Three days after holding Villanova to 37.5% from the field in a 65-62 road win, the Creighton Bluejays brought their defensive effort home with them and used it to hold the Big East co-leading Xavier Musketeers to 29.1% shooting in a 74-47 rout on Friday night at D.J. Sokol Arena.
Creighton outscored Xavier, 34-26, in the paint, out-rebounded them 40-28, and dished out 24 assists on 31 made baskets in what Bluejay head coach Jim Flanery agreed was their most complete performance of the season thus far.
“I thought we had a lot of people play well and under control, and we made the right plays,” Flanery said. “We had a couple sloppy turnovers against their zone in the first half that kind of got us a little bit out of rhythm, but overall to out-rebound them by 12, have 24 assists, and to hold them to the shooting percentage that we did, that was good.”
“Those are fun games. I said to our staff that’s the first time I’ve looked at a box score and seen the consistency now that we’re playing quarters.”
Creighton took control from the opening tip and never found themselves playing from behind. Junior guard MC McGrory scored seven of her team’s first nine points, and freshman forward Audrey Faber buried a 3-pointer from the right wing to cap off a 12-2 run to open the first quarter. The Bluejays only scored two points the rest of the period, but they held Xavier to 2 of 16 shooting from the field to take a 14-4 lead into the second quarter.
The game only opened up more from there as Creighton knocked down 4 of 6 3-point attempts in the second quarter, capped off by a possession where all five players touched the ball going from the right corner to the right wing to the top of the key to in the teeth of Xavier’s zone to the left corner where sophomore guard Myah Mellman knocked down the shot from beyond the arc to give the Bluejays their largest lead of the first half at 34-18 with 1:26 remaining before halftime.
The Bluejays finished the first half with 11 assists on 14 made baskets. They shot 48.3% from the field and knocked down 6 of 10 shots from 3-point territory.
“Creighton is tough to defend no matter what the focus is,” Xavier head coach Brian Neal said. “They move the ball, and their offense plays with such pace. It’s hard to keep up with them. You have to be so mentally alert to do that, and I didn’t feel like we were up to the challenge tonight. Especially in this building, they play so well here, and if you’re not ready for a fight and locked in — they were locked in, and unfortunately for my team I didn’t feel like we were.”
The Musketeers took a shot at getting back in the game early in the second half when a 5-0 run midway through the third quarter cut the home team’s lead to 39-29 with 5:30 remaining in the period. That was as close as the comeback attempt would get as Creighton closed the quarter on 16-3 run. McGrory, who finished with 16 points on 7 of 10 shooting, scored three points and dished out two assists to spark the run and help her team open up the game for good as they took a 55-32 lead into a fourth quarter that saw them rest most of their starters.
The second-year starter out of Edina, Minn., also added four rebounds, three assists, and a steal to her totals in 28 minutes of action. Despite their efforts, the Musketeers had no answer for her no matter where she had found herself on the floor.
“What a competitive kid,” Neal said. “She’s just fun to watch. Even if you do what you’re supposed to against her she’s still tough enough, physical enough, confident enough to go ahead and make a tough shot anyway. With players like that it’s kind of demoralizing to a defense when you feel like you did a pretty good job, and she just sticks it on you anyway. She’s having a great season.”
After scoring nine points and committing 10 fouls in losses to St. John’s and Seton Hall to open conference play, McGrory has bounced back in Creighton’s last three outings. In the loss to Georgetown, and win over Villanova and Xavier, she is averaging 19.3 points per game and shooting 61.8% from the field.
She wouldn’t commit to the idea that she has become a primary scoring option since senior guard Marissa Janning broke her fibula on November 28th. Instead, McGrory credits a simple approach to the game for her recent spike in production.
“I still struggle with that [role],” McGrory said. “I don’t know if feel that way or not. I’m playing well and not really thinking about it too much. I tend to play better when I’m not thinking about it.”
Her head coach, in his 14th season leading the Bluejays, wasn’t necessarily buying that.
“I think it’s just recognition that that’s what we need,” Flanery said. “She talked about not overthinking things, but she’s a smart young woman, and I think she understands that somebody has to be that person. She’s a junior who is a two-year starter, and has the ability to score. Her mid-range game is very good. For somebody her size she can pop up, and she’s not Doug McDermott with her left hand, but she’s really good at getting in there and making left-handed shots in the lane, and just popping up and shooting from 12-16 feet, and she’s a capable enough 3-point shooter. She’s an efficient 3-point shooter. She doesn’t shoot as many as a lot of our kids, but she’s been good there, too. She’s a smart, intuitive kid, who feels like she has to do it.”
Her performance against Xavier kept her on pace to become just the second player in program history to shoot over 50% from the field and from the beyond the arc in a single season. The only player to accomplish that is Kathy Halligan in 1991-92. Halligan is of course the school’s all-time leading scorer with 2,159 points.
“She makes it really easy to play with,” Faber said of her veteran teammate. “Obviously when she’s making a lot of those jump shots she’s attracting a lot of the defense, and she can find the open player. I think it just makes it easy for everyone to score on the offensive end, and gives us so many different looks.”
As rare as that 50/50 feat has been, McGrory actually has company in that regard this season. Audrey Faber is shooting 49.0% from the field and 50.6% from the 3-point range. Against the Musketeers she chipped in 17 points, six rebounds, four assists, and three blocked shots. At the end of the third quarter she scored seven points over the final 2:56 to help blow the game open.
A key stretch that according to Jim Flanery almost didn’t happen.
“My staff wanted me to take Audrey out with about two minutes left in the third quarter and give her a break,” Flanery said. “After she scored seven points in the last two minutes I said, ‘I’m never listening to you guys.'”
Xavier, who entered the game tied with DePaul atop the Big East standings, fell to 12-3 overall on the season, and 3-1 in conference play. Creighton, on the other hand, improved 8-9 on the season, and pulled to 2-3 in Big East play. The Bluejays will return to the court on Sunday afternoon when they face the Butler Bulldogs (7-8, 2-2) at 1:05 p.m. at D.J. Sokol Arena.
It will be an intriguing match up on Sunday as not only do the Bluejays and Bulldogs have similar records, but Creighton entered the weekend as the top 3-point shooting team in the Big East, while Butler came in as the best in the league at defending the 3-point line.
“We have to screen well, and we have to catch the ball with our knees bent,” Flanery said of what his team needs to do keep his team’s modest two-game winning streak alive on Sunday. “We have to move well, screen well, and move the ball. If we do that we’ll get shots, because I think that’s what we do well.”
“They do have some length. Their two bigs are pretty long. The nice thing is even though we didn’t get to the foul line tonight we made 23 two-point baskets. That’s a lot for us, and the thing is when teams defend you at the 3-point line the way teams are going to defend us, you’re going to have basket cut opportunities. The basket opens up, because they’re stretched out to defend the three, especially when we go small.”
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Xavier head coach Brian Neal
