Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton Blows 16-Point Lead, Suffers Disappointing Loss to Marquette 90-86

[Box Score]

Bluejay Beat Podcast:

Recap & Analysis:

Saturday night, Creighton suffered one of the most disappointing losses of their Big East era, blowing a 16-point lead at home to a reeling Marquette team whose leading scorer exited the game with an injury in the first half. The way it happened is embarrassing, unacceptable, and has put Creighton’s postseason plans in a perilous position.

Marquette opened the game by making nine of their first 14 shots, and four 3-pointers. Creighton was just as hot, connecting on nine of 13 shots, and 4-5 from three-point range. Barely eight minutes in, the Jays led 23-22 following eight straight points from Toby Hegner:

A three from Mitch Ballock capped a 16-3 run that erased the Golden Eagles’ 19-12 lead, and then Jacob Epperson went to work. The freshman scored 10 points in the span of three minutes, most of them completely uncontested as the big man abused Marquette’s horrible ball screen defense.

They’d score on 10 straight possessions during that stretch, and with their defense settling in, led by Khyri Thomas who was in full lockdown mode, they built a lead of as many as 16 points.

Marquette lost leading scorer Markus Howard to an undisclosed injury midway through the half, and had their second leading scorer, Andrew Rowsey, saddled with three fouls. So they switched to a 2-3 zone to begin the second half, and as we’ve seen so often before, it completely flummoxed the Bluejay offense.

Settling for jumpers against the zone, and looking unsure of how to attack it, the Bluejays’ lead quickly disappeared. Rowsey scored 10 straight points — a pair of three-pointers, and a pair of post-up jumpers — to cut the lead to three. Then Sam Houser got hot, and Marquette took a 65-63 lead at the under-12 timeout.

“The biggest problem tonight was the start of the game and the start of the second half,” Greg McDermott said bluntly on his postgame radio show. “They scored 12 points on five possessions to start the game, and 12 points on five possessions to start the second. We supposedly have our five most capable and dependable guys on the floor at those points in the game, they get the most reps in practice and know what we’re doing defensively, and we still can’t get a stop. There’s the issue.”

The zone defense slowed the game down, and Creighton’s initial struggles to defeat it gave Marquette the window it needed to make a run. They missed five straight shot attempts, committed two turnovers, and went nearly five minutes without scoring. You can survive that kind of drought, but not when it coincides with defensive breakdowns and a complete lack of toughness on the glass.

Marquette’s zone defense is an easy thing to point to when dissecting where this game turned. And it certainly played a role. But make no mistake: this game was lost on the defensive end, as Creighton surrendered 49 points in the second half to a Marquette team who’s known for their three-point shooting and didn’t do a ton of damage from behind the arc. The Golden Eagles were a pedestrian 5-12 from three-point range in the second half, but a scorching 15-22 on two-point baskets. A big reason for that? Of their 14 missed shots in the second half, they grabbed an offensive rebound on nine of them, leading to 18 second-chance points.

“To give up 49 points on our home floor in 32 possessions in the second half is a joke. If you can’t rebound and you can’t defend, you don’t deserve to win,” McDermott said. And he’s right.

Epperson did a great job of loosening the zone by scoring above the rim, but gave up entirely too much defensively and on the glass to play more minutes than he did. True story: five of Marquette’s nine offensive rebounds in the second half came during the four minutes Epperson played. While I agree with the angry mob on Twitter upset at him not playing more, I can reluctantly understand why he didn’t.

“Jacob gives us a lot offensively, but defensively and on the boards he’s not there yet. He’s not strong enough,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “Those offensive rebounds were the difference in the game. That’s why he didn’t play; we had a fifth-year senior out there who knows what he’s supposed to do defensively with Rowsey every time he comes off a screen. And doing it isn’t easy. That’s a lot to ask of Jacob.”

Despite their defensive struggles and his team’s second half collapse, Khyri Thomas did everything he could to carry his team across the finish line. He scored a career-high 26 points, and he scored the team’s final 14 points of the game. The points came in a variety of ways, from #Khyrifense steals:

to three-pointers:

to fast break dunks — this one gave the Jays the lead 82-80 with four minutes left:

to dribble-drives into the teeth of the defense — this to tie the game at 86 with 90 seconds to play:

Unfortunately, his brilliance on both ends of the floor was not enough. Marquette scored on five of their last six possessions, and Sacar Anim hit a bucket with 1:18 to play that gave them the lead for good. Trailing 88-86, the Jays drew up a play to get Marcus Foster a shot for the tie. He dribbled inside the arc, created space, and took an open look at a 15-foot jumper. But it was long, and after Marquette rebounded the miss, just eight seconds remained and they iced the game from the line.

The loss, in and of itself, is bad. When you take a 16-point lead at home, in front of a relentless home crowd, and have an already struggling team on the ropes, you have to finish the job. You just do. Getting out-worked, out-toughed, and out-hustled in the second half is unacceptable.

But in the big picture, the loss is even worse. We alluded to the postseason at the top, and the Bluejays’ postseason plans took a body blow with this loss.

A massive, massive body blow.

One week ago Creighton was considered a virtual lock for the NCAA Tournament, and with a six or seven seed to boot. This morning, their odds of making the tourney have dropped to 75% according to TeamRankings.com, their most likely seed is now an eight or a nine — making a run past the first weekend all but impossible — and they’ll be underdogs in three of their final four games. At Butler. At home against Villanova. On the road at Marquette. And a home game with DePaul that, given how the game in Chicago went, will be a battle.

In other words, they’re now squarely on the bubble, and will need to pull off an upset or two to wind up on the right side of that bubble.

If they win two of those four, which seems like the absolute best case scenario, they’ll have won just three of their last eight games entering the Big East Tournament. Hardly the sort of “team playing well down the stretch” that the tournament committee usually looks kindly upon. And if they win just one, which even the most optimistic follower has to admit is quite possible with that schedule?

They’ll be 2-6 in their final eight games, taking them from a 7-3 record in the Big East on the morning of January 28 to a 9-9 record in the final standings.

Either because of seeding or because they get left out of the dance entirely, Creighton is going to regret the second half of Saturday night’s game on Selection Sunday.

Key Stats:

Creighton’s blistering first half (19-27 overall, 6-10 from three-point range) led to their best shooting percentage in a single half this season at 70.4%. They scored on an incredible 1.514 points per possession. Even with a less-efficient but still decent second half (13-30 overall and 5-14 from three-point range) they played more than well enough offensively to win.

Marquette turned a 16-point deficit into a win by outscoring Creighton 18-3 in the second half on second-chance points, 20-12 on points in the paint, and 6-2 on points off turnovers. They were 15-22 on two-point baskets in the half. And they scored on five of their final six trips to end the game.

They Said It:

You Said It:

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https://twitter.com/cjlathrop/status/965091904265302016

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