The No. 3 Creighton Bluejays will take on the No. 14 Akron Zips in the Round of 64 of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Below we’ll preview both teams, including analysis and key stats while also providing our prediction. Creighton enters as a 13-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Creighton Bluejays
NET: 11
KenPom Overall: 11
KenPom O: 12
KenPom D: 24
Record: 23-9
Strength of Schedule: 22
Conference: Big East
Conference Record: 14-6
Quad 1 Record: 8-5
The Creighton Bluejays are back in the Big Dance after the program reached the Elite Eight for just the second time in history last season. The Bluejays have still never quite made it to the Final Four, and are on the hunt this year to cross that bridge. Creighton’s offense is led by the trio of Baylor Scheierman, Ryan Kalkbrenner, and Trey Alexander. They rank third in the nation in two-point shooting with a 61% success rate, and their offense puts up 80.8 points per night.
Akron Zips
NET: 108
KenPom Overall: 116
KenPom O: 164
KenPom D: 97
Record: 24-10
Strength of Schedule: 219
Conference: MAC
Conference Record: 13-5
Quad 1 Record: 0-3
Akron won the MAC Tournament and will jump into the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three seasons. The Zips were more sound on the defensive side on the floor as opponents needed time to find an adequate shot against them. They were very effective at guarding against the three as they limited foes to just 30% shooting from beyond the arc.
Pick: Creighton
Despite the Bluejays’ early exit from the Big East tournament, this is a team that has the potential to make a deep run into March. Creighton relies more on two-point shooting while Akron defends from the three, so this will be a fairly major mismatch.