ST. LOUIS, MO — Three-and-a-half minutes into Creighton’s Friday night quarterfinal game, they were behind 12-2, as all five Drake starters had scored. It was a stunning beginning to some, but Creighton’s made slow starts something of a tradition of late, and dramatic game-winners have more than often been the result. Friday night, they started the comeback a bit sooner.
Antoine Young, as he has so often this year, keyed the comeback. He started by nailing a jumper to calm his teammates nerves, and then Jahenns Manigat came up with a steal and a layup. Following another layup from Young, two free throws and a layup from Doug McDermott, the Jays had erased the deficit in just two minutes.
“We’ve gotten off to some starts like that this year,” Doug McDermott said following the game. “We didn’t get off to the best start (tonight), and they were shooting lights out. We couldn’t get anything to fall. We turned it over a couple of times, but we just had to keep our cool out there and stick together. We knew good things would happen.”
His coach, Greg McDermott, said the start was a 180 degree turn from what he’d hoped for. “I thought Drake played their tails off considering they were here until 11:30 or midnight, whenever they got out of here last night. They really threw that first punch to start the game. Our goal coming into the game was for us to do that — to try to be really aggressive early and see if we could get them back on their heels and get them thinking about how tired they should have been.”
At the nine minute mark, the Jays finally took the lead, 22-20, on a layup from Antoine Young — his fourth of the game without a miss — and except for a couple of brief, fleeting moments, it would be a lead they would not relinquish. He played with the sort of fire and intensity you often see from seniors in conference tournaments.
“The way I play is if things are getting a little stagnant and tough, I’ll be a little more aggressive,” Young commented after the game. “Tonight, we were a little stagnant, so it was time to be a little more aggressive.”
That included his fifth basket of the half, a buzzer-beater to give Creighton back the lead at 35-34 after briefly allowing Drake to go back in front. After it dropped through the net, he let out a scream, then encouraged his teammates as they ran into the locker room. It was a rare show of verbal emotion from a normally quiet leader, but one that epitomized his desire to go out a champion in his final go-round in St. Louis.
In the second half, the Jays made the run that won them the game. They outscored the Bulldogs 12-4 in the first eight minutes of the half, with defense — yes, defense — playing a large role.
“The start of the second half was the difference in the game,” Greg McDermott said afterwards. “We defended better, then found some touches for Doug inside.”
They eventually built 61-48 lead heading into the final media timeout of the game, and looked on their way to a comfortable victory after a decidedly uncomfortable start. But these Bluejays never make things easy on themselves, and this one was far from over.
A 7-0 run by Drake — with Kurt Alexander getting four points, a rebound and a steal in the span of 90 seconds — made it 61-55. “We had a couple of stupid plays there, we were careless with the ball there on a couple of possessions,” Doug McDermott said later. “But we just stayed with each other. We knew we were going to win that game the whole time.”
His teammate Antoine Young elaborated. “We’ve always been in and out of adversity this year. I knew they were going to make a run. I knew it wasn’t over with three minutes left. So we just stayed together and toughed it out.”
Things got rougher before they got better, though. After Doug McDermott and Rayvonte Rice traded baskets, it was 63-60 with 1:24 to go, and suddenly things were very uncomfortable. A chant of “C-U! C-U” went up from the over 4,000 Jays fans in attendance, and it gave the Jays a little extra kick. They got a stop, then converted free throws, and after Drake missed a last-gasp shot, the Jays walked out with a 68-61 win.
Those fans who chanted and cheered and gave the players energy late did not go unnoticed by the players in the postgame press conference. “We’ve got some of the best fans,” Doug McDermott told the assembled press corps. “We’re the furthest place from St. Louis in the conference, but they’ve been with us all year. We were into it after they threw that first punch, so it was great to have them there.”
The Jays now move on to play the winner of Friday’s final quarterfinal, either Missouri State or Evansville. It will be a tough matchup either way — Kyle Weems and Colt Ryan are both Jays killers — but with the first one under their belt, the toughest one according to Doug McDermott, hopefully they can secure a semifinal win on Saturday.