No. 21 Creighton will look to snap a two-game losing streak when it squares off against No. 20 Texas A&M on Wednesday at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.
But that will be a tall task for the Bluejays (4-2), who have dropped games at home to in-state rival Nebraska and, on Tuesday, to San Diego State. The latter was a 71-53 setback on the opening day of the Las Vegas event.
Pop Issacs paced Creighton with 18 points in the loss, with Jackson McAndrew adding 12 points and 14 rebounds and center Ryan Kalkbrenner scoring 11 points while recording a season-best five blocked shots.
Creighton played without starting point guard Steven Ashworth, who was injured in Friday’s loss to Nebraska. The Bluejays shot just 33.9 percent from the floor and missed eight of their 13 free throws.
“We made some mistakes a few times going under some screens when we weren’t supposed to,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said. “When we got a little bit aggressive, our rotations weren’t where they needed to be.”
“And, again, maybe sounds like a little bit of a broken record, but we built this team on shooting, and we’re not shooting it very well now at all. We’ve been a great free-throw team all season, and today we couldn’t do that, either.”
The Bluejays led 8-4 early in the game before allowing San Diego State to reel off a 21-8 run to fall behind 25-16. Creighton battled back to within four points at the break but trailed 52-40 seven minutes into the second half and never made a serious run down the stretch.
“It’s really important that we don’t enter a finger-pointing phase when we go through a tough time here,” McDermott said. “We try to help each other, try to look in the mirror and figure out what we can do better to try to correct it and then move on from there and get ready for the next one.”
The Aggies (4-2) also head to the second-day Las Vegas matchup with a loss after falling to Oregon 80-70 on Tuesday. Zhuric Phelps’ 20 points paced A&M while Wade Taylor IV had 15. The duo combined to go 10 of 34 from the floor, shooting as many shots as the rest of the team combined.
Texas A&M led by three at the break and by 10 after a Jace Carter 3-pointer with 10:58 to play but trailed by two after the Ducks went on a 14-2 run to take a 60-58 lead
A&M tied the game at 70 on a free throw by Taylor with 2:21 to play, but that would be its final points. The Aggies went the last 4:41 without a field goal while missing their final 11 shots and went just 10 of 37 (27 percent) from the floor after halftime.
Phelps, a transfer from SMU, had the game’s high-point output in the loss to Oregon.
“My teammates and coach and the staff have instilled so much confidence in me,” Phelps said. “They still talking to me, trusting me. you know, to play those minutes and, you know, help the team win.”
Texas A&M and Creighton have played just once, with the Bluejays winning 100-77 in 1971.
–Field Level Media
