By Zack Cziryak
The Seton Hall Pirates avoided a thunderstorm by playing on the road Thursday night but couldn’t avoid the raining three-pointers and Ryan Kalkbrenner alley-oop finishes in Omaha.
The #12 Creighton Bluejays ran a shorthanded Pirate squad out of the CHI Center with an 85-64 victory to retake possession of third place in the Big East standings on the strength of 13 three pointers, including eight en route to a 38-22 halftime lead.
An Al-Amir Dawes three pointer would cut the Creighton lead to 14-11 midway through the first half shortly after Kadary Richmond exited the game with his second foul. The Pirates, already heavily reliant on their starting five, played without their sixth man in freshman Isaiah Coleman as well as deep bench forward Sadraque NgaNga due to illness.
The three-point deficit would mark the closest the Pirates would come as Creighton would respond with three straight three pointers, including a pair from Bluejay reserve big Isaac Traudt to kick off the 9-0 run. The Bluejays would never look back, outscoring the Hall 15-11 over the remainder of the half and extending the lead to as many as 25 in the second half.
Trey Alexander, 15 points and 10 assists, and Baylor Scheierman, 20 points and 11 rebounds, would each put up double-doubles for Creighton, while Kalkbrenner notched his own double-double of sorts in finishing a perfect 10-10 from the floor for a game high 23 points to go along with 6 rebounds and 4 blocked shots for the reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year.
Similarly reliant on their starters, Creighton would get a total of 14 points from their own bench – 11 from Traudt, who hadn’t scored a point since Jan. 27, and three garbage time points from sophomore center Frederick King.
The Pirates’ big three of Richmond, Dawes and Dre Davis finished with 15, 13 and 18 points, respectively, while the bench tallied 5 total points between a runner from Jaquan Sanders and a three from David Tubek, both with the game well out of hand.
Seton Hall would finish 41.7% from the field and 2-9 from beyond the arc while being outrebounded 35-28, thought they would somehow win the turnover battle at 13-15. As is typical against a Greg McDermott coached squad, the Bluejays assisted on 20 of 31 baskets compared to just 7 assists for the Hall on 25 makes.
The loss comes in the first of back-to-back road matchups against top 15 teams as the Pirates will travel to Storrs, Conn. on Sunday for a return game after defeating UConn 75-60 in the Big East season opener on Dec. 20.
Tipoff for the CBS broadcast is scheduled for noon.
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