I’m late with my thoughts, but I’ve got a good excuse. For whatever reason, I get worked up a bit when the Bluejays get blown out. I always tell myself I’d rather the Jays lose blowouts than close games, because the nail-biting and possession-by-possession stress from a tight contest is too much to take. Yet, it is after the blowouts when I need the most time to simmer down.
The reason? My mind must be perpetually stuck in the middle of last decade, when Dana Altman’s teams rarely lost by double figures. When Northern Iowa clinched the outright Valley title against the Bluejays Tuesday night, it marked nine years since Creighton claimed its own outright MVC regular season championship. MVC tournament championships in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2007 helped make up for the lack of the outright title in those seasons (automatic bids to the Big Dance are helpful bandages). But whether it was winning regular season crowns or hoisting trophies in St. Louis, Altman’s Bluejays were most times close — close wins, close loses, close to at-large bids, and close to “breaking through”.
Right now it seems the Bluejays can’t stay close to their opponents on a game-to-game basis, at least on the road. Creighton’s last two road games ended in 18-point deficits, by identical 70-52 scores at Missouri State and UNI. The Bluejays’ defense barely existed in both those games, and powerful offensive stretches for the opponent left Altman’s team struggling to keep up on their side of the scoreboard. Not even close, even after the Panthers spotted Creighton a 7-0 lead.
How about a little context when discussing close contests? In the 1994-1995 season, Altman’s Bluejays lost by double digits 15 times. I was there. It was ugly. In 95-96, the Jays lost by 10 or more 5 times, including a 21-point blowout by Nebraska and a 26-point laugher by Hawaii. In 96-97, CU lost by 10 or more just 2 times, both 19-point blowouts at NU and Missouri State. In 97-98, the Jays lost 5 double-digit games, including 3 of their last 4 games of the year. In 98-99, just 4 blowouts, with one coming in the second round of the NCAA Tournament (that’s right, remember when Creighton used to play in the Big Dance?!).
In 99-00, a 20-point loss to tournament host Hawaii and a 10-point loss at Indiana State were the only double-figure defeats for Altman’s Bluejays, who advanced to another NCAA Tournament. In Creighton’s last outright championship season, 00-01, CU lost by double digits only once in the regular season (at Illinois State) before dropping the Arch Madness semifinals by 13 to Indiana State and a first round NCAA tourney game to Iowa by 13.
In 01-02, Creighton lost to Western Kentucky by 34 points (that’s not a typo) after beating the Hilltoppers a few weeks earlier in Omaha. That was the Jays’ only double-figure defeat until the last game of their season, a 12-point loss to Illinois in the NCAA Tournament’s second round. The 02-03 team never lost by more than 8 points. The 03-04 Jays dropped a road game at Wichita State by 15 points in the middle of the season, but saved the other two blowouts for a BracketBusters game late in the year and a road trip to Missouri State.
The 04-05 team lost by double figures on New Year’s Eve in San Diego, but that was their only such game all season en route to the NCAA Tournament. The 05-06 team, plagued by injuries, managed to get blown out just a handful of times: at DePaul, at Bradley, and at Southern Illinois. And the 06-07 team, Creighton’s last to make an NCAA Tournament, lost three non-conference games by double digits before losing just one more game all season by double figures (a befuddling 10-point loss at Illinois State).
Still, during that entire decade-long stretch, when the Bluejays dropped double-digit games it was usually by deficits in the ‘teens. But in 07-08, 2 of the Bluejays’ 6 double-figure losses were by 28 points (at Bradley; at Florida). In 08-09, 2 of CU’s 4 double-digit defeats were blowouts by the Redbirds (by 22 at Illinois State; by 24 in St. Louis). But this season have 5 double-digit losses so far this season, and the two worst deficits happened in the last two weeks.
What does this prove, other than I love looking at the stats of seasons past? Nothing much, other than explaining why Bluejays fans can’t be blamed for getting worked up about blowouts. Sure, sometimes games get away from teams. But for the better part of Altman’s tenure, even losses have been close. The Jays have been fairly successful on the road in the Valley, not to mention posting solid home records. But the new reality shows the rest of the league catching up to Creighton.
Once you build a behemoth such as the current state of the Creighton basketball program (15,000-plus fans at the Qwest Center, televised games locally and nationally, 20-win seasons, expected trips to postseason tournaments), hiding behind dusty trophies and postseason-clinching 3-game runs through Arch Madness won’t cut it. Barring such a run in the MVC tournament this season, the Jays will miss out on March Madness for the third straight year. And a year after battling through the last few weeks of Valley play to force a share of the regular season championship, Creighton’s flirting with the Thursday night play-in games. And after being the 6-seed in 1997 when Arch Madness expanded to include all 10 MVC schools, the Bluejays since have never been less than the 4-seed. And just like the other heralded streaks, that fact is in serious jeopardy this season. Even if it doesn’t happen, it will be close. And not the good kind of close.
