Scouting Creighton, Villanova’s next Big East tournament foe

NEW YORK — Sixth-seeded Villanova dominated No. 11 seed Georgetown, 80-48, on Wednesday night, earning a matchup with No. 3 seed Creighton on Thursday (9:30 p.m., FS1). The teams split the season series; Creighton won, 66-61, on Feb. 11 in Omaha, Neb., before Villanova cruised, 79-67, three weeks later.

Here are three things to know about the Big East quarterfinal matchup.

After Villanova crushed the Bluejays at Wells Fargo Center, Creighton head coach Greg McDermott spent his postgame news conference praising the Wildcats’ late season resurgence.

He went beyond typical opponent praise, saying Creighton ran into a “buzz saw.” He even went as far as saying he’d watched film before the game and had “feared” that the Wildcats would be able to play like they did.

“Nobody wants to see that team in the Garden,” McDermott said. “Nobody.”

Now, just two weeks later, McDermott will be seeing that team in the Garden.

Villanova (17-15, 10-10 Big East) is playing its best basketball at the right time. The Wildcats have won seven of nine, but they also have the pressure of needing three more wins at Madison Square Garden to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Meanwhile, Creighton (20-11, 14-6) is a lock to reach March Madness. The Bluejays were a preseason top-ten team in the nation but lost six straight when star center Ryan Kalkbrenner was out with illness. The Bluejays have also been hot, winning eight straight from January into February, but consecutive losses to Marquette and Villanova ended hopes of challenging for the Big East title.

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Creighton’s game plan relies around Kalkbrenner, a 7-1 behemoth who makes 70% of his shots and records over two blocks a game. Villanova’s “center,” meanwhile, is 6-8 Eric Dixon.

While the size difference has inherent disadvantages, especially on defense, the Wildcats have used Kalkbrenner’s size to their own advantage in their last two matchups with Creighton. Dixon repeatedly dragged Kalkbrenner outside the paint to defend the three point line, and when he stepped out, Villanova drove past the slow center.

In Villanova’s last 17 games, excluding the Creighton matchups, Dixon attempted 25 threes. In the two games with the Bluejays, Dixon averaged seven per game.

In both matchups, this strategy has paid dividends. In Omaha, Dixon went 1-6 from three, yet still racked up 20 points in a loss by five. At home, Dixon made 6 of 8 from deep en route to a career-high 31 points, leading Villanova to a win over a ranked opponent that wasn’t as close as the score line indicated.

McDermott noticed this, saying after the loss that with Dixon’s shooting, “Villanova was able to turn our defense inside out.”

“I think my teammates do a good job of finding shots that I’m comfortable with,” Dixon said after Wednesday’s win. He added that he’s not necessarily expecting to take more threes than usual against Creighton, but he’s comfortable with it if that’s what happens.

However, while Villanova had to prep for Georgetown, Creighton has been virtually assured of playing the Wildcats for nearly a week. The Bluejays have already seen Villanova’s anti-Kalkbrenner strategy at its best, and they’ll have a strategy to combat it.

“At this time of the year, you just throw out what happened before,” Villanova head coach Kyle Neptune said. “And now we’re in a tournament situation. So we’re just [now] thinking about this game against Creighton. We’ll go back to the hotel, we’ll rest up and we’ll start game planning.”

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Villanova needs to win the Big East Tournament to play in the NCAA Tournament, but it has one huge stat in its favor — since 2014, the Wildcats are 28-3 in Madison Square Garden. Most of the team has experienced cutting down the nets in MSG, and the arena almost feels like a second home.

Meanwhile, Creighton is 9-8 playing at MSG in the conference tournament. The Bluejays have advanced to the conference final four times, including the last two years, but they’ve yet to win it all. Two of those losses were to Villanova, most recently last March.

“They’re the gold standard in this league,” McDermott said after last year’s 54-48 defeat. “We’ve won a lot of games during our time in the Big East. Second-most to them. And I hope we’ve got to the point where the Big East just isn’t a Northeastern league. There’s some pretty good basketball played in the Midwest as well.”