Kennesaw St. Owls vs Creighton Bluejays Match Player Stats On Dec 04, 2020

A whopping six players scored in double figures Friday as No. 9 Creighton canned 55.7 percent of its field goals in a 93-58 nonconference rout of Kennesaw State in Omaha, Neb.

Freshman center Ryan Kalkbrenner and Marcus Zegarowski each scored 14 points for the Bluejays (3-0), while Damien Jefferson chipped in 13. Shereef Mitchell and Christian Bishop each added 11 points, and Mitch Ballock tallied 10.

Alex Petersen scored 14 points to lead the Owls (2-2), who also got 13 from Chris Youngblood and 10 from Spencer Rodgers. But the Atlantic Sun Conference program made just 36.5 percent of its field goal attempts and were outrebounded 38-31.

The game was nothing more than a glorified scrimmage for Creighton, which has now finished the tuneup portion of its schedule. The Bluejays visit No. 7 Kansas Tuesday night and host Nebraska on Dec. 11 before starting their Big East Conference grind the following week.

Creighton struggled for the first five minutes before running Kennesaw State out of the building. Beginning with Antwann Jones' stepback jumper at the 14:38 mark, the Bluejays uncorked a 19-2 run that was fueled heavily by the 7-foot Kalkbrenner. He accounted for eight straight points on dunks alone and added a stickback.

Owls coach Amir Abdur-Rahim used two first-half timeouts in a futile effort to mute Creighton's momentum, but the lead simply kept growing. It reached 20 for the first time with 6:11 left as Jones stroked a pair of free throws.

Ballock illustrated the mammoth gulf between the teams when he drained a 3-pointer from the left edge of the midcourt logo with 1:32 remaining, shooting it as though it were a layup. The Bluejays took a 52-25 cushion into halftime.

It took Creighton less than a minute to push the lead to 30 in the second half, as it simply scored when it wanted to. The margin peaked at 41 late in the game when Nic Zeil came off the bench to drain an NBA-range 3-pointer.

--Field Level Media