Lay the points with Creighton in Big East opener against Villanova on Wednesday night

Big East play kicks off with a banger as Villanova travels to Omaha to battle Creighton in a Wednesday night tilt between conference powerhouses.

Unfortunately, ‘Nova doesn’t look like a powerhouse as currently constructed. The Wildcats are just 7-4 with losses to Penn, Saint Joseph’s, Drexel and Kansas State. I’m unsure if Kyle Neptune’s squad has the firepower to compete in the loaded Big East.

Conversely, Creighton is firmly in the conference title race, and while the Bluejays suffered a bad loss to UNLV last week, they avenged it with a home win over Alabama to move to 9-2 in non-conference play.

I’m betting on the Bluejays here.

(Via DraftKings)

(9 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1)

Monitor the status of Villanova’s Justin Moore. He suffered a knee injury in the first half against Kansas State and was unavailable against UCLA.

He’s currently listed as “questionable” for Wednesday night’s game, and if he’s unavailable, I would hammer Creighton in this spot.

Sorry, but ‘Nova won’t keep up with an elite Creighton offense without its point guard.

But even if Moore is available, I don’t like this matchup for the Wildcats.

Villanova runs a perimeter-based offense, running ball screen after ball screen until it finds an open 3-point shooter. The ‘Cats run ball-screen sets at a top-50 rate nationally and rank third nationally in 3-point rate (51%).

But Creighton’s drop coverage scheme is built to stop perimeter-based attacks. The Bluejays overplay ball-handlers and shooters on the perimeter, funneling them toward the 7-foot-2 dominant rim protector Ryan Kalkbrenner.

As a result, Creighton ranks third nationally in pick-and-roll PPP allowed (.85) and 3-point rate allowed (25%).

» READ MORE: Creighton has betting value to win Big East conference over Villanova, UConn and others

Villanova won’t be able to run its stuff against the aptly nicknamed KalkDrop.

Even worse, ‘Nova’s bailout option is hitting the post with Eric Dixon. But Kalkbrenner is an elite post-up defender with a six-inch size advantage over the 6-foot-8 Dixon in this head-to-head matchup.

This is a nightmare matchup for the Wildcats.

While Creighton denies 3-point attempts at a high rate, it also generates many perimeter shots. The Bluejays rank sixth nationally in 3-point rate (50%), as Kalkbrenner pulls defenders to the interior to pop open Baylor Schierman (37% 3-point shooter) and Steven Ashworth (39%) from deep by using off-ball and handoff sets.

Meanwhile, Villanova runs a compact interior-based defense that allows plenty of 3-point shots, as the Wildcats rank 332nd in 3-point rate allowed (44%). They also struggle to defend off-ball screens, ranking in the eighth percentile of D-I teams in PPP allowed to those sets (1.16).

The Jays will get all sorts of open looks here.

This is an excellent matchup for Creighton, and if Moore is ruled out, the Jays could run away in a hurry.

It’s also worth mentioning how good Creighton is on its home floor. Since joining the Big East in 2013, the Jays are 85-62-1 against the spread in Omaha, covering 58% of the time and generating a 12% ROI for bettors.

That includes a 76-56-1 ATS record when laying points.

I’m all in on Creighton here and will happily lay anything short of double digits in what I expect to be a runaway affair.

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