OMAHA, Neb. – The Creighton Bluejays, ranked ninth in both Division I basketball polls and picked to win the Big East, showcased their prowess in a 109-57 win over the Drury Panthers in an exhibition game on Sunday at the CHI Health Center Omaha Arena.
 
The Bluejays pulled away from Drury in the first half to lead 61-38 at the intermission, then overpowered the Panthers to start the second half. Creighton went on a 20-0 run after halftime and held Drury off of the scoreboard for more than four minutes.
 
While the Panthers never had a lead, they stayed within 10 of Creighton in the first half until the Bluejays burst to a 23-point advantage at halftime.
 
"I thought our guys competed," said Drury head coach Chris Foster. "It's easy to get down when shots aren't going in and you get down big, but I thought our guys competed all the way until the end, even our young guys that got in toward the end of the game.
 
"When you play a team like Creighton, the things that you're not good at are going to be glaring. We saw some of that, and we'll work on those, but we saw some good things."
 
Creighton forward Arthur Kaluma led all scorers with 17 points, while 7'1" center Ryan Kalkbrenner had 16 points for the Bluejays.
 
Graduate transfer Adam Moore, who came to Drury from Quincy, led the Panthers with 13 points. Quenton Shelton added 10 for Drury.
 
The Bluejays shot 60 percent from the field, going 41 for 68, while the Panthers shot 38 percent hitting 24 of 64 attempts. Creighton, however, held Drury to just 26 percent shooting in the second half. The Bluejays also owned a 47-28 advantage on the boards and were led by Baylor Scheierman's 10 rebounds.
 
"They just wear you down and they put a lot of pressure at the rim with their big guys," added Foster. "The cumulative effect of that over the course of 40 minutes just wears you down. We tried to take away the paint and they were 7 of 13 from three in the first half. They've got all the pieces and, obviously, they're really well coached. But I feel very fortunate that we were given the opportunity to play them."
 
Sunday's attendance was announced at 16,092 and is the largest crowd Drury has ever played in front of as it surpassed the 9,314 in attendance when the Panthers played an exhibition game at Duke in 2014.
 
The game was the only exhibition on the Panthers schedule. Drury opens the season at home on Nov. 11 when they host Northwood at 6 pm in the O'Reilly Family Event Center on the first day of the Greenstay Inn & Suites Tipoff Classic.
 
 
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