Creighton vs. San Diego State In-Season Trends

San Diego State has been impressive in the tournament, controlling the tempo against everyone they’ve played. Brian Dutcher has been explicit about this point. He believes that if he can force a team to play a half-court game against his squad, he can win with his dominant defense.

My issue is that Charleston, Furman, and Alabama have all been up-tempo teams who try to get points early or in transition. The Aztecs were able to neutralize those teams by slowing the tempo down and forcing them to grind in half court sets that weren’t necessarily their bread-and-butter. 

Things will be tougher for his squad against Creighton. The Bluejays excel in running half-court sets and should be more comfortable against this type of defense considering they play a similar style that seeks to pressure the perimeter and wall off shots at the rim. 

The reason that Creighton is a six-seed and the reason I was able to snare a 50/1 ticket in January is because they didn’t have Ryan Kalkbrenner for a long stretch in which they were simply a mediocre Big East team. Things have changed since he’s returned and they are back to being elite.

Ultimately, I think that Creighton should be comfortable in a slower paced grind-it-out game than any of San Diego State’s previous opponents. Creighton is also more balanced and has more paths to creating offense than SDSU.