Key Stats:
Creighton forces 17 turnovers, while holding Akron to just 15 assists on their 27 made baskets — mainly due to their defense on Isaiah “Big Dog” Johnson, their leading assist man who had zero assists in the first half and just three for the game. CU converted those 17 turnovers into 20 points, and held a 21-5 edge in fast break points.
Standout Performance:
Marcus Foster scored 27 points on a night where he wasn’t shooting the ball all that well from three-point range, going 2-8 from outside, which is frightening. He was 9-11 on two-point shots, scoring on an array of mid-range jumpers, drives to the rim and dunks, and was almost single-handedly the Jays’ offense early in the game, scoring 11 of his team’s first 12 points. He also sealed the victory with a huge late basket just as the Zips were trying to mount a furious late-game comeback. They’d made it an eight-point game, blocked a Cole Huff corner three, and though there was just 1:20 left, were on the verge of making things a little close for comfort. Foster barreled toward the basket and created a shot for himself at the rim, pushing the lead back out to 10 and essentially putting an end to those fears.
While Foster created a fair share of his points by himself, Maurice Watson setting an arena record with 13 assists played a big role, too. Speaking of that: Watson had 13 assists on a night where the Jays were 8-24 from three-point range and missed an awful lot of shots they normally make.
That might be even more frightening for opponents than Foster’s line.
Recap & Analysis:
Creighton has been hampered by slow starts this season, but on Saturday night, they blasted out to a 12-3 lead with Marcus Foster scoring 11 points on 4-4 shooting. It was an important start because the two-time defending MAC champ Akron Zips are a team that could potentially pull the upset if allowed to get too confident early on. Foster was having none of it, and made his point emphatically when he threw down this early breakaway dunk:
Hello again Marcus Foster. You are cleared for takeoff. ✈️😳😱 #GoJays #Creighton #TakeFlight https://t.co/C5fUzImnX8
— Creighton Basketball (@BluejayMBB) December 4, 2016
Defensively, the Bluejays doubled the post every time Isaiah Johnson caught the ball, and held Akron to just one basket on their first ten possessions. The Zips remained patient, and continued running their inside-out offense to get open threes for their guards. Their patience slowed the tempo of the game down, and after the early Bluejay burst, probably felt like they did what they wanted to do — except for actually making shots. While Kwan Cheatham, Jr., Josh Williams and Aaron Jackson all made threes in the first half, the Zips were 4-16 from outside for the half, and 12-30 overall.
CU’s lead was cut to 21-17 with 9:29 to go, and then Patton was forced to go to the bench after picking up his second foul. Watson joined him a few minutes later after getting his second, and the Bluejay bench got them to intermission with a 37-30 advantage.
Back at full strength to start the second, the Jays executed something that’s become a trademark of this early season: a huge second half run to blow the game open. With 14:41 to go, Creighton led 46-41; over the next three and a half minutes they went on a 14-0 run to turn what had been a close game into a 19-point blowout.
During the scoring burst, Patton scored six points including an alley—oop:
Cole Huff hit a pair of threes, and Foster punctuated it all with a fast break dunk off of a half-court pass from Patton:
To their credit, Akron responded by continuing to try to slow the game down and succeeded in cutting the lead to single-digits, but as it’s been so often early this season, a Creighton opponent was unable to overcome their big second half run. The speed they play at puts so much pressure on opposing teams, and they have such a variety of ways to score — Patton streaking down the middle of the floor for lob dunks (or three-pointers!), Foster creating off the dribble, throwing down dunks or draining threes, Watson driving into the defense to create lanes for teammates, with shooters surrounding them — that big run is always looming. Everyone knows it’s coming. The only questions? How big will it be, and can their opponent withstand it?
Through eight games, the answers eight times have been “overwhelming” and “no.”
They Said It:
“It definitely felt like Big Dog had more than 60 pounds on me by the end of the game, but I wanted to stay in the game so I wasn’t going to foul. He could have whatever he wanted (laughs). We just stayed with what we do, and did the same things in the second half that we did in the first. We had seven turnovers in the first, and obviously knew we had to cut that down. We just kept running them down the floor, and we knew that they couldn’t keep up. In the second half, coach trusted me to get stops, which didn’t happen but we got the win so I’m happy. And he’s happy.” -Justin Patton on 1620AM Postgame
“It was fun trying to play extended minutes tonight. Obviously sitting out for the first half it was easier, but it’s hard for me because I’m running up and down the floor constantly. I couldn’t be out there the whole entire game playing at a high level, but coach has challenged me to play at a high level for 20 minutes a game. It’s probably not there right now, but by the end of the season it will be.” -Justin Patton on 1620AM Postgame
“We changed our scheme not to double Johnson, so that we could front Kwan Cheatham. We were giving up too many pass-out threes because he’s such a good passer, so we elected to front the post so it would be easier to slow him down, but if we’re going to do that I have to fight harder to stay in front. It was hard to contend with their skip passes, but coach said we’d work on that some more in practice.” -Justin Patton on 1620AM Postgame
“I cannot wait for the Nebraska game. I want to beat them so bad. This is a blue state, and I’m a Creighton Bluejay. I’ve always wanted to go to Creighton and I’ve never really liked Nebraska. In recruiting, Creighton trusted me and Nebraska was just…out there. So I can’t wait to play ’em and show them what I’m made of. I have watched them a few times, I watched them play UCLA and they’re a good team. We can’t take anything for granted just because we have a good record coming in, we have to execute and play well. It’s going to be a fun game for our fans.” -Justin Patton on 1620AM Postgame
“I think in the first half I got a little lost out there defensively. As a team, we had a hard task playing such a dominant big man. We were double-teaming and he was picking us apart with his passes. It was hard to find who you were guarding on the rotation. I got caught a few times and gave up some open threes, but personally I think I did a little bit better in the second half and the rest of the team did a lot better in the second half.” -Cole Huff on 1620AM Postgame
“The biggest thing in our locker room, this year compared to last year, is we’re taking things one game at a time. Last year I know we had some success during conference play and were sitting at 2, 3, 4, whatever it was midway through, and we started thinking ‘Okay, if we beat Marquette, if we beat this team, then we’re going to go there and we have to beat that team.’ We’re not doing that at all this year. We’re taking things one game at a time. Tonight was successful, and now we turn the page to a big game at Nebraska.” -Cole Huff on 1620AM Postgame
“I can get up above the rim a little bit (laughs), but it’s been awhile. On that mad scramble where I wound up wide open, I didn’t know how high up I could get. So I figured ‘Let me just make sure I get the two points.’ But all these dunks are really fun, especially when we’re at home. The lobs to Justin, the dunks Marcus gets on the fast break, and Khyri too, it gets the crowd into it, it deflates the other team a little bit, and vice versa even through we haven’t had a true road game yet but even in places like the Virgin Islands where there’s still some opposing fans there, it takes the life out of their half of the building.” -Cole Huff on 1620AM Postgame
“The passion for that Creighton-Nebraska game has been melded into me even though I’m from California. It’s funny, I was talking to my mom earlier today. I told her that for the past week, all the fans I’ve bumped into have been talking about ‘Beat Nebraska, Beat Nebraska.’ And I’m like, we have a couple of games before that, you know. I’m definitely aware of the rivalry and how important this is for the state. It’ll be fun. I’m ready.” -Cole Huff on 1620AM Postgame
“Our guys did a good job, especially early in the game, of taking Isaiah Johnson out of the game. The first ten possessions in particular, they only scored on one of the ten. And we were off to a 12-3 lead. Our activity was good, Cole was there on the catch, our hands were high, and Johnson rushed a few which he doesn’t do very often. I was proud of that. We stuck with it, we survived some foul trouble. Z comes in and plays point guard, which I haven’t had him do the last three or four minutes, and does a great job — we keep the lead about where it was. That group that was in to start the second half really played well. I kept them together, obviously longer than usual. It’s 41-38 four minutes in, and we scored 21 points in the next nine possessions. Those are the type of runs we talk to our guys about all the time. Just stay patient, stay with it, keep running and good things will happen. We got some stops, forced some turnovers, and we created some separation.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We beat a good basketball team here; Akron’s going to win a lot of games. I just talked to Coach Dambrot as we were walking out, and the question he asked me was, ‘How do you get those guys to play that fast?’ And I hope our fans understand that and don’t take it for granted what our guys do. It is hard to play the way we play and play with pace every single possession. There aren’t many teams in the country that can do it. We do, and it all starts with Maurice. The pace that he plays at is so fast, and he demands that his teammates run it with him. The first three of the game, Justin goes sprinting down the middle of the floor, draws the defense, and Marcus gets a wide-open three. Doesn’t show up in the stat sheet, but if Justin doesn’t do his job, Marcus doesn’t get that three.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Some of Maurice’s failed chances early in the game don’t bother me that much, because it’s a message to the defense that ‘We’re looking for this. So if you’re going to rest, we’re going to get you.’ That tells the opposing big guy that he can’t take a break. Maurice has to pick his spots, but if you’re going to take a chance, I want it to be an aggressive chance. I don’t want it to be passive. I thought early on, there was a stretch where we had some casual turnovers. Our passes were soft. I don’t like that. If we’re going to make mistakes, let’s make it in an aggressive manner.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We thought Marcus would have some smaller guys guarding him tonight, and obviously opponents are now a little threatened by his ability to get to the basket so they don’t stretch out quite as far to guard him. He didn’t shoot the three tonight as well as he’s been shooting it, but that’s what he does and he does it well. He was good enough tonight to allow us to survive the foul trouble of Justin. I thought Ronnie and Tini and Toby all came off the bench to give us good minutes. And Tyler and Z did the same when Wop got his second foul. To maintain our lead was huge. And as I told Marcus after the game, as much as I like the points, the three assists with no turnovers I really like. He made a really great play to Justin out of a timeout at a critical time, and those kind of plays because he’s going to draw more and more attention, he’s got to continue to look for those.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“I stayed with Justin all 20 minutes in the second half because number one, he shouldn’t have been tired since he barely played in the first half (laughs). But honestly, the first TV timeout wasn’t until the 14 minute mark. There were hardly any whistles, so the guys were gassed, but I told them that’s perfect for us. We’re used to playing fast and they’re not. They took a timeout at 12:30, which is an automatic full timeout, and then there was another one at 12:00. So we got three media timeouts in a short stretch that allowed him to rest. I just liked him in front and the things he was doing at the rim offensively. He’s got such great hands, and catches it and gets up on the backboard quick. I knew Akron was good and I knew they had the capability of banging three threes in a row to get back into it, and it just didn’t feel like going to the bench when guys had been sitting that long was a great idea. Toby’s playing at about 80%, as his ankle was giving him trouble tonight. We rode that starting group hard tonight.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We made a switch and put Cole on their small forward and put Khyri on their power forward, Cheatham, which allowed us to switch some ball screens and Cole did a good job of keeping in front. Coaching is such a goofy thing. I had Toby up to put him in the game, Cole goes BANG BANG! Two threes in a row. 20 seconds earlier, he’s out of the game and that doesn’t happen. You never know. He didn’t look like he was moving great, and then he hits a couple of shots. It’s been a grind for Cole, so I’m proud of him for doing what he’s doing. It’s been a lot of work on his part when no one’s watching, to get that knee strong enough to play.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We’ll prepare for Nebraska like we always prepare. The negative is, Maurice has never been to the game at Nebraska. Marcus hasn’t. Khyri hasn’t. Justin hasn’t. Cole hasn’t. Z and Toby are the only two guys on our team that have been to Lincoln and played. You find out a little bit about your team the first time you go on the road. In a perfect world, I would love for the first one to be somewhere other than Nebraska because it will be such an emotional game and the arena will be awesome. But we’ll have a fair amount of blue in there as well.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
You Said It:
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