Creighton relied on its press Sunday to take the starch out of Arkansas-Little Rock.

The Bluejays' press forced eight backcourt turnovers, including two that fueled a decisive 14-0 run early in the second half, as Creighton rolled to an 80-65 victory before an announced crowd of 16,183 at Qwest Center Omaha.

The Trojans had the partisans sweating in the final 4½ minutes of the first half, slicing an 18-point deficit to five, 35-30, at halftime.

“They had a real nice run there, but a lot of it was our lack of defensive intensity and some real bad turnovers,” Creighton coach Dana Altman said. “They had 15 points in the first 15 minutes, then they score 15 in the last five. Defensively, we didn't do a very good job.”

The Bluejays evidently picked up on Altman's halftime message to ratchet up the intensity on that end of the floor. After Kaleb Korver capped a six-point possession with a 3-pointer from the wing to stretch the lead to 12, Creighton forced Arkansas-Little Rock into turnovers on five straight possessions.

Two came off the press in the backcourt — a Korver steal that set up a 3-pointer by Antoine Young and a bad pass by Trojans guard Solomon Bozeman after he got trapped by the press. Creighton got a free throw from P'Allen Stinnett after that mistake, and he added two more after Josh Jones stole the ball at midcourt.

After Matt Mouzy dribbled the ball out of bounds on a drive, Creighton countered with a drive by Young to make it 52-32 with 14:48 remaining.

“We knew coming in here that Creighton would test our toughness,” Arkansas-Little Rock coach Steve Shields said. “I told the guys at halftime that we had to continue doing what we did in the last six to eight minutes of the first half.

“Then we came out and had those turnovers right away. You can't do that against a team that is as good as Creighton, especially when they had so many guys making 3s like they did today.”

Six Bluejays had at least one 3-pointer, with Korver making four as Creighton finished 11 of 30 from beyond the arc. Stinnett led a balanced attack with 13 points, with Korver adding 12, Kenny Lawson 11 and Young and Cavel Witter 10 each.

Still, it was the two things — defense and rebounding — that Altman likes to hang his hat on that ultimately helped Creighton improve to 2-1. The Bluejays forced 18 turnovers, blocked four shots and limited the 1-3 Trojans to 40.4 percent shooting from the field.

Creighton also finished with a 37-32 rebounding advantage. A year ago when Arkansas-Little Rock scored a two-point win against the Bluejays, the Trojans finished with a 20-rebound advantage.

“We knew from what happened last year that we had to go hard on the boards,” said Lawson, who led Creighton with nine rebounds. “Guys kind of had that fear factor that we didn't want to get beat on the board and have a letdown like we did last year.”

Nor did Creighton want to repeat the mistakes it made at the end of the first half in the final 20 minutes. The success they had with the press, Korver said, energized the Bluejays and took a toll on the Trojans.

“The thing we try to do with the press is to try to wear them down,” Korver said. “We might not get them in the first 10 or 20 minutes, but you could tell they were getting tired in the second half. Their big men were breathing heavy — they could barely talk at times they were breathing so hard.

“It really got to them in the second half, and that's when we made our big runs.”

Bozeman and Mouzy led Arkansas-Little Rock with 16 points each. They also had seven of the Trojans' turnovers.

Overall, Altman liked what he saw from his team but said there's work to be done before the Bluejays head to the Old Spice Classic.

“At times, I thought our energy was good and we really flew around,'' he said. “Other times, our communication and our sense of urgency on our half-court defense wasn't very good.

“We had some really positive moments out there, but there are some things we have to get cleaned up before we play Michigan on Thursday.''

• Box Score

Contact the writer:

679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com