Subscribe to our Newsletter

Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 91, DePaul 80

By
0
Share

[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton’s bench outscores DePaul’s bench 38-7, thanks to Cole Huff, Zach Hanson, and James Milliken all scoring in double figures. CU comes up with 12 steals, and forces 18 turnovers. Most crazily, Creighton wound up the first half with 1.469 points per possession — which is insane — and even more remarkable when you consider they didn’t score any points on their first five possessions.

Standout Performance:

With his father Don watching from courtside, Isaiah Zierden had a career day offensively, making eight-of-eleven from 3-point range en route to 31 points. It’s the first time a Bluejay has made seven or more threes in a game since Doug McDermott did it against these same DePaul Blue Demons in the 2014 Big East Tournament, and the first time a Bluejay has scored 30+ points in a game since McDermott did it against Louisiana in the 2014 NCAA Tournament.

Five of them came during a seven-minute stretch in the second half, during which time the Jays turned a 50-50 tie into a 74-63 lead. You might say it was a Wragge-esque performance, and it not only had Bluejay fans dusting off the #WraggeBombs hashtag on Twitter, it had two of Wragge’s former teammates excited:

Recap & Analysis:

DePaul jumped out to a quick 11-0 lead less than four minutes into the game, conjuring up bad memories of past losses to Chicagoland teams — most notably to DePaul last January in Omaha when they fell behind 20-5 on a barrage of threes, and to Loyola last month in Chicago when they couldn’t make a shot to save their life and dug a 27-11 hole for themselves. Thankfully, unlike those two games, the Bluejays didn’t let the bad start spiral out of control.

Instead, they countered with a 21-9 run of their own that gave them a 21-20 lead, capped off by a three-pointer from Cole Huff. The junior transfer who had started every game this season was moved out of the starting lineup on Sunday in favor of Toby Hegner, and the move worked as Huff — who had scored zero, four, and zero points in his last three games — scored 10 points with a pair of three-pointers.

DePaul re-took the lead twice at 23-21 and 25-23, and over the next several minutes the teams traded shots and the lead. The Bluejays used a late first-half burst to take the lead for good, keyed by a six-point possession. Zierden was fouled by DePaul’s Tommy Hamilton IV, and Hamilton showed his disgust at the call by spiking the ball on the floor. It drew a technical foul, and Zierden made three of four free throws to give them a 40-36 advantage. Zierden then nailed a three-pointer to cap the six-point possession, stole the ball on the other end, and raced for a layup. His personal 8-0 run gave the Bluejays a 45-36 lead, and though the Blue Demons threatened multiple times the rest of the way, tying the game once more, the home team never again took the lead.

That tie came early in the second half, as DePaul used a 9-3 run to erase the Jays’ 47-41 halftime lead. With the score tied 50-all, Zierden went Full Wragge, and unleashed five three-pointers in a span of seven minutes. First, he hit a 3-pointer from the corner to give CU back the lead. Two possessions later, Zierden made a transition three, then followed it up with another three the next time down the court to make it 59-52. Maurice Watson hit a three of his own, and Zach Hanson punctuated the spurt with a slam dunk to give the Bluejays a 64-54 lead with just over 12 minutes to go. Zierden added two more triples, and by the eight-minute mark CU led 74-63.

DePaul made one last charge, cutting the lead to 78-75, but leading scorer Myke Henry — who had scored 21 points, including 14 in the second half and six in the previous four possessions — fouled out with 2:14 to play. That seemed to take the wind out of the Blue Demons’ sails, and the Jays iced the game by making 11-11 free throws over the final two minutes.

It was an ugly game defensively, and reminiscent of some of their December games where they outscored opponents in a shootout, which is a step back from how they’ve won in Big East play. On the other hand, it was a road win in a game where they faced some significant adversity — namely an 11-0 deficit mere moments into the game — which is something they couldn’t overcome in their last trip to Chicago in December. It moves them to 4-2 in the league, with three of the four wins coming on the road, equalling their win total from a year ago after just six tries. And they’re now ranked fourth in the Big East by KenPom, and tied for third in the standings, with two of their next three games at home.

Hard to complain about any of that.

They Said It:

“I’m going to talk to Mac about whether we can fly my dad to come to every game. Whenever my dad can come, it’s always a special occasion. The first thing my dad said to me after the game was ‘Way to miss a free throw,’ (laughs). He’s always talking about mistakes that I’ve made. He’s always been my biggest supporter, but he’s also been one of my hardest critics. He keeps me real level-headed.” -Isaiah Zierden on 1620AM Postgame

“When you start to get it going, you kind of get that feeling like this isn’t going to miss and I can shoot it from anywhere. I just started catching and shooting.” -Isaiah Zierden on 1620AM Postgame

“Well, I was prophetic, because I told them during the timeout while we waiting for their starting lineups that DePaul is a team that plays the game in runs. If you watch their games, it’s a 10-0 run one way and then a 12-2 run the other way. It’s just been their M.O. really throughout the season. I wasn’t thinking we’d get hit with an 11-0 run to start the game (laughs) but as I told the team, it’s going to happen. They’re going to go on a run. That’s what they do. Just stay true to what we do and we’ll go on our run eventually. I’m glad we were able to settle down, we got some good shots during that stretch — Wop got to the rim and missed a layup, Toby missed a wide-open three, and I think maybe Z missed one of his only misses during that stretch. We got our transition game back at the tempo we wanted, which was good to see.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Giving up dribble penetration is the price we pay when we go with that small lineup of James, Maurice, and Z. DePaul’s guards are all 6’4″, 6’5″ and they just penetrate to 12 feet and rise up over top of you. The first half I thought our help defense was late, it put us in some tough close-out situations, and we got hurt by the post double-team a little. We did get a huge turnover out of the post double-team late in the game, so it evened out as you hope it will. But there’s no question we did not guard the dribble as well as we needed to today. And you know what, we found a way to win, and that’s the important thing.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“DePaul is tough. Butler trailed here the whole second half and came back to win. They were close with Georgetown both times, and it was a close game with Seton Hall. So this is a team that doesn’t lack talent or ability, and you saw the spurtability out of them today. They would give up some easy stuff and we’d get up, but then they’d come right back at us. They’re not far from kicking that door in. This DePaul team is going to beat some good teams in the Big East before the season is over, there’s no doubt in my mind.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Does this game turn back some of our defensive momentum? You have to pick your poison. Do you want to score 48 and be excited about your defense because they gave you a shot, or do you want to score 91 and win and then say you need to clean some things up (laughs)? The truth is we need to be somewhere in the middle. We were at an elite level defensively against Providence. They took shots until late in the game that we wanted them to take, and we rebounded the basketball. Now they didn’t have the size, the physical size that DePaul has with some of these guards. But we forced them into 18 turnovers, I thought that was key, so our defense — even though the shooting numbers don’t reflect it — I mean, they had 18 turnovers in a 70 possession game. That’s significant. And 12 of those turnovers came on steals. A lot of those turnovers, we turned into baskets, as well. Cole Huff had the huge one late in the game, and I couldn’t be more proud of him. Coming off the bench for the first time, fighting that problem with his knee that made us rest him a lot this week…we’re just going to have a find a way to manage that. Much like with Grant Gibbs his senior year, with his knee issues, the management of it with Cole has to take place by cutting back on practice time so that they can play in games. Then when the season’s over, we’ll get it fixed. I’m hoping that can work, because obviously he gave us a huge lift not only offensively but some of the plays he made defensively today were really good as well.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Z had all those threes, but he had two turnovers. Can you believe that (laughs)? No assists, two turnovers, what’s going on (laughs)? Well, today was a day I didn’t want him to pass much (laughs)! On a day like this where you find your rhythm, let it go. Z does so much for us defensively, and with his ball-sureness, and today he got it going offensively and his teammates found him. I anticipated that he may play well because he’s shot really well in practice the last two days. He’s so disappointed in our losses, because he’s had good looks at the basket in them and that’s a thing he takes a lot of pride in. Really cool that his dad was here today to see that, and that’s a great memory for their family. I talked to his dad and told him that we have to be a little more creative in how we schedule your off days. Somehow we need him there 12 more times in Big East play (laughs). I’m sure he’ll see us when we’re at Georgetown. But I’m really proud of Z, he was big today.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

You Said It:

0
Share
Newsletter
Never Miss a Story

Sign up for WBR's email newsletter, and get the best
Bluejay coverage delivered to your inbox FREE.