Butler with 20 points and Pierre Brooks (15.6 points) was right at his average as he racked up 15 points. Finley Bizjack came off the bench to tally 19 points.
The Bulldogs had 12 turnovers in their third straight loss while Xavier had only five. Bulldogs coach Thad Matta said Butler needs to work on staying consistent throughout the game.
“I want us to keep playing our best basketball,” Matta said. “We had moments in this game where we were pretty good, but like (when we last played at Xavier) we had some bad stretches. When you play a good team they’ll make you pay.”
–Field Level Media
