No. 18 Creighton normally has a high-powered offense, but it was held to 48 points for the second time this season when it lost 62-48 at No. 1 UConn on Wednesday.
Things will not get easier for the Bluejays when they visit the other team tied atop the Big East Conference, defensive-minded Seton Hall, on Saturday afternoon in Newark, N.J.
Creighton (13-5, 4-3 Big East) had a four-game winning streak snapped Wednesday. The Bluejays shot 6-for-26 from 3-point range, their third league game at or below 23.1 percent from the arc.
They cut the deficit to 32-23 early in the second half before UConn doubled its advantage with a 9-0 run. Creighton missed six shots and committed two turnovers in that span.
Afterward, Creighton coach Greg McDermott pointed to the conference’s strength to say the margin for error would be slim going forward.
“I just told the team, I think the difference — obviously a couple teams are struggling — but the difference between the top and eighth or ninth place is razor-thin,” McDermott said. “It’s execution, it’s shot-making, it’s being disciplined enough to play for 40 minutes.”
Steven Ashworth said the players on the team needed to look within themselves in order to get more productive results on the floor.
“That’s where we’ve gotta look ourselves in the mirror, and we will,” Ashworth said on the postgame radio show, per Omaha.com. “We know what we need to do to get better. And we have aspirations and goals as a team, and we know what it takes.”
Ashworth scored 14 points on 5-of-15 shooting from the floor, including 2-of-8 from 3-point range.
Creighton beat Seton Hall twice last season, by 22- and 13-point margins, on its way to an Elite Eight berth.
The Pirates (13-5, 6-1) are a different group this season, with more size at the five and more experience around Kadary Richmond in the backcourt.
Richmond has been named Big East Player of the Week twice in a row and averages 16.2 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.2 steals per game. He had 12, nine, four and three, respectively, in the Pirates’ 80-65 win over St. John’s on Tuesday.
However, Richmond appeared to hurt his back on a hard fall and there was no word on whether he would miss time.
Al-Amir Dawes paced the Pirates with 21 points on Tuesday as they went on a remarkable 28-0 run spanning the end of the first half and the start of the second.
“Dre (Davis), Kadary, (Dawes), those are our three captains, those are our leaders,” coach Shaheen Holloway said postgame. “You add Dylan (Addae-Wusu) in there, add Jaden (Bediako) in there, and I’ve got a veteran group of guys starting to understand how to play with each other.”
Baylor Scheierman, like Richmond, does some of everything for Creighton (17.7 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists per game). Trey Alexander scores 15.7 points per game but was held to six points on 3-of-12 shooting against UConn.
–Field Level Media
