For the first 12 minutes of Saturday’s game, it appeared that the Jays were suffering from a hangover following their horrible loss in Peoria four days earlier. In recent years, even a sleepwalking — or hungover — team could have probably beaten Evansville at home. But this year’s Aces squad is a pesky bunch, and as such, the score was 23-15 Evansville as the under-eight media timeout approached, with the visitors making ten of their first 14 attempts from the floor.
With 8:37 to play in the half, his team struggling to find a rhythm and his fans struggling for anything to cheer about, Gregory Echenique swatted a Colt Ryan jump shot into the second row behind the Creighton bench, at once signaling that the paint was no longer open for business to the Purple Aces and that the Jays intended to play.
Coming out of the media timeout that followed, the Jays rattled off an 8-0 run to tie the game in the span of just over two minutes. Or rather, to be more specific, Kenny Lawson rattled off an 8-0 run; the MVC’s much-maligned Preseason Player of the Year began the run by scrapping for a rebound under the rim, missing the tip in, fighting for his own rebound, then making a layup. He then made three pointers on each of the next two possessions, and both the Jays and the home crowd were alive.
Moments later, Lawson picked up his second foul; he joined Doug McDermott on the bench, both players having picked up a pair of first half fouls. Evansville immediately took the lead back, and at the final media timeout of the half, it was 32-28 Aces. They would not score again in the first stanza, as the Jays, minus Lawson and McDermott, ran off a 9-0 run to close the half. Improbably, impossibly, given the way the game had begun, it was 37-32 Creighton at the intermission.
The funny thing is, it was actually a pretty good half when you looked at it in its totality. The Jays made 48% of their shots from the floor, and had 12 assists — Twelve — on 15 made baskets. That’s great stuff. Only three baskets that a teammate didn’t assist on means there was outstanding ball movement and unselfishness. They turned it over just five times, but negated over half of those by stealing it three times en route to forcing seven Evansville turnovers. And while Evansville shot 63.6% from the floor, they made 10 of their first 14 shots; after that initial surge, they were a more pedestrian 4-8. Doug McDermott had 8 points and 5 rebounds in the half while playing just 12 minutes due to foul trouble; Antoine Young had 5 points and 5 assists; Lawson had 8 points and 3 rebounds. Looking merely at the score, and at the stats, you’d think the Jays had controlled things pretty well. Funny how that works sometimes.
Would another halftime lead be blown? When Colt Ryan made a jumper with 17:24 to play cutting the lead to 42-38, the prevailing feeling in the arena — seriously, it was palpable — was one of “Here we go again.” The Purple Aces would not score another point for over six minutes, as the Bluejays scored 13 unanswered points. The crowd appreciated the effort, as Jays players went diving all over the court for loose balls, played stifling defense, got looks for each other on offense, and put the game out of reach. When Evansville called timeout to try and stop the avalanche, it was 55-38 Creighton; since the Aces had that 23-15 lead prior to Kenny Lawson’s three-possession takeover, it had been a — seriously, this is no misprint — 40-15 run for the Jays. That’s perhaps the best sustained stretch of hoops they’ve had all season long, and it came against a pretty good opponent in a huge game.
The scoring drought for the Aces finally ended when Colt Ryan made another jumper at the 11:16 mark, after which the Jays scored four more unanswered points in what would eventually become a 17-2 run that for all intents and purposes settled the game.
Missed free throws down the stretch allowed Evansville to make things a bit closer than you’d have preferred. Some eternally pessimistic folks who called into the postgame show reminded us all of that fact after the game — the Jays very nearly let a game slip away late again. Guess what? They’re right. But did they really expect a team as good as Evansville to simply go away after the Jays big run? I didn’t. I sensed the Aces had a run left in them, as did most of the fans in the arena who follow the MVC; with shooters like Colt Ryan and Denver Holmes, there’s always one more run left. To dwell on the fact that the Jays didn’t win as big as they could have is missing the bigger point, in my opinion: the inevitable run came, and the Jays sustained it, then won the game.
In the suddenly unpredictable MVC, with the win the Jays find themselves in a pretty decent spot — tied for fourth with one team who they swept the season series from (Evansville) and another that they split with (ISU Blue) who has a brutal schedule down the stretch. The team in third, UNI, is reeling following the season-ending injury to Lucas O’Rear, and the Panthers have to come to Omaha yet. Third place is still quite possible. Which is right where most people predicted them to finish back in November.
You bet.