No. 11 Oregon vs. No. 3 Creighton
9:40 p.m. Saturday, PPG Paints Arena
TV: TBS
Winner plays: Winner of No. 2 Tennessee (25-8)/No. 7 Texas (21-12) March 28-29 in the Sweet 16
Series history: Oregon leads the all-time series 2-1.
Oregon (24-11, 15-8 Pac-12)
Coach: Dana Altman (14th season)
How they got here: Oregon defeated South Carolina, 87-73, in the first round Thursday.
Probable starting lineup
No., Player, Ht., Pos., Cl., PPG
1, N’Faly Dante, 6-11, C, sr., 16.2
3, Jackson Shelstad, 6-0, G, fr., 13.1
5, Jermaine Couisnard, 6-4, G, r-sr., 16.1
10, Kwame Evans Jr., 6-9, F, fr., 7.5
22, Jadrian Tracey, 6-5, G, r-jr., 7.7
Notable: Oregon won its fifth straight game Thursday by topping South Carolina. It also was the seventh time Altman has led the Ducks past the NCAA Tournament’s first round. … Oregon turned the ball over just one time in Thursday’s win. … Oregon is 14-2 when it holds teams below 70 points. … Couisnard stole the show against South Carolina, pouring in 40 points on 14-of-22 shooting, including 5 of 9 from 3-point range. He also was 7 of 7 from the free-throw line and had six assists and four rebounds. His 40 points set a school record for points in an NCAA Tournament game. Couisnard has nine straight games of scoring in double figures. … Dante added 23 points and six rebounds in the victory. … Oregon won the first NCAA championship tournament ever held in 1939.
Quotable: “It’s just how the game flows. I feel like my teammates just put trust into me. I feel like it depends how the game is going. I feel like any one of us guys can get it going. I feel like yesterday was just my night. It’s just not about me. It’s about my team, so whatever they need for me to do for us to get the win, that’s what I’m going to do.”
—Oregon guard Jermaine Couisnard on his 40-point performance
Creighton (24-9, 14-7 Big East)
Coach: Greg McDermott
How they got here: Creighton defeated Akron, 77-60, in the first round Thursday.
Probable starting lineup
No., Player, Ht., Pos., Cl., PPG
1, Steven Ashworth, 6-1, G, sr., 10.7
11, Ryan Kalkbrenner, 7-1, C, sr., 17.3
13, Mason Miller, 6-9, F, so., 5.8
23, Trey Alexander, 6-4, G, jr., 17.6
55, Baylor Scheierman, 6-7, sr., G, 18.3
Notable: Creighton will try to advance to the Sweet 16 for the third time in four seasons. It has won an NCAA Tournament game in four straight seasons. The Bluejays are 19-25 all-time in the NCAA Tournament. … This is the first time Creighton will play a Pac-12 team in the NCAA Tournament since playing Washington State 83 years ago in the West Regional semifinals when it was the Pacific Coast Conference. … Each starter scored at least 10 points on Thursday: Kalkbrenner (23 points), Alexander (19), Scheierman (15) and Miller and Ashworth (10 each). The Bluejays got zero bench points for the third time this season and is 3-0 in those games. … Kalkbrenner has 121 career points in the NCAA Tournament and is eight behind the Bluejays’ all-time leader Doug McDermott (129 from 2012-14). Kalkbrenner’s nine NCAA Tournament games played also are a program record. Alexander has started in seven NCAA Tournament games, also a program record. … Scheierman is a third-team AP All-American, and Kalkbrenner is an honorable mention AP All-American.
Quotable: “I think once you play in this tournament a time or two, you start to find a balance of like having urgency and playing free. … It’s easy to get sped up in these moments and think you gotta go and try and do too much, especially when you have three, four plays in a row that don’t go your way. But once you get some experience, you can kind of slow down and find that balance of, you know, OK, it’s time to maybe be a little more locked in because we’ve had a few things not go our way but not do it too much to where you start messing up because you’re trying to do it too much. So I think the experience helps a lot finding that balance.”
—Creighton forward Ryan Kalkbrenner on playing in the NCAA Tournament
