Sunday, February 10, 2013

Illinois State Knocks Off Creighton

Illinois State 75, #16 Creighton 72
Creighton leads the nation in both 2P% and 3P% shooting, which is a pretty remarkable feat. But their achilles heel is, well, everything else. If the shots aren't dropping then they tend not to look that good. They had a 40.9 eFG% here, which was their worst shooting performance of the entire season. And with this loss, they now fall to 1-4 when having an eFG% under 50% (they are 19-1 when braking the 50% barrier). The 4-for-23 three-point shooting was also their worst 3P% performance of the season. It was just one of those days.

Doug McDermott actually played really well in this game, hitting 7-for-12 inside the arc and earning 12 free throw attempts as well, but his 0-for-5 three-point shooting was par for the course for Creighton here. Even Ethan Wragge was only 1-for-5 behind the arc.

Creighton was 17-1 at one point this season, and seemed to be in contention for a 3 or even 2 seed in March. But they've lost four of seven to fall to 9-4 in Missouri Valley play, with a Sagarin ELO_SCORE that is going to drop to near 30th. They are 8-3 against the RPI Top 100, but with only one really premier scalp (Wisconsin). I think they need to get to 13-5 to feel really safe about that at-large bid. At 12-6 or 11-7 (unless they knock off St. Mary's) they're going to have work left to do in Arch Madness. Their next game will be on Wednesday, at Illinois State.

The Redbirds move to 15-10 overall and 6-7 in Missouri Valley play with this win. They're not in contention for an at-large bid, but are closing in on a top six spot (and avoiding the first round of the Missouri Valley tournament). They'll play Bradley next, on Wednesday.

UNLV 64, #15 New Mexico 55
Coming off two straight losses, UNLV needed a bounce back win here. And putrid New Mexico shooting (a 37.1 eFG% for the game) meant that UNLV appeared to be running away with this one. They led by 16 with just under 9 minutes to go, when their offense began to fall apart. They finished the game 3-for-13 from the field, with three turnovers. Alex Kirk also began to have his way with the UNLV front line (he finished the game with 17 points and 16 rebounds). The deficit was too large for New Mexico to overcome, but it forced a romp into a little bit of a white-knuckler for UNLV fans in the final two minutes.

The Mountain West continues to be very difficult to figure out. The top four teams seem extremely even from night to night. UNLV was at risk of losing touch in the standings with a loss here, but with the win they are 5-4 in conference play and only two games out of first place. The key stretch of the UNLV season is coming up over the next two weeks. After that they end the regular season with relatively easy games against Nevada, Boise State and Fresno State. They should be pretty safe for an NCAA Tournament bid if they get to 9-7 or better in conference play, which means a 4-3 finish. Their next game will be on Wednesday, at Air Force.

New Mexico drops to 7-2 with this loss - only half a game ahead of a Colorado State team that will get to play them in Fort Collins in a couple of weeks. Though even if the Lobos blow the Mountain West regular season title, they should be safe for an at-large bid. They remain 20-4 overall and 11-4 against the RPI Top 100. A 10-6 or better finish should lock up an at-large bid, and that should be easy for them to achieve. The Lobos will next play on the road, at Fresno State on Wednesday.

San Francisco 99, BYU 87
BYU's collapse late in this game (or San Francisco's comeback, depending on your perspective) was epic. With 13:30 left in the game, BYU led 64-50. San Francisco finished the game on a 49-23 run. At one point, San Francisco hit ten straight shots from the field. They finished 14-for-23 behind the arc, with a team total 69.6 eFG%. But we know BYU can score... it's the defense that can let them down. This season they are 0-7 when allowing teams to score more than 1.05 PPP, and 18-1 went holding teams under 1.05 PPP.

It's perplexing what is wrong with BYU this season. They're playing reasonably well (they entered today inside the Top 50 in both Pomeroy and the Sagarin PREDICTOR), but not as well as they could be. They have a huge number of offensive weapons, yet are only narrowly ahead of Santa Clara for the third best offensive efficiency in WCC play this season. In fact, according to the Pomeroy ratings, BYU's defense has been better than their offense. I don't have an explanation for that.

BYU was in a lot of projected brackets a couple of weeks ago, but back to back losses to San Diego and San Francisco have more or less murdered their at-large chances. They are now 0-6 against the RPI Top 90, with only two more chances against such teams (St. Mary's and Gonzaga) before the end of the regular season. At this point, I think they'd need to sweep those two games and win the remainder of their regular season games to have a realistic shot at an at-large bid. They have a week to get ready for a home game against Portland.

San Francisco moves to 11-13 overall and 4-7 in WCC play. They'll play Portland on Thursday, and then will have a chance to play spoiler again next Saturday, against Gonzaga.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Something seems wrong with Creighton. While the loss at Indiana State was expected (Indiana State is really on a role and Valley road games are tough in the first place), Illinois State was at home, where the Bluejays are traditionally much better. Doug McDermott did not have a game like he did at Indiana State.
You hit the hammer on the head with your analysis that the shots just aren't falling and the rest of their game isn't strong enough, but as a CU fan I can't help but be worried that it's more than just a shooting slump.
If they don't fix things soon, they'll be in trouble with Saint Mary's and Wichita State coming up.