While Creighton won their quarterfinal by double-digits, and the outcome wasn’t truly in doubt for most of the final 10 minutes, the afternoon’s second quarterfinal was anyone’s to win. Although, given the way both Indiana State and Evansville squandered multiple opportunities to win in the closing minutes, it could be said (somewhat accurately) that the only reason ISU won is because someone had to.
The game was tied 50-all with just over three minutes to play, and the only point — yes, point, singular, as in one point — scored the rest of the game was on a free throw by Justin Gant with 2.5 seconds left. The 51-50 win for the Sycamores was ugly; it was difficult to tell if it was simply a defensive battle, or two struggling offenses plodding along. ISU shot 38% overall and 31% from the arc, while Evansville went 35% overall and 27% from three-point range. It was putrid, it was difficult to watch, and it didn’t exactly inspire confidence that the victors can topple the top seed Saturday.
Creighton gets an Indiana State team who didn’t play all that well, and was fortunate to win. Jake Odum scored five points, had four assists and two turnovers, while going 2-8 from the floor in 33 minutes. Manny Arop, in his return from his suspension, struggled to get re-acclimated and scored four points on 1-6 shooting, turning it over three times. The Trees looked disjointed offensively, nothing like the team who torched the Jays a month ago.
Heading into Saturday’s semifinal, Jays fans will probably spend a lot of time gnashing teeth over that last matchup with the Sycamores, an uncompetitive 76-57 beatdown that ranks as one of the worst performances of the McDermott Era. The Jake Odum from that game resembled the Odum from Friday in name only; on that ghastly night in Terre Haute he went 7-10 from the floor, 8-11 from the line, with five assists and one turnover. He even gathered four rebounds as he sliced and diced his way through the Creighton defense. In short, he was a one-man wrecking crew.
Any gameplan for beating the Sycamores starts with Odum, but it doesn’t end there. Manny Arop was also successful dribbling into the paint and getting to the rim, and the sight of Jahenns Manigat chasing him on defense — when he wasn’t fouling — is seared in the minds of many Bluejay fans.
The complete inability of CU’s guards to stop dribble penetration in that game figures to puts a lot of pressure on Gregory Echenique Saturday. He was stellar on Friday in cleaning up the paint, earning praise from his head coach for changing the tone and the flow of the game. He was active, he was making multiple plays on a possession, helping on ball screens, helping on dribble drives, blocking shots, grabbing rebounds…he was a beast. When he plays like he did on Friday, he makes Creighton into a completely different team defensively. He’ll need to play that way on Saturday again.
If all of that sounds like I think ISU Blue will pull the upset, don’t be fooled by my tone. One year ago, we sat here in St. Louis worrying about a lot of the same things. They’d struggled to beat Drake in the quarterfinals, they had a tough matchup on Saturday against a team that had torched them recently, and most people had no idea how they’d slow down the opponent enough to win. Colt Ryan was coming off a 43-point performance in their last meeting, and the Jays had not looked great offensively on Friday. They came up with a gameplan for stopping him, shut him down (3-12 from the floor, 13 points), and rode red-hot shooting to a 99-71 victory.
I have all the faith in the world that Greg McDermott and his staff have figured out a way to keep what happened in Terre Haute from happening again. I don’t think the Jays will shoot lights-out like they did in routing Evansville on semifinal Saturday last year, but I do think the result will be the same: they’ll find a way to win and play for a championship on Sunday.
Catching Up with the Sycamores: Friday’s win improves the Sycamores to 18‐13 on the season (2‐1 vs. Evansville), and 22-28 all-time in MVC Tournament play … Greg Lansing is now 5-1 in MVC Tournament games … Manny Arop returned to the ISU lineup after being suspended for the Sycamores’finaltwo regular season games … On Friday, Jake Kitchell equaled the nine points he had in the first two UE‐ISU games combined, in the process matching his career high … ISU’s 51 points on Friday were a season low for the Sycamores.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: Creighton’s win eliminated Drake for the second-straight year in Arch Madness, and improved them to 5-2 all-time against the Bulldogs in the MVC Tourney … Will Artino’s 14 points was a career high and marked his fifth double-figure point game this season … This was the 11th time this season CU has had more turnovers than assists (11-17) … Echenique moved into 10th on the MVC career list for blocked shots at 164 with 6 on Friday, which ranks second on MVC tourney single game list. The record is 10 by Benoit Benjamin of CU (1984 vs. Illinois State) … CU’s bench outscored Drake’s bench 19-6, rebounding from the previous meeting vs. DU when Bulldog reserves outscored CU bench 43-14 on way to a 74-69 DU win.
The RUN-DMD Show: Doug McDermott passed Rodney Buford (2,116 points, 1995-99) as the CU career scoring leader with his 11th point today and also moved into 10th in MVC career scoring. McDermott finished with 23 points to push his record career total to 2,129. McDermott has enjoyed 53 career 20-plus scoring games in 106 games at CU, with 23 this season.
The Last Time They Played: On February 6, Indiana State won 76-57, a game I refuse to devote any more words to than I must.
The Series: Creighton and Indiana State have met 78 times, with the Jays winning 53 of them. In the MVC Tournament, Creighton is 6-1 against the Trees.
Gratuitous Linkage: The excellent Sean Keeler wrote another excellent piece on the Jays Friday, this time asking the question “Is this the last Arch Madness for Creighton?”
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: On March 9, 2003, Creighton overcame a 40-30 halftime deficit to post a 70-69 victory over Wichita State and advance to the MVC Tournament finals for the fourth time in five years. Up 68-66 with under a minute to go, Brody Deren was fouled and sent to the line, where he missed both free throws. Wichita State’s Randy Burns grabbed the rebound on the second miss, and as he was heading up court to set up a potential game-winning possession, DeAnthony Bowden snuck up behind him, stole the ball, and threw it to Larry House who called timeout. On the inbounds, House grabbed the pass and threw down a thunderous dunk that sealed the victory.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: It worked last year on Semifinal Saturday, it’ll work this year. You bet.
The Bottom Line: Creighton advances to play for a title on Sunday.
Jays 82, Indiana State 75
