Antoine Young will go down in the annals of Creighton Basketball as one of the program’s great players, a three-year starter whose name decorates the Bluejay record book. But last week as I thought back on his wonderful career, I struggled to find his one signature moment, the one play that people would remember him for long after his records have been broken by new generations of Bluejay players. Outside of a buzzer-beater over SIU as a sophomore in a season most fans would rather forget, he’s had no late-game heroics, no massive offensive explosions.
Saturday night, Antoine Young got his chance for a signature moment, and he turned it into one of the most memorable shots in the history of Creighton basketball. In front a rowdy, rambunctious crowd and a national television audience, against an incredibly talented opponent who had led virtually the entire game and turned away Bluejay rallies time after time, Young drove the lane as he’s done hundreds of times before, making the same slightly-off-balance shot he’s made hundreds of times before, to finally give his team a lead just as the game clock read all zeroes. Creighton students rushed the court, lifting Young up on their shoulders as the conquering hero, and who could blame them?
In his second-to-last home game, the player who’s been a Bluejay since his 16th birthday when he became the youngest commit in school history finally had his moment. When people talk about the greatest shots in Creighton history, they mention Gene Harmon’s 30-foot buzzer beater to take down #7 Houston in 1973. They mention James Farr’s game-winner with three seconds left to defeat SIU in the 1989 MVC Championship Game. They mention Chuck Officer’s 35-foot heave to upset Notre Dame in 1961. They mention Rick Apke’s buzzer-beater in the 1978 MVC Championship Game that sent Larry Bird’s Indiana State team to defeat. They mention Booker Woodfox’s shot at the buzzer to defeat Wichita State in the 2009 MVC Tournament. They mention Terrell Taylor’s three-pointer to defeat Florida in the 2002 NCAA Tournament.
And now, they’ll mention Antoine Young’s buzzer-beater against Long Beach State in 2012. Long after the records for assists and games played that he’s setting at the twilight of his collegiate career are broken by a new generation of great Bluejays, his shot just after 11PM on a Saturday in February of 2012 will be remembered.
“It’s just something that I was taught growing up. You live for moments like that,” Young said on the AM590 postgame show. “There’s players that either want to take that shot or don’t want to take that shot, and I want to take the shot. I feel like I’m confident enough that if I can get the last shot of a game, I can make it at anytime on anyone. So I just went out there relaxed, and knew I was going to make a play.”
Despite his confidence, the game almost never came down to his heroics. With 4:30 to play, Long Beach State led 76-69, answering every Creighton run with a run of their own, and though the crowd was trying valiantly to keep the Jays in the game, time was running short. The fans knew it. The Jays knew it. Long Beach State knew it.
Doug McDermott made a cross-court pass to the far wing, where a wide-open Ethan Wragge fired up a three-pointer. The shot missed badly, but flying seemingly out of nowhere was McDermott, who in one motion caught the ball, redirected it, and tipped the ball in. It was the sort of play that said to his teammates and to the Creighton fans, “We’re winning this game.” Literally.
“He was a little more vocal during our timeouts than he usually is,” Greg McDermott said in his postgame remarks on AM590. “His statement was, ‘We’re not losing this game. We are NOT losing this game!’ I kept hearing it out of him, and that’s the natural progression for Doug as a leader. He believed we were going to win, and he certainly made winning plays for us tonight.”
From the moment that ball dropped through the bottom of the net, everything changed.
Creighton outscored Long Beach State 10-3 from that point forward, taking confidence from Doug McDermott’s example. They played their most inspired defense of the season, with freshman Austin Chatman fighting through screens to stay in the grill of LBSU point guard Casper Ware, forcing him into wild shots and taking them out of their offensive flow. They made clutch play after clutch play, from McDermott’s rebound and putback with just under two minutes left to cut the lead to two, to Gregory Echenique’s running hook shot to tie it at 79 with 90 seconds left, to Echenique ripping down his most ferocious rebound in a career full of ferocious rebounds with 48 seconds left, to Echenique forcing a turnover to set up the final possession after Chatman turned it over on a dubious over-and-back call.
All of those plays over the final four minutes, inspired by Doug McDermott’s tip-in and his words in the huddle, put the Jays in position to win, and gave Young the opportunity to seize his signature moment.
“We got switched out on the big, and so I was just trying to get him to shake a little bit so I could get him off,” Young said in describing the final play. “I finally got into it about six or seven seconds in, and kind of got into my rhythm, and then I realized he was a little taller than I thought! So I thought I needed to get into him a little bit to create some space, and I was able to. I thought he was going to tip it, actually, for a minute. But it felt really good when I let it go.”
In the huddle, head coach Greg McDermott made one point very clear: the final possession was an either/or scenario. The Jays were either going to win the game, or it was going overtime. Period.
“I told them, I’m not interested in an offensive rebound. I don’t want to leave three or four seconds for them. The way they make shots, and as good as they are off the dribble and with Casper Ware being able to shoot it from 35 feet, we’re not giving it back to them. That maybe goes against what a lot of coaches would do. A lot of coaches want to shoot it at four, have a chance for an offensive rebound (if you miss).”
In between hammering home that message of not leaving Long Beach State any time for a last possession, he drew up the final play, giving his point guard three potential scoring options depending on how the defense came out.
“They’d been switching that ball screen all night. So we stuck Ethan in the corner, and we had Doug set the high ball screen and dive hard to the basket with the guard on him. The plan was to lift Ethan, and if Antoine read that the defense had helped off Ethan, he was going to flip it to Ethan, who still would have had time to go inside to Doug too. If they covered them both — if they stayed home with Ethan and they stayed with Doug and they came from the weak side — then Antoine was going to back it out, against their frontline player, and Antoine was going to go get a shot. And, he went and got one.”
You can say that again.
