St. John’s men’s basketball game preview: Creighton

The Red Storm look to close out 2024 with a big road win versus the Bluejays

The St. John’s men’s basketball team heads to Omaha to take on Creighton in their final game of 2024. The Red Storm are looking for their first win inside CHI Health Center since 2019, having lost their five previous road meetings with the Bluejays.

Game information

Who: St. John’s Red Storm (11-2) vs. Creighton Bluejays (8-5)

When: Tuesday, December 31, 2024, 4:00 p.m.

Where: CHI Health Center, Omaha, Nebraska

TV: Peacock

Radio: Learfield

Series History: Creighton leads the series, 16-6. St. John’s won their last meeting, 80-66, on February 25, 2024, their first win over the Bluejays since March 1, 2020.

Injury news

Brady Dunlap (hand) is ruled out for the next 3-to-5 weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in his left thumb.

What to Watch for in the Storm

Deivon Smith has impacted the game at an impressive level in the five games since his benching versus Harvard due to disciplinary reasons. The Loganville, Georgia native is averaging 13.0 points, 7.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 2.6 steals, and only 1.6 turnovers while shooting 50.9% from the field and 56.3% from deep. Smith’s 20-point performance versus Delaware marks the third-highest scoring effort of his collegiate career, and his four triples against the Blue Hens were the second-most the graduate transfer has made in a game in his college career.

There is a lot of talk about R.J. Luis leading the Red Storm in scoring with 16.9 points per game, but Luis is also becoming a better distributor. Luis has more than doubled his assist percentage from 8.8 percent a season ago to 18.5 percent this season.

A lot has been said about the Red Storm’s free throw shooting struggles as well. St. John’s is shooting 67.0% from the line (293rd in the nation), which would be their worst mark since 2015-16, which, of course, is a team you should look to avoid any comparisons to as possible.

Scouting the Bluejays

Creighton is going through a frustratingly inconsistent stretch to begin their season. The Bluejays took an embarrassing 11-point home loss to in-state rival Nebraska and went 1-2 in the Players Era Festival event without claiming a marquee win. Their fortunes appeared to change after returning to Omaha, beating No. 1 Kansas in Omaha, but the good vibes were only short-lived. Days after scoring a team-high 27 points in the signature win over the Jayhawks, the team announced that Pop Isaacs would undergo season-ending hip surgery. The Texas Tech transfer was second on the team in scoring at that point, averaging 16.3 points and shooting 38.3% from three. Creighton has gone 2-2 since losing Isaacs, with an indescribably bad 81-57 loss to Georgetown weighing down the Bluejays’ tournament resume.

Still, Creighton has shown they can paddle up you-know-what’s creek before. In the 2022-23 season, the Bluejays started 6-6, then won 18 of their next 24 games and came within a basket of reaching their first-ever Final Four.

Leading Creighton in his fifth and final season of college basketball is Ryan Kalkbrenner. We’re all familiar with the three-time reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year and what he’s capable of. The seven-footer from St. Louis is averaging 17.3 points and 7.7 rebounds, and he again leads the conference with 2.5 blocks per game.

After Trey Alexander and Baylor Scheierman have left, fifth-year guard Steven Ashworth becomes the Robin to Kalkbrenner’s very tall Batman. Ashworth is straight out of central casting for typical sharpshooting Creighton guards, averaging 17.0 points while shooting 40% from three on 8.3 attempts per contest and leading the country with a 98% free throw shooting clip (50-of-51). The Alpine, Utah native is also a highly volatile playmaker, averaging team-highs of 6.4 assists and 3.3 turnovers.

Senior swingman Jamiya Neal has turned into the Bluejays’ third man after Pop Isaacs went down, scoring 11.0 points per game. There may be something in the water in Omaha, but Neal is starting to become a dependable three-point shooter. In his last three seasons at Arizona State, Neal shot a sloppy 26.9% from three, but now he’s shooting a much more respectable 34.8% from deep with the Bluejays. He scored 20 points in his last game versus Villanova, swishing six of his seven threes, including this nail in the coffin to put the game out of reach.

Freshman forward Jackson McAndrew is Creighton’s highest-rated recruit in the Greg McDermott era and is a natural-born shooter. The Wayzata, Minnesota native scores 8.9 points per game and fires 36.6% from three on 5.5 attempts per contest.

Keys to the game

Close out on shooters – St. John’s is guilty at times of giving up space to three-point scorers and allowing them to find their spots. The Bluejays’ entire identity revolves around their long-range game, so staying connected to their shooters should be at the front of every Red Storm player’s mind on Tuesday.

Speed up the tempo – One part of Creighton’s surprisingly slow start is their inability to protect the ball. The Bluejays have a 19.1% turnover percentage, the second-worst mark in Greg McDermott’s tenure. St. John’s needs to continue to force turnovers and open the game up in transition.

Avoid foul trouble – The wide foul discrepancy was a hot topic in St. John’s last trip to Omaha (20 fouls charged to the Red Storm, eight to Creighton), and you may need to get ready to hear about it tomorrow as well. The Bluejays commit the fewest personal fouls per game in the country (10.8) while drawing the 94th-most fouls (15.9). The Red Storm have to find ways to cut trips to the line to a team that shoots 77% on free throws, the 40th-best rate in the nation.

Prediction

Creighton is usually a dangerous matchup for St. John’s, but that dynamic has flipped this year. The Bluejays have struggled against teams with makeup similar to the Red Storm, losing to physical defensive teams Nebraska, San Diego State, and Texas A&M. This will be a challenging road environment for St. John’s, but they will grind out another win in the Big East. St. John’s wins 78-74.