Bluejays Clip Musketeers Wings

A season-long shooting slump bit the Xavier Musketeers again in a devastating second straight Big East Conference home loss.  This time the Creighton Bluejays absconded with a 77-65 at the Cintas Center.

Xavier missed 21 3-point shots and at the half were just 3-for-17 from behind the arc.  Creighton started slowly from the floor but Mitch Ballock with 19 points and Ty-Shon Alexander 18 points started to connect. Xavier made six 3-pointers for shooting percentage of 19.2.

"We didn't play good defense.  We have to be better," Xavier coach Travis Steele said.  "One thing you can't do when you're not hitting shots is play bad defense."

Xavier (12-5, 1-3) have dropped two straight and three of their last four games.  Creighton (13-4, 2-2) bounced back from a 64-59 loss to Villanova at home, the second of two straight losses.

"We lost two games in a row to Butler and Villanova then we have a very good Xavier team on the other end," Creighton coach Greg McDermott said.  "We have to understand that if you lose a couple games in this league, you can't throw every thing out the window. You have to stick to what you're doing and get better at it."

Naji Marshall led Xavier with 21 points but made just one of four 3-pointers.  Tyrique Jones managed 12 points as McDermott's strategy was to double down on Jones and let the Musketeers shoot the outside shot it paid off. Jones came into the game averaging a double-double at 13.65 points and 10.1 rebounds per game.

"Our guys did a great job in the first 15 minutes keeping Xavier at bay," McDermott said. "We weren't making shots. Today we tried to sag off and not let Tyrique Jones open inside.  We were going to let them shoot it.  We felt keeping the ball out of Jones' hands was our best option."

Creighton was cold in the first half also but stuck with their plan.

"All of our guys work on our 3-point jump shot. Defenses are getting out on shooters more often. It is hard to get looks we were finding our rhythm in the second half," leading scorer Marcus Zegarowski said. "Our plan was to not let them post up.  We're kind of small. Big Tyrique is a lot down there. We were trying to make sure they didn't burn us down there and play strong team defense.  I think we did that."

Zegarowski scored 11 points, six points below his 17.4 average per game.

Creighton is the first Xavier opponent to win four games at the Cintas Center.

Xavier is 267-43 at the Cintas Center in the 20 years it has been open.  It is the seventh best home record in the country but they've now lost two in a row there.