Time flies when you’re having fun, eh?
Four months ago, Creighton opened practice for the 2011-12 season with “Bluejay Madness.” All of a sudden, it’s February 24, and the final game of the regular season is upon us, reminding me once again that when your team is in the midst of a special season, it flies by…and when your team is struggling though a tough one, it seems like it drags on forever.
Saturday’s finale features teams on both ends of that spectrum. Creighton is 24-5, will finish second in the league, has spent the majority of the season ranked in the Top 25, and is all but assured of an NCAA Tournament berth. For the Jays and their fans, the season has flown by. Meanwhile, Indiana State entered the season basking in the glow of an Arch Madness title and NCAA berth last March, yet is 17-12, in a battle to stay out of Thursday in St. Louis, and has been the most frustrating team in the league. For fans of the up-and-down Sycamores, I’m guessing the season can’t get over soon enough.
Todd Golden of the Terre Haute Tribune-Star summed up their season succinctly in a recent column following an ugly loss to Butler in BracketBusters. It’s a scathing rebuke of their effort this year, and a must-read.
“It’s the manner in which ISU loses that’s been disheartening all season long. Heart, effort and concentration are attributes all teams — good or bad — should have each and every game. It should be automatic. But for the Sycamores, it’s been a maddening season-long quest to possess that basic trait. Bad as it was, in the rogue’s gallery of ugly ISU losses this season, the defeat against Butler doesn’t rate with the likes of poorly-played nightmares at Drake, Southern Illinois and Bradley.
But that’s kind of the point. A team picked third in the Missouri Valley Conference with NCAA Tournament expectations shouldn’t get to a point where a discussion of its bad losses is part of its vernacular. Instead, it defines ISU’s season.”
Creighton fans — and a national television audience on ESPN2 — saw this first-hand in late January. The Sycamores played a disinterested game in Omaha, losing 75-49. They were listless, played with little enthusiasm, and had none of the trademark teamwork that won them Arch Madness a year ago.
What’s most mysterious about the Trees is that no one has any clue which version of their team will show up in a given night. The same team that lost so thoroughly in Omaha beat Northern Iowa three nights later, 59-54. They beat Evansville in a thrilling game, 80-78, at home, and in their very next game lost to Southern Illinois. They were blown out by Butler, 75-54, then went to Springfield and beat Missouri State on Kyle Weems’ Senior Night 59-46. Predicting how they’ll play from game-to-game is a crapshoot.
A lot of that can be contributed to the fact that Jake Odum, their outstanding point guard and catalyst, is battling not one but two injuries that would keep lesser players on the bench — plantar fasciitis and a stress fracture in his left shin. His coach, Greg Lansing, told the media on Wednesday, “Some days, he feels normal and feels like his old self. On Saturday (against Butler), he felt terrible. He didn’t tell me until early in the second half that it was bothering him. He’s a competitor, he wants to give all he can. There isn’t anybody that’s dealt with as much pain as he has to try and help his team.”
When Odum is fortunate and feels good on game day, he plays as well as he ever has. Case in point: ten days ago, he scored 34 points on 8-12 shooting, was aggressive in driving the ball inside to draw fouls, made 17-21 free throws, and pulled down seven rebounds. When the pain from his injuries flares up on gameday, he has games like last Saturday against Butler. In that game, he had zero points in 27 minutes, took only three shots, did not attempt a free throw, and had three turnovers against five assists. That he plays at all with his injuries is miraculous, so the Sycamores take the good with the bad. They’re every bit the third-place team they were picked to be when Odum is in top form; when he’s not, they’re a seventh or eighth place team, which is where they’ll finish with a loss Saturday.
Carl Richard playing the sort of lock-down defense on Doug McDermott that he masterfully employed to shut down Kyle Weems on Wednesday night would help ISU win. Myles Walker staying out of foul trouble and getting something — anything — offensively against Gregory Echenique would help, too. Ditto for Jordan Printy getting hot and hitting a few shots. But make no mistake: How Odum feels on Saturday will probably dictate how the Sycamores perform.
Meanwhile, for Creighton, much of the discussion the past week has centered around the Jays’ defense. They’ve allowed four straight opponents to shoot better than 50% from the floor, and were absolutely torched by Colt Ryan for an arena-record 43 points on Tuesday. Lost in all of the furor over that is the fact the Jays have played the basketball version of “bend but don’t break” defense. They’ve bent during games, allowing tons of points and huge shooting percentages, but down the stretch of games when they’ve had to stops, they have.
Last Saturday against Long Beach State, Creighton allowed 79 points, but just two in the final 4:05. And on Tuesday against Evansville, Creighton allowed 79 points in the first 36:37, but just four in the final 3:23 of regulation — including back-to-back shot clock violations that were the direct result of suffocating defense. The Jays outscored those teams by a combined 20-6 margin in the last 3:23 of regulation in both games.
Are they a good defensive team? No. But through 29 games, they’ve outscored teams in 24 of them. There’s more than one way to win a game. Playing stifling defense is one. Outscoring the opponent is another. Both can be effective. Purists will scoff at that notion, but over four months, the Jays have made 51% of their shots. Combine that with an ability to play just good enough on defense — such as the final four minutes of the last two games — and the sky is still the limit for this team. A win is a win, no matter how you get it…and the vast majority of the time, this team finds a way to get it.
Catching Up with the Sycamores: The Sycamores are 9-1 this season when scoring at least 68 points and are a perfect 10-0 when holding teams to 63 points or less … A win Saturday would give the Sycamores three consecutive home court victories over Creighton for the first time since a stretch from Jan. 16, 1992 until Jan. 8, 1994 — the Rick Johnson Era … A win would also give the Sycamores at least a .500 record in Missouri Valley Conference play for three consecutive seasons for just the third time in the history of the program with the last coming from 1997-98 until 2000-01 … Senior Jordan Printy has 210 career 3-pointers, which is second most all-time in the history of the program and he is one of just two Sycamores to hit at least 200 3-pointers in his career … ISU is 10-2 this season when holding an opponent under 42.1 percent field goal shooting percentage, are 9-0 when holding an opponent to 30 rebounds or less and own an 10-1 record when recording at least 14 assists … Indiana State was a perfect 12-of-12 from 3-point range on February 11 against Southern Illinois which is a new NCAA record for most consecutive 3-pointers made, best 3-point field goal percentage with at least 10 attempts and most attempts by a team that hits all of their 3-pointers.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: The Sycamores have outrebounded Creighton just twice in the last 25 meetings; not surprisingly, the Jays are 19-6 in those 25 games vs. the Sycamores … The last time Creighton won consecutive games on its final shot came on Nov. 24 and 30 of 2004, when Tyler McKinney hit game-winners to beat Ohio State and Xavier … Colt Ryan’s 43 points on Tuesday were the most allowed by the Jays since Nebraska-Kearney’s Bart Kofoed scored 43 points against CU on Dec. 21, 1985 … Tuesday’s 93-92 win over Evansville improved Creighton’s all-time record in single-overtime games to 39-38, and improved the Bluejays to 52-44 all-time in overtime contests of any length … Greg McDermott is 2-0 in OT games at Creighton … The Bluejays are now 2-0 in one-point games this winter after going 0-1 a year ago. Creighton has not played two straight games decided by one point since the 2003 MVC Tournament, when it beat Indiana State and Wichita State by one point each before throttling Southern Illinois, 80-56, in the championship game … Creighton has lost its last nine games in the Eastern Time Zone since picking up a Dec. 31, 2008 win at Indiana State. Since then, the Jays are 0-9 in the Eastern Time Zone, but 80-42 in all other time zones.
The RUN-DMD Show: This week, Doug McDermott won his fifth MVC Player of the Week award after he averaged 27.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in wins over Southern Illinois and Long Beach State. His five awards are the second-most in MVC history for a single-season, trailing only the six won by Bradley’s Hersey Hawkins in 1987-88 when Hawkins went on to earn National Player of the Year acclaim.
The Last Time They Played: Creighton never trailed en route to winning its eighth straight game with a 75-49 victory over Indiana State on January 21. Despite a plethora of nice performances in building a 25-point lead in the second half, the game is remembered for the 13-1 the Jays ended the game on to earn free pizza for season ticket holders. The walk-ons hit three treys in the final minute, as Ross Ferrarini and Matthew Dorwart both connected on their only threes of the year, getting the team to magic “75” for Godfather’s Pizza.
The Series: Creighton owns a 51-24 record all-time against Indiana State and has won 22 of the last 28 games in the series. The Bluejays lead the series 17-16 in 33 previous meetings in Terre Haute, but are 2-5 in the past seven trips.
Greg McDermott is 10-4 in his career against Indiana State, including a 4-2 mark in road games. McDermott is 2-1 against Greg Lansing.
Gratuitous Linkage: The brand-new CollegeHoopsTalk, part of NBCSports.com’s burgeoning online presence that already included the excellent HardballTalk and ProFootballTalk microsites, among others, has a fun piece today about who you’d prefer to have shoot a game-winning shot. Two of the options? Doug McDermott and Antoine Young.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: On February 25, 1991, Creighton beat Wichita State 65-64, winning their second outright Missouri Valley Conference championship in three years. It was their third win in as many years at Levitt Arena, as the Jays had beat WSU 81-80 in the 1988-89 regular season, then won the 1989 MVC Tournament there. The arena “has been kind to us,” Bob Harstad told the media after the game, “but I don’t ever want to play here again.”
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: As the Jays’ streak of wins continues, so too does our tour of Rocky soundtrack videos. James Brown!
The Bottom Line: Indiana State is the most unpredictable team in the MVC, as likely to be blown out as they are to win. I think the Jays take care of business on national TV.
Creighton 77, Indiana State 71
