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Creighton's focus is on Evansville, period.

That's the message coach Greg McDermott and several players tried to get across before Monday's practice. Overlook the Purple Aces in Tuesday's Missouri Valley meeting in Evansville, and a potential monster matchup against Wichita State will lose a lot of its buzz.

"This league is rugged enough, and you can't look ahead of anybody," Creighton guard Antoine Young said. "We have to go handle our business tomorrow, and then we'll worry about what we have on Saturday."

That's a point McDermott has been trying to emphasize since Saturday's loss to Northern Iowa on a buzzer-beating 3-point basket. McDermott knows that many of his team's fans have had the Wichita State game circled and gold-starred since the schedule was released.

"We've only circled one, and that's Evansville," McDermott said. "We certainly didn't look past Northern Iowa. There's just a lot of margin to make mistakes. For the most part, we've played good basketball on the road.

"Northern Iowa wasn't much different. It came down to a one-possession game, and we didn't make a play at the end of the game."

The 65-62 loss to Northern Iowa dropped Creighton into a first-place tie with the Shockers, who will visit CenturyLink Center for a 4 p.m. game Saturday. The Bluejays won the first meeting in Wichita, pulling out a 68-61 victory in the second Valley game of the season.

That started the Bluejays on an 11-game winning streak that was snapped when Anthony James made the game-winning shot as time expired. It marked the fifth time in the past two seasons that Creighton has lost a game in the final three seconds.

The Bluejays bounced back to win their next game the first four times it happened, a pattern they hope to follow in Tuesday's 7:05 p.m. game at Evansville's new 11,000-seat Ford Center.

"We just need to look at what we've done all year that's made us successful," guard Grant Gibbs said. "This isn't a team that is going to lose confidence just because we lost a game.

"We just need to re-focus and tighten up what we do. We have to get back to everybody doing their job and playing as a team."

What makes Tuesday's game a concern is the quirkiness Evansville has displayed to this point in the season. The Purple Aces are 11-12 and tied for fifth place in the Valley at 6-7.

The Purple Aces are coming off a one-point loss to a Southern Illinois team that is tied for eighth. They opened league play with two wins, then lost four in a row. Evansville came back to win three straight, lose two in a row and then split its past two games.

Seven of the Purple Aces' losses have come by a total of 14 points. In four of the losses, Evansville had the lead with 90 seconds to play. The Purple Aces had two chances to win the game against Southern Illinois but turned the ball over on both possessions.

Evansville ranks third behind Creighton and Wichita State in offensive production, averaging 74.1 points in all games and 75.8 points in the 13 conference games. Countering that is a defense that is ninth, both overall (72.3 points per game) and in league play (71.3).

"I think we all understand how good Evansville can be," forward Doug McDermott said. "They're at home and they can really score. We have to figure out a way to slow down one of the best scorers in the country."

That's an assignment that both teams must address. McDermott is ranked third nationally in scoring with a 23.4 average, while Evansville's Colt Ryan is tied for 10th at 20.8. In Valley games, Ryan is averaging 22.4 points per game, while McDermott is at 21.7.

"He's terrific moving without the ball, and he has a great pace to his game," Gibbs said of Ryan. "He's one of, if not the most, underrated players in the country. He's not getting enough love for his production."

Tuesday's game, as well as the Feb. 21 rematch in Omaha, will put the two players on the court who are considered the front-runners for the Valley's player the year award. Doug McDermott knows that, but he doesn't see the two games as being a shootout between the league's scoring stars.

"It's going to be a lot more than just Colt and me," he said. "We both have a lot of good players around us."

»NOTES: Ryan has averaged 23.3 points in his previous four games against Creighton. He's also made at least 50 percent of his shots in each game, but has yet to beat the Bluejays in his career. ... McDermott has scored 561 points as a sophomore. Creighton has a minimum of seven games remaining, and if McDermott maintains his current scoring pace, he would finish with 725 points. The only players in Valley history who have scored more points as a sophomore are Cincinnati's Oscar Robertson (984 in 1957-58) and Indiana State's Larry Bird (918 in 1976-77). Both are in the Basketball Hall of Fame. ... If McDermott and Ryan maintain their national standings in scoring, it would be the first time since the 1987-88 season that the Valley has had two players finish in the top 10. ... Creighton leads the series 25-9 but is only 10-7 in games in Evansville. The Purple Aces scored one of their biggest wins in 2003 when they upset No. 10 Creighton. Bluejays assistant coach Steve Merfeld was Evansville's head coach for that game.

Ratings dip doesn't concern Bluejays

Creighton's loss to Northern Iowa caused it to slip in the national rankings. That, however, created little stir with the Bluejays.

"I take a look at that stuff because it's there, and I think it's great that we're that high and people are saying stuff about us," guard Antoine Young said. "But I don't think we're worried about where we might be seeded in the (NCAA) tournament.

"We're just trying to get to the tournament. That's the fun part, and I think if we end in the tournament, we'll be a dangerous team. I think a lot of teams won't want to play us in the first round."

Creighton dipped from being a No. 3 seed to a No. 5 in ESPN's latest bracketology report. In the national polls, the Bluejays dropped from 12th to 15th in the USA Today-ESPN rankings and from 13th to 17th in the Associated Press ratings.

Creighton also slipped two spots — from 14th to 16th — in the NCAA RPI rankings. The Bluejays remain the highest-ranked Missouri Valley team, with Wichita State second at No. 27.

Creighton still leads in two national statistical categories: field-goal percentage (.512) and 3-point percentage (.448). The Bluejays also are second in assists per game (18.7) and sixth in scoring (81.0 points per game).

Doug McDermott remained third in scoring (23.4 points per game) and is eighth nationally in field-goal percentage (.624), 68th in rebounding (8.4) and 84th in free-throw percentage (.826).

Young is 21st in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.50 to 1), while Grant Gibbs is 34th (2.33 to 1). Gibbs is 32nd in assists per game (5.6), while Gregory Echenique is 85th in blocked shots (1.6 per game).

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com

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