Creighton A-holes (17-6, 7-4) at Drake Bulldogs (14-9, 5-6)

Well, Saturday was yet another step backwards. We now face a top tier Valley team and we've legitimately been blown out in three of our last five games.

There just seems to be a complete level of explosiveness on offense that we have been missing. Our defense has been relatively solid, sure strong enough to keep us from getting blown out. But other than in the Creighton game, we just have not had that touch, that something that is necessary to be an upper tier team?

Well, I think there are two main culprits:

(1) We are not getting ourselves enough easy baskets

I know by now you are saying to yourself, "well no shit", but it's the truth. If you look at our record this season -- when we have 12 or more assists we are 6-0. Conversely, when we fail to get at least 12 assists, we are 4-7.

I'm not completely looking at Craig Stanley on this one, because I honestly feel like his play has picked up considerably over the past few weeks. The problem lies in the guys that get the other minutes.

As much as I love Josh Parker, as he has seen more time on the floor, he has turned the ball over, and his assists per game has absolutely plateaued. While he's not spending all of his time as a point guard, I think that it should be more than one person's job on the floor to help get their teammates easy baskets. His scoring is huge, no doubt. But he's contributing to more turnovers and he's definitely not picking up finding others. This is seen by the fact that his TOPG is now at 2.0 (it was in the 1.2 range in December) whereas his assists have remained at 1.5 per game. You can actually argue that they've gotten worse since he's playing more time.

Meanwhile, guys like Baryenbruch, etc... are not chipping in at all. On top of that guys at other positions (JY, Templeton, etc...) either are not playing well or just are not good enough to create shots for others.

Overall, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this team misses Adam Emmenecker. Like, bad. While Craig is coming along -- he's still not playing at that level (and no one should expect him to) and we have nobody behind him that can help create shots for others (except JP at flashes).

(2) Our star is not playing like a star right now

It shouldn't surprise you to see that JY is not playing well. The fact that he had as many airballs as made field goals for a stretch of the Wichita State game should tell you as much. On top of that, he just has not been explosive for quite some time -- he's not getting by guys and he's certainly not hitting his shots when he pulls up. I actually wonder if there is some sort of injury that is going on with him, because he's just not playing JY basketball at this point.

Here's a look at his comparison of stats from last year to this year:

The red lines are this year, the blue lines are last year. Pretty much, you’re seeing that when he shoots the ball, he’s not hitting at nearly a similar rate as last year. When he drives, you can see he’s turning the ball over way more than he did last year.
Part of this is related to number one above, that we just are not creating as many easy shots and gravely miss Adam Emmenecker. And JY is being asked to do more, no doubt. However, I still think he’s missing a few more shots he would have hit last year. In all reality, I think his true 2008-2009 performance should be somewhere between the two lines.

Creighton is a tough, tough team. But, I think they actually match up with us very well. They play at a faster pace, which allows us to hopefully open it up and put the ball in Craig Stanley’s hands in the open floor. I wouldn’t be surprised if they try to go against the grain and force themselves to slow down tonight. How well we defend, get rebounds, and get the ball in the open court will be key to me on how we find easy baskets, get JY involved, and possibly win this game.