Tuesday night was one of those times when I had to step away from the keyboard. Venting via a blog about another Creighton loss wasn’t going to help the situation. The stream-of-consciousness ranting and raving wasn’t going to reverse the outcome, another close road loss by the Bluejays. Close the browser window. Shut down Word. Take a breath.
I’ve made plenty of trips to the Knapp Center to know it is a difficult place for the Bluejays to play. A normally calm Bulldog fanbase shows up and erupts, upset I guess that the CU fans from the Omaha metro and beyond try to make the trip — the closest conference road game Creighton plays all season. And I know a thing or two about driving the two-plus hours back from Des Moines the same night, following a loss to Drake, and the fuming that occurs in the car. (In fact, a similar situation occurred earlier this season, after the neutral court game against Iowa State and Wells Fargo arena.)
So, I went to bed, happy that I didn’t have to drive back to Omaha in the freezing cold, muttering under (and over) my breath about the problems plaguing the Jays. Problem was, when I woke up the thoughts hadn’t gone away. They were a bit dulled by the early morning hour, but they were present nonetheless. Did the Bluejays really shoot just 18% from the 3-point arc (4-22)? Did Antoine Young really commit a career-high 5 turnovers? Did the Jays really send the Bulldogs to shoot 25 free throws? Did Doug McDermott finally come back down to Earth for a (hopefully) brief time? Did Gregory Echenique get into early foul trouble again (in both halves)?
Obviously, the answer is yes. What is not so obvious, though, is why this team can’t seem to buckle down on the road. They play close games. They continue to outrebound opponents away from Omaha (CU’s outrebounded its last three road opponents). But all of the solid individual performances and random team accomplishments haven’t added up to road wins. And after starting Valley play 3-0 in road games (at Illinois State, at Southern Illinois, and at Evansville), the Bluejays are 0-5 in their last five roadies.
But playing in Des Moines is different, people tell me. We make it Qwest Center East! Can we put to rest the absurd notion that the Knapp Center offers Creighton anything close to a home-away-from-home court advantage? The last time the Bluejays beat the Bulldogs twice in the regular season was 2007, on their way to the NCAA Tournament via the Arch Madness title. In the four seasons that have followed, including this one, Creighton owns only one win in Des Moines. In fact, CU is 3-5 in the regular season against DU during that time.
And just because the Bluejays came to the Knapp Center a few games up on the Bulldogs in the wins column doesn’t mean a victory is a given. I understand that. Nothing can be taken for granted, on the road in conference play. Not a home game against a lower-division foe reeling due to player suspensions (see: SIU winning at Wichita State last night). Surely not a road game against a team you beat by more than a dozen points a few weeks previous (see: CU losing at Drake).
Still, after beating a good Evansville team at home last Saturday, I allowed myself the hope that Young and the Jays could start a winning streak. The junior point guard tried hard, but may have attempted to do too much at some points. He scored a career-high 24 points on 8-18 shooting from the field. And he shored up his point guard play after the break; he committed just 1 of his 5 turnovers in the second half. But McDermott, Young’s partner in sharing the bulk of this team’s offensive results, couldn’t come close to replicating the 28-point outburst he had against Drake in the teams’ earlier meeting this season. He finished with 9 points and 7 rebounds, marking the first time since the team’s loss to Wichita State that McDermott didn’t score 15 or more points. It wasn’t for lack of effort. McDermott was just 4-12 from the field (he averages just over 12 field goal attempts a game), but he missed a few close shots and couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively.
The Jays had some guys step up and play better than their season averages, too. Jahenns Manigat scored 9 points, grabbed 4 rebounds, swiped 2 steals and dished a few assists. Wayne Runnels took a couple of charges and scored as many points (6) as he had in his previous 5 games combined.
But the Bluejays got little production from Kaleb Korver (no points, 1 rebound, no assists, 2 steals in 23 minutes), Kenny Lawson (2 points on 1-8 shooting, 8 rebounds in 21 minutes), Darryl Ashford (3 points and 6 rebounds in 19 minutes), and Josh Jones (no points no rebounds in 13 minutes).
Echenique was effective when he was on the court. But because of two early fouls in the first half and then an early one in the second half, he couldn’t get into the flow of the game until the last quarter of the game. With Drake clinging to a 1-point lead with 11 minutes to play, Echenique had a dunk off a nice pass by Young, then corralled an offensive rebound from an Ashford miss and put it back for another field goal. He scored the first basket of the game, and then didn’t record any points until midway through the second half. He finished with 11 points and 5 rebounds, but only played 18 minutes.
Meanwhile, SIU beat Wichita State at Koch Arena, handing the Shockers another home league loss. And Evansville beat Northern Iowa, handing Ben Jacobsen’s team another defeat on the heels of losing Lucas O’Rear for the rest of the season. A win by the Bluejays would have had the team flying high, both emotionally and up the standings. Instead, CU is penciled in as the #6 seed for the league tournament, with just four games to play.
Sure, they play the Salukis at home on Sunday, a game they should win. But they should have beaten Bradley, and Drake, too, if you’re just going by records. Sadly this team hasn’t shown the ability to get over the proverbial hump, at least in close road games. With only one more Valley game away from Omaha, hopefully that isn’t a problem during the last few weeks of the regular season. But now the pressure shifts to protecting the home court, something that seems to be increasingly difficult in this wild installment of Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball.
