In a season with so many improbable finishes, almost all of which went against Creighton, its only fitting that the 39th and final game would end like this, isn’t it? A year that began with Iowa State’s Jamie Vanderbeken launching a 35-foot game winner after the buzzer that the referees counted ends with Antoine Young stepping over an invisible half-court line on the final possession for a fatal turnover.
The court at Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena has been talked about, jeered, cheered, applauded and loathed since its design was unveiled in November. The razor-thin halfcourt line has been the feature most often questioned by opposing coaches, but the worries seemed to be for naught as it never really came into play during the season and certainly never affected the outcome of a game…until Friday night.
But lets back up a bit. Early on in Game Three, it looked like Oregon was going to pick up where they left off on Wednesday in Game Two, scoring the first seven points. The Ducks started 6-7 from the field and raced out to a 14-7 lead just four minutes in, at which point there were some Jays fans grumbling that the game was turning into a carbon copy of Wednesday’s blowout. And Doug McDermott picking up his second foul at the 12:31 mark, forcing him to the bench early again, did nothing to alleviate those fears.
Who could have figured that McDermott’s relegation to the bench would open the door for Kenny Lawson to put forth one of the best offensive halves of his senior season? The unfairly-maligned Lawson had a monster half, scoring 11 points on 3-4 shooting from behind the arc, grabbing five rebounds and playing passable defense. He effectively replaced what the Jays had hoped to get from McDermott, and combined with Antoine Young finding his scoring touch, kept the Jays close and allowed them to grab a 31-30 lead at halftime.
They’d sustained a shot to the chops from Oregon early on and instead of giving in, the team instead decided to fight back. For once, it wasn’t the underclassmen doing the heavy lifting — in their final game as Creighton Bluejays, for perhaps the first time all year, it was the seniors leading the charge. Lawson was big offensively, and Wayne Runnels was just as huge defensively, playing great interior defense and grabbing four tough rebounds in the first half, as the Jays outrebounded Oregon 22-13 and held them to 5-23 from the field after their hot start.
A one-point lead at the break had most Jays fans pretty excited. They’d taken Oregon’s best shot, but instead of letting the Ducks run all over them as they had Wednesday, they fought back, took a lead, and held it.
The second half was a back-and-forth affair that might have been some of the Jays’ best basketball in a true road game all season long. 13 times the lead changed hands after halftime, as the teams traded punches — neither able to pull away, neither willing to allow their season to end without a counterpunch.
The final three minutes were every bit as exciting as “March Madness”, even though this wasn’t the NCAA Tournament and this wasn’t March anymore. At the 2:55 mark, Gregory Echenique threw down a mammoth dunk to put Creighton on top 65-64, but Oregon would knot it up when Joevan Catron hit one of two free throws. Echenique then went up for another would-be-dunk, but was fouled before he could get it off and he sank two free throws to put Creighton back ahead, 68-66.
Oregon tied it on their next possession on a Catron spin move, and with 58.9 to go, it was 68-all. Creighton once again looked for Echenique, and this time he would not be denied his dunk, throwing down a rim-shattering throwdown that silenced the crowd, had Jays fans screaming, and put his team ahead 70-68. The Ducks once again tied it, this time on a bucket by Garrett Sim with 33.3 to go, and after bringing the ball upcourt, Greg McDermott called his final timeout to set up a final shot.
With the shot clock off, the idea was to work the clock down to around 10 seconds and then have Antoine Young try to create something either for himself or for an open shooter. Instead, with 17 seconds left, he lost track of where the halfcourt line was because, well, its invisible, and found himself on the wrong side of it. Replays show he clearly was. They also show that the referee couldn’t see it, either, and that he only noticed when it was pointed out to him by the frantic Ducks defense.
It was only the second over-and-back call in the 12 games played at Matthew Knight Arena so far in its short history, but that’s little consolation to Antoine Young or the Jays. Oregon took the ball and worked a shot for E.J. Singler, who banked in a tough shot with 2 seconds to go that gave the Ducks the win.
As Creighton fans steamed at bars across Omaha and the midwest, Greg McDermott exuded class in his postgame comments — mere moments after the horn sounded. Clearly disappointed, yet composed, he commented, “It’s tough. This is a beautiful building, a great atmosphere, you just wish there was a visible halfcourt line. I’m really proud of my team. We played a great game, they just made one more play at the end than we did.”
Its easy to blame the “invisible timeline” as T. Scott Marr repeatedly referred to it on the Creighton radio broadcasts this week. But just because that was the last play doesn’t mean it was the only reason for the loss. It wasn’t. Creighton was 10-17 from the free throw line, an uncharacteristic stat for a team that shot 73% for the season. They allowed Oregon to shoot 61% from the field in the second half. There were opportunities, particularly late, to push the game to a two or three possession lead and make such end of game dramatics a moot point. They didn’t do it, and its incredibly disappointing. What had been a pretty terrific basketball game — the best of the series, with both teams playing at a high level and leaving everything they had on the floor — had a crazy ending, and that’s a shame.
With that said, Nick Bahe posed an interesting question on the radio postgame show: “You play to win the game, but does Creighton get any more out of this tournament even if we’d won?” Creighton came into the CBI with the goal of playing some more games, getting some more practice time, and hoping to end the season on a better note than they otherwise would have coming off a demoralizing loss to Missouri State in St. Louis. Believe it or not, that game was a month ago Saturday, meaning Creighton got one full month of practice time they would not otherwise have gotten. They played five of their best games of the year, saw the continued growth of Jahenns Manigat, Gregory Echenique and Doug McDermott, and gave their fans some exciting basketball in March. Win or lose, they got a helluva lot out of the CBI — arguably, more than they optimistically could have hoped for — and the outcome on Friday doesn’t change that.
As the Jays head into the offseason, ask yourself this: are you more excited for Year Two of the McDermott Era now than you were a month ago? I am, and I think almost every single Creighton fan joins me in that sentiment. These CBI games showed us a program that is on the rebound, and next year is going to be fun.
You bet.