A glance at Wednesday's box score from Creighton's 94-69 exhibition victory over Missouri Western indicated decisive advantages for the Bluejays in almost every statistical category but one.

Missouri Western, a Division II school, outrebounded Creighton 44-28, including a 19-10 edge on the offensive boards. When asked if the subject was brought up in the postgame discussion, junior forward Casey Harriman replied, “It's pretty much ingrained in my head right now.''

“Rebounding has been a concern for a long time,'' Harriman said. “Maybe we weren't focusing on the right things during the game. Maybe we were mainly thinking about our offense.''

The Bluejays did plenty of good things on that end of the court. They shot 51.6 percent from the field and made 13 3-point shots, with newcomer Darryl Ashford draining 4 of his 5 attempts. Creighton finished with 24 assists on its 33 baskets.

“I thought we did a good job of sharing the ball,'' Creighton coach Dana Altman said. “Our guys really looked for each other. Defensively, I thought we got up and were really active.

“But as the game progressed, our intensity was not what it should have been. Our box outs and board play ... some of our fans might not believe we ever work on that.''

Rebounding was a major problem for Creighton's 27-8 team last season as the Bluejays finished 289th out of 330 Division I teams in rebounding margin (minus-3.4).

“We've got a lot of work to do in that regard,'' Altman said. “We have to become a much more physical team on the boards. Our guys will work at that. They'll get committed to it but they have to make that decision and they have to do a much better job of it.''

Wayne Runnels had six rebounds to lead the Bluejays, while Harriman had five. No other player had more than four, while Missouri Western, which consistently played a smaller lineup, had five players grab five rebounds each.

“I can't believe we got outrebounded like that, and we'll get a chance to clean it up in practice tomorrow,'' Runnels said. “Tonight, I think it was a case of fundamentals. We didn't hit our man and we kind of ran under the goal.

“Balls were going over our heads. It was a lot of the basic stuff.''

The Bluejays showed they have a lot of the offensive basics under control. Eleven of the 12 players that saw more than a minute of action scored, with P'Allen Stinnett leading the way with 20 points. Ashford added 16, Runnels 13, Harriman 11 and Justin Carter 10.

Stinnett, who didn't start, made 5 of 9 shots from the field, including a pair of 3-point attempts. He also was perfect in making all eight of his free-throw attempts.

Creighton never trailed, and took advantage of eight Griffon turnovers on their first 15 possessions to build a 22-7 lead.

“No question jitters and 14,000 or whatever they had here contributed to that,'' Missouri Western Coach Tom Smith said. “Our kids are not used to seeing that. You can talk about it all you want, but all of a sudden you're out there and your heart is beating and it's not as easy as it looks.''

By halftime, Creighton's lead had grown to 51-29, and the Griffons never got closer than 17 points the rest of the way. Justin Taylor led Missouri Western with 14 points, while Marcus Rhodes added 13.

Creighton will have a chance to work some things out in practice in the days before Sunday's second exhibition against the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

“We got our feet wet tonight,'' Carter said. “We'll go back to practice, work on the things we did wrong and come back ready to go Sunday.''

MISSOURI WESTERN

FG FT RB PF A Min TP

Noblin 2-7 2-2 5 0 0 25 7

Bush 3-5 0-2 5 3 0 22 6

Thuston 0-1 0-0 4 5 1 15 0

Nolan 2-8 2-3 5 0 1 25 6

Rhodes 5-11 3-4 5 4 5 30 13

DeWalt 3-6 0-0 3 2 1 23 6

Taylor 5-11 2-5 1 1 0 27 14

Jones 1-3 0-0 3 1 0 11 2

Wallace 1-2 6-6 4 4 0 10 8

Beck 3-4 1-1 5 1 0 12 7

Totals 25-58 16-23 44 21 8 3-point shot (3-10) — Noblin 1-2, Rhodes 0-1, DeWalt 0-1, Taylor 2-6

Team rebounds —44 . Turnovers —22. Shot percent — 43.1.

CREIGHTON

FG FT RB PF A Min TP

Carter 3-7 4-5 4 2 1 22 10

Harriman 4-5 1-1 5 2 1 15 11

Lawson 2-3 0-2 3 4 2 13 4

Korver 1-3 0-0 0 1 2 20 3

Young 2-7 0-2 2 0 4 17 5

Jones 0-3 0-0 0 3 0 12 0

Witter 2-5 0-0 1 3 2 13 6

Stinnett 5-9 8-8 2 2 5 20 20

Sebastian 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Bock 1-4 0-0 0 3 1 10 2

Dorwart 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 1

Runnels 6-8 1-2 6 3 1 21 13

Ashford 6-7 0-1 2 0 5 20 16

Wragge 1-3 1-2 2 0 0 16 4

Totals 33-64 15-23 28 23 24 24

3-point shot (13-31) — . Carter 0-1, Harriman 2-3, Korver 1-3, Young 1-3, Jones 0-2, Witter 2-4, Stinnett 2-5, Bock 0-2, Ashford 4-5, Wragge 1-3

Team rebounds —28 . Turnovers —11. Shot percent — 51.6.

Missouri Western 2940—69

Creighton 5143—94

A —15099. Officials — Kipp Kissinger, Justin Pavich, Trent Lovewell.

Contact the writer:

679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com