Friday afternoon was a long time coming for Jays fans weary of Terrell Taylor’s shot against Florida being their school’s last taste of success on March’s biggest stage. In the succeeding years, there was the inexplicableness of 2003 (when Creighton’s best team of the last 30 years fell behind by 35 points to Central Michigan, rallied to cut it to single digits, then lost), the heartbreak of 2005 (when the Jays blew an early 10-0 lead, traded blows with West Virginia, then had their potential game-winning shot blocked and turned into a fastbreak dunk at the buzzer), and the overtime defeat of 2007 (when they rallied late to tie Nevada, only to lose in the extra session).
Throw in the two excruciating defeats that preceded Taylor’s shot (2000 against Auburn, when Ben Walker missed a game-tying three at the horn; 2001 against Iowa when they blew a late lead thanks to Reggie Evans making a million free throws), and Friday’s victory could almost be described better as “satisfying” than anything else. In March, games like today’s have gone against the Jays — in almost every conceivable fashion — much more often than they’ve gone in their favor. So you’ll have to excuse Jays fans if they have very little patience for debates about whether Alabama was fouled on the final shot and deserved free throws to potentially tie or win the game.
“This is a terrific win for our program,” Coach Greg McDermott said after the game. “It’s been, if I’m not mistaken, ten years since Creighton’s won a game in the NCAA tournament. So for that to happen, for our team, for our university, for our great fans, it’s an incredible feeling.”
Early on, it didn’t look like there would be any dramatics in this game. Creighton came out hitting shots, showing that the slow starts that have so often plagued them in NCAA play would not be an issue. Jahenns Manigat hit a three to get things started, and when Ethan Wragge hit back-to-back threes on consecutive possessions to put Creighton up 13-7, things looked pretty good. The pace was quick, the shots were falling, and Alabama was back on their heels.
A three-minute dry spell immediately followed — the first of two such droughts on the afternoon — and just like that, ‘Bama was up 15-13. Then the shots started raining in again, as three pointers from Manigat and Doug McDermott on consecutive trips down the floor gave the Jays a 19-15 lead. As the first half ticked under five minutes to play, they had a 23-20 lead, though the game had very clearly shifted into a pace and tempo that favored Alabama’s more deliberate, half-court style.
Creighton would not score the rest of the half, while the Crimson Tide ran off a 10-0 run to pull ahead 30-23 at the break. It was the fewest points in a half all season long for the Jays, though there were some silver linings amidst the offensive drought. They had just five turnovers, a terrific number against Alabama’s top ten defense. Antoine Young, Grant Gibbs and Austin Chatman had handled the full-court traps employed by the Tide well, and as a result, Creighton had some pretty good looks on offense. Better still, they knocked down enough of those shots that Alabama called off their press.
“We’re always going to throw it into Doug and Gregory, but we’re not going to turn down an open three,” Coach Greg McDermott told the media. “And I think our ability to make 3‑point shots the first half at the end of their press was a probably a big reason they got out of their press.”
Defensively, the Jays had decided to plug up the lane on defense so that Alabama’s big men, JaMychal Green and Nick Jacobs, couldn’t beat them. That worked remarkably well, as they combined for six first half points. “We just made a decision if they’re going to beat us, we’re going to make them beat us from the perimeter,” Greg McDermott said after the game, “and outside of the 3‑point shots the first half, I thought we did a pretty good job of that. They actually took the shots we wanted them to take.”
Trouble was, Alabama went 4-9 in the first half, making as many threes as they normally do in an entire game. Odds were, that wasn’t going to continue, right?
Wrong. Three minutes into the second half, Alabama was still hot, and they owned a 36-25 lead as the game threatened to slip away from Creighton. So they did something they’ve rarely done this year — mixed up their defense and employed a 2-3 zone. It was a brilliant tactical decision, as the Jays went on a 14-3 run to tie the game at 39 fueled by, of all things, their defense.
By getting stop after stop on defense, they were also able to ratchet up the tempo to something closer to their style of play, as well. “Part of our plan was to run in transition,” Doug McDermott commented after the game. “That’s what we have been doing all year…transition post ups have been huge for us, and I just tried to constantly sprint to get them tired. Even if I wasn’t getting the ball, I knew I was getting them more tired as the game went on.”
Grant Gibbs, the only player on either team with NCAA Tournament experience, provided the leadership that kept them in the game mentally despite trailing by double-digits. “I think the first half as much as we talked about not being tentative and not getting sped up, I think it’s just human nature our first NCAA tournament game and the style they play to get a little sped up, and we weren’t ourselves in the first half,” Gibbs noted after the game. “The message at halftime was play the way we have been playing all year and try to insert our style into the game. And once we started doing that, that’s when we were able to kind of change the course of the game.”
With 12:31 to play and the score tied at 39, Josh Jones came up with a great steal at midcourt and raced to the rim for what many thought would be a momentum-swinging bucket. Instead, JaMychal Green raced alongside him and blocked his shot, the Jays didn’t take the lead, and moments later Alabama had built the lead back to seven at 48-41. I don’t know what you were thinking at that moment, but to me it seemed like a back-breaking sequence. To rally and tie the game, only to fall back behind by seven 90 seconds later? That’s tough.
Jones would have another chance (several, actually), with his first coming at the 6:59 mark. He drained a three-pointer to cut the deficit to 50-49, and after setting up Doug McDermott’s layup to give the Jays a 51-50 lead, he sank one of two free throws to extend the lead to two. A three from Jones with 2:44 to go made it 57-50, and it looked like #Legend was striking again.
“The thing about Josh, when he goes into the game, something’s going to happen,” Greg McDermott joked after the game. “Sometimes it’s going to be good and sometimes it might not be, but something is definitely going to happen.”
The final moments perfectly illustrated that. Gregory Echenique went to the line with 33 seconds left and the Jays up 57-55, but missed the front-end of a one-and-one. McDermott snared the rebound, was fouled, and made one of two at the line. Alabama sank a jumper to cut it to 58-57 with eight seconds left, and Jones was fouled. He missed both free throws.
Was this destined to be another in a long line of Creighton late-game heartbreaks in the NCAA Tournament?
In a word, no. As the teams huddled at their benches before the final possession, Greg McDermott was playing chess and Alabama’s coach Anthony Grant was playing checkers. McDermott sent the Jays out showing man-to-man defense, and instructed his players to switch to a zone at the last possible second. When they did, it confused Alabama, who had called in a play to attack a man-to-man defense from the bench just before inbounding the ball.
Grant panicked, calling timeout to set up a play to attack the zone defense, but in doing so cost his team half of the 4 seconds they had to work with. The play they ran was familiar to the Jays. “We felt like we knew what play they were going to run from one of their earlier SEC games that we saw on the Internet, and thought we could cover it in the zone the best,” Greg McDermott commented afterward. “Josh Jones did a really good job of it. He got Releford’s right hand, and made him take a really tough shot.”
Trevor Releford’s off-balance shot was well short, Doug McDermott secured the rebound and then launched the ball into the rafters as the Jays celebrated their first NCAA Tournament win in 10 years. There were many big-time performances in the win — McDermott had 16 points and 10 rebounds, Grant Gibbs had 10 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, Antoine Young played 31 minutes with only 2 turnovers against 5 assists — but much as he had been in the MVC title game, it was Josh Jones who came up with the giant play at the end. Instead of a steal and a fastbreak dunk to seal the victory this time, it was a clutch defensive stop, but the result was the same: a Jays victory.
“We beat Alabama at their own game,” Greg McDermott said after the game. “I would not have guessed that we could win a game at 58‑57. I thought we were going to need to be in the 70s and get the tempo in our favor the entire game. We weren’t able to ever get it there, and that’s a credit to a great defensive team.”
However they got there, Creighton won, and now they get a chance to take on North Carolina on Sunday afternoon with a Sweet 16 berth on the line. Sounds pretty good to me.