Surging Creighton aims to kick off the season’s penultimate month with its fifth straight win in a road matchup against Georgetown on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
The Bluejays (13-8, 7-3 Big East) are the league’s hottest team entering February, having won their last four games by an average of 18 points.
Saturday’s 84-67 romp over then-No. 13 Xavier was a well-rounded effort on both ends.
All five Creighton starters scored in double figures and the Bluejays became just the second team this season to hold the Musketeers’ high-scoring offense below 70 points.
Ryan Kalkbrenner racked up five blocks while Ryan Nembhard stifled Xavier’s leading scorer, Souley Boum, to a season-low two points.
Now with wins over four ranked teams this season, Creighton has seemingly rediscovered its mojo after a six-game skid sent them tumbling out of the AP poll in December.
“I feel like we’re still one of the better teams in the country,” Nembhard said. “We knew there was going to be ups and downs in the year, it wasn’t going to be all sunshine and lollipops … we’re continuing to get better.”
The Hoyas (6-16, 1-10) nearly notched their second straight conference win on Sunday at St. John’s, but AJ Storr buried the game-winning 3-pointer with four seconds left to cap the Red Storm’s 75-73 comeback victory.
Georgetown led by nine with 8:22 remaining but was outscored 22-9 down the stretch in its 10th loss this season when leading in the second half.
“This is a game we had opportunities to win. … Those are things that we have to be able to take care of,” Hoyas coach Patrick Ewing said of his team’s costly turnovers and shoddy rebounding.
Georgetown tallied nine giveaways and surrendered 14 offensive boards in the second half, and St. John’s capitalized with 13 points off turnovers and 12 second-chance points.
The Hoyas’ Primo Spears continued his offensive surge with a 25-point effort in Sunday’s loss. The Duquesne transfer leads the Big East with 17.1 points per game entering play Tuesday, including 27.7 over his last three games.
–Field Level Media