Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.A school of thought starts circulating that this is the time of the season that college basketball teams that took summer trips begin running on fumes. The response of several Missouri Valley Conference coaches: "Oh, really?" Creighton was one of the five Valley schools that took a foreign excursion, which the NCAA allows once every four seasons. The Bluejays played four games in the Bahamas and had 10 days of practice to precede their departure.

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Creighton's championship hopes are in danger of turning into roadkill. The 17th-ranked Bluejays dropped their second straight Missouri Valley game away from home Tuesday night, scoring just one point in the final five minutes and 25 seconds of a 65-57 loss to Evansville before an announced crowd of 5,128 at the Ford Center.

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Evansville came away from Tuesday's victory over Creighton feeling pretty good about the way it played defense against the two players who scored 31 of the Bluejays' 57 points. Doug McDermott led Creighton with 21 points and Gregory Echenique added 10 in the 65-57 loss at the Ford Center. But the undersized Purple Aces were relieved that the two Creighton inside players didn't do even more damage.

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Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.Creighton's focus is on Evansville, period. That's the message coach Greg McDermott and several players tried to get across before Monday's practice. Overlook the Purple Aces in Tuesday's Missouri Valley meeting in Evansville, and a potential monster matchup against Wichita State will lose a lot of its buzz.

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Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.Conference realignment affected every major conference in America. But no one wears a bigger scar than the Big 12. First Nebraska and Colorado left for greener pastures. Then Texas A&M and Missouri bolted for the SEC. Amid all that strife, Dan Beebe lost his job, and Texas and Oklahoma nearly dissolved the league in favor of a West Coast super-conference.

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Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.Greg McDermott has watched his Creighton basketball team go against what he considers a developing norm and improve while its wins have mounted this season. Now, for just the third time, the Bluejay coach will get a chance to see how his team reacts when it comes away from a game without a win. Northern Iowa stopped Creighton's 11-game winning streak with a 65-62 victory Saturday on its home court in Cedar Falls.

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Antoine Young hit a big shot Saturday to give Creighton a chance to save its winning streak. Four-point-six seconds later, Northern Iowa's Anthony James hit a bigger one to sink it. James' step-back 24-footer over Doug McDermott's outstretched arm settled through the basket as time expired to give the Panthers a 65-62 upset, snapping the No. 13 Bluejays' 11-game Missouri Valley winning streak and touching off the biggest celebration in the six-year history of the McLeod Center.

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Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.Northern Iowa's Anthony James was feeling no pain Saturday. After missing the Panthers' previous game against Southern Illinois because of a variety of injuries, James returned to play 22 minutes, score 16 points and make what he called the biggest shot of his life in Northern Iowa's 65-62 upset of No. 13 Creighton.

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Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.A scary thought for Creighton fans pondering Saturday's matchup against Northern Iowa is that Grant Gibbs and Doug McDermott easily could be wearing purple and gold instead of blue and white. McDermott's story has been well-documented, about how he committed to Northern Iowa as a senior at Ames High School. McDermott was all set to play for Ben Jacobson until his father took the Creighton job, leading him to ask for and receive a release from his letter of intent in order to become a Bluejay.

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Log on to replay the weekly “Bluejay Talk Live” chat with staff writer Steven Pivovar.

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Premium ContentClick on Premium Content on the Featured navigation bar for information.Creighton's unselfishness has been a big reason behind the efficiency that makes the Bluejays one of the country's top offensive teams. But a willingness to share the basketball can't totally explain the dramatic improvement Creighton's offense has made in the course of a calendar year. The Bluejays are a team that after 23 games this season has scored 326 more points, made 124 more baskets and dished out 128 more assists than at a similar point a season ago.

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