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Morning After: #18 Creighton 101, #6 Villanova 80

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[Box Score]

Key Stats: Creighton outrebounds Villanova 26-23 overall, and holds ‘Nova to just six offensive rebounds. CU scores a whopping 44 points in the paint, and gets 39 points from their bench.

Favorite Moment: From the outset, it was clear Villanova was playing Creighton differently than they did in Philadelphia — they didn’t trap much at all, they didn’t double-team very often, they tried to stay home as much as they could, and they face guarded Ethan Wragge for pretty much the entire 28 minutes he was on the court. Except for one instance, where Villanova collapsed their entire defense on Doug McDermott in the post, leaving four shooters open around the perimeter, one of which was Wragge.

Screen grab courtesy of Fox Sports 1's television coverage.

Screen grab courtesy of Fox Sports 1’s television coverage.

To be fair, I’m fairly certain Villanova coach Jay Wright didn’t intend to have his guys play five-on-one defense, they all just kind of collapsed on the basket at once after a lob pass and wound up there. It’s a funny picture, though!

The remarkable thing is that McDermott was inches from the baseline with five defenders surrounding him, but because of that, he knew he had his choice of four shooters, none of which had a defender within 20 feet of him, and he calmly kicked it out to Ethan Wragge who knocked down his lone three of the game. What really takes this over the top, though, is that the officials whistled a foul in the post on one of the five defenders, Wragge’s shot went in, they counted it, and McDermott made two free throws for a five-point play. Even when you guard McDermott with your entire team, and force him to pass it to a wide-open shooter, he still manages to score on you, because of course he does.

Incidentally, remember late in his sophomore year when teams first started double-teaming McDermott, and he struggled to pass out of them to the open shooter? Now, here we are late in his senior year, and he’s apparently not only mastered passing out of a double-team, but also out of a quintuple-team. Good to know.

Quick Recap: There was a thread on the Underground this past week discussing whether Creighton could succeed down the stretch with Doug McDermott shouldering such a heavy offensive burden most nights. If we were talking about a regular run-of-the-mill scorer, I’d wonder about that, too, but Doug isn’t a run-of-the-mill player. He’s an all-time-great in the midst of a sublime senior season, is the presumptive national player of the year, and if he can single-handedly put this team on his back and take them deep into March…by all means, do it! During the midst of Creighton’s 101-80 blowout of #6 Villanova on Sunday, one of the Jays fans I follow on Twitter wrote, “Saying ‘Creighton relies too much on Doug McDermott’ is like saying ‘This entree has too much steak.'” That pretty much sums it up, I think. No one ever wished their steak would take up a little less room on the plate so the baked potato could be a little bigger, after all.

When Villanova and Creighton played in Philadelphia, the Wildcats used their standard Jay Wright defensive gameplan — they took away driving lanes and focused their defensive energy on the paint, then sent three, four or five guys to the glass to clean up every missed shot. That works really well against traditional Big East teams, but against Creighton, it was suicide. As we analyzed in the Polyfro Primer before the game, Creighton’s ability to make three’s at such a high rate short-circuits everything Villanova tries to do.

So you have to credit Wright for doing something different. Instead of playing Villanova Defense, which has worked really well for them for over a decade and has helped them to a 22-3 record this year, they scrapped it for a plan to take away the three-point shot. The result? Creighton attempted just 15 three-pointers, the fewest of any game this season and the fewest since a late-February win over Southern Illinois last year. The Jays took advantage of all the space inside the arc to burn Villanova to the tune of 25-38 shooting on non-three-pointers, and took 26 free throws (making 24).

In that first game, CU’s 1.45 points per possession was a stat that was widely praised, because that’s an insane number and a great illustration of just how effective Creighton was at scoring against Villanova’s defense. Well, against Villanova in the second meeting, against a totally different defensive gameplan, they were even MORE effective, scoring 1.47 points per possession. What do you do if you’re Jay Wright? His Wildcats took away the paint and dared CU’s shooters to beat you, and got blown out. Then they took away the three-point shot and dared CU to slash to the rim and make mid-range jumpers, and got blown out again.

This one unfolded completely different, however. McDermott scored Creighton’s first 11 points, and was sensational early on, hitting back-to-back threes to start the game to the delight of the capacity crowd which roared at ear-splitting decibel levels. Throughout the first half, CU maintained a steady, if not totally comfortable, lead. Within ten seconds of one another, two of their starting guards picked up their second fouls, sending them to the bench — first Grant Gibbs with 10:39 to play, then Jahenns Manigat with 10:29 to go. Up by just two at 23-21, it was a key moment in the game.

On their next possession, McDermott buried a three to make it 26-21, and then the bench — which had gotten invaluable experience in Gibbs’ absence last month with a knee injury — stepped up admirably. Isaiah Zierden nailed a three from the top of the circle, and then a jumper two possessions later, followed by a acrobatic drive to the rim by Devin Brooks. Along with Avery Dingman, they also played well on defense, and thanks to their work, CU ended the half on a 15-6 run with both Manigat and Gibbs on the bench. That stretch gave them a 13-point halftime lead, the same margin as their blowout win in Philadelphia.

They were never seriously challenged in the second half, building a lead as large 25 points at one point, en route to their second straight blowout of a top-ten ranked Villanova squad. Gibbs returned in the second half fresh, and was 3-3 from the floor with eight points after the break, including a dunk where he split two dumbfounded defenders that led Nick Bahe to resurrect his “Meet me at the rim, Mr. Gibbs!” line on the radio broadcast.

For the game, Creighton’s bench scored as many points — 39 — as Doug McDermott, with Isaiah Zierden leading the way with 13 to go along with three assists in 24 minutes. Dingman played 21 minutes in a sixth-man role after starting when Gibbs was hurt, and was extremely impressive. He had six points, six rebounds, two assists and a steal, and even made his lone three-point attempt while using his long arms and physicality to harass opposing shooters. Devin Brooks was finally back to looking like himself after his bout with the flu, making good decisions with the ball most of the time while causing Villanova to think about defending the rim all of the time thanks to his ability to drive to the basket.

The Wildcats are 22-3, with the three losses coming on the road to undefeated Syracuse and twice to Creighton. I can’t say enough how terrific they are…and yet CU has blown them out twice. Meanwhile, with the win, CU has first place to themselves, and is in excellent position to go undefeated at home for the first time in what seems like forever. They now have a resume that puts them on “2” line in many bracketologists’ projections, which would give them a great opportunity for advancing in March. All of their goals are closer to being within reach thanks to Sunday’s win.

Anyone want to bet against them achieving those goals? After what they’ve done to Villanova twice, I sure don’t.

Quotables:

“No doubt about it, Doug set the tone right away. He hit a couple of big shots, he was aggressive, and starting with warmups he was just…focused. I mean, he’s like that every game, but he just seemed even more into it than usual today, knowing how big of a game it was. And that makes it so much easier for everyone else, when he comes out roaring.” -Grant Gibbs on 1620AM Postgame

“I think it was a three or four point game when me and Jahenns both went to the bench with two fouls. Isaiah was huge, Devin got back to doing what he was, and they pushed the lead out to 13 before the break. That was the biggest part of the game, having that lead going into the second half. Then Jahenns and I both had fresh legs coming back in the second half. The bench was huge part of this win. We’re a completely different team when we have those guys playing like that.” -Grant Gibbs on 1620AM Postgame

“Villanova’s really good. I’ve watched them tons of times this year, and they’ve been tremendous. We’ve just played well against them. I don’t know what it is. Part of it is just having great scouting reports, and Coach Lutz did a great job scouting them. Part of it is us taking that report and taking away their tendencies, and things like that, but we’ve been really fortunate to play really well against one of the best teams in the country twice now.” -Grant Gibbs on 1620AM Postgame

“I just think before the DePaul, St. John’s, and Butler games our preparation just wasn’t as crisp. We weren’t flying around. It’s a long season, but with the seniors we have, we’ve been through the long run a couple times now and we know we have to be better than that. I thought the last couple days in practice we were just more active and obviously when you have a huge game like this from Doug that helps too. Now that we’ve reaped the benefits of that, and knowing that practicing well leads to playing well, hopefully we can keep that rolling.” -Grant Gibbs on 1620AM Postgame

“It was just one of those nights, but this is probably the best I’ve felt right from the get-go. I kind of got going early, and then everyone else stepped up. It was was one of those games where everything seemed to go right.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“A lot of times at the start of games, we’ll run a set play that gets me a good look. Tonight, I hit that first three and then I hit another one, and after that I had the most confidence in the world. I can’t even really describe that feeling, you just feel like you’re in the zone, the hoop feels big. My teammates saw it, and I have to give them credit, they got the ball to me in the right spots.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Between the first half and the second half, they made it a lot harder for me to get open. They put more of a guard-type on me to kind of push me out. When they do that, it also gives other guys good looks and driving opportunities, so I’m not going to complain there.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Our bench was huge. We obviously would never want the Gibbs injury to happen, but when it did, it gave Zierden and Brooks opportunities to get their feet wet. It wound up as a good thing for our team. Everything’s clicking, everyone’s bonding, and I think this shows tonight that we have a lot of guys that are capable of stepping up at big-time moments.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Isaiah is a really shy kid, he kind of keeps to himself a little bit, but I noticed something tonight — a look in his eye — that he was ready to go. I told him to keep shooting, and to keep setting screens for me and Ethan, because the more screens you set for us, the more open looks you’re going to get for yourself.” -Doug McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I liked our preparation for this one. I talked with the team after the Butler game the next day and said, ‘Hey guys, I’m watching film of our last Butler game and and last Villanova game and I’m watching our last two games, and we just don’t have that same sense of urgency defensively, that same fire. Our attention to detail is just not what it was.’ They came out Friday and Saturday with two really good practices. We weren’t on the floor that long either time, but while we were there we were really good.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“As good as we played in Philadelphia, I think we played even better today. We just didn’t make a crazy number of threes, but our execution and our movement and our ability to take advantage of what they were doing to take those threes away — guys going to the rim, going downhill and making the extra pass — was really, really good.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“You know, I’m not on my players’ tails all the time, so when I come to them with something, they know that, hey, he’s probably pretty serious here. And this group has been together long enough that they get it. They can watch the film and see the same things that I see, and see the difference side-by-side — this is what it looked like before, this is what it looks like now, and we need to get it back to what it looked like before. I’ve got a veteran group and I trust them.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“The bench was good today. I almost went back to Jahenns and Grant with six or seven minutes left in the first half despite them having two fouls, but that group that was out there — Isaiah was good, Avery was good, Devin did some good things, Will did some good things. They all gave us great contributions at a time where we really needed them. And they just tried to do what they could do. That’s what was so good about it. Nobody was trying to execute plays that were out of their skillset. They were making simple plays, simple passes.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I thought Ethan’s movement, especially in the first half, created so much confusion. We’re trying to get him to move a little more if they’re going to guard him like that. Like stay on the move constantly, curl to the basket, do some different things. You may not get a shot, but somebody’s going to get one, and sooner or later the defense has to make a decision. Tonight, again, they took him away, but that opens things for other people.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Gibbs’ injury totally changed things. Avery and Isaiah are just in a better place because of it. They were good tonight. And we’re as healthy now as we’ve been since the DePaul game on the road. You take Grant’s injury, and Devin’s sickness, and Doug’s been a little banged up and Ethan’s been a little banged up, and we’re as healthy now as we’ve been since early January. Not many teams are in that situation. So we’ve got to keep moving forward. Devin was better today than he was the last couple of games, he’s feeling better, he’s been in the gym working hard, and he’ll impact winning like he did today if he just keeps after it.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Devin and I have had a lot of conversations about turnovers and making smart passes. Those are kind of one-sided conversations sometimes (laughs) but he’s getting better and he wants to be a good player. He wants to be part of a winning team, and he’s willing to do whatever he can to help us.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Marquette’s playing really well, and playing with a lot of confidence. So much of college basketball is when you play a team. We played St. John’s when they got rolling, and now we play Marquette just as they’re getting rolling. But we’re playing OK too. So we’ll have a couple good days of practice preparing for them and we’ll see what happens.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Doug’s a really grounded kid. Like me, he never thought any of this was going to happen. So he takes it with a grain of salt. He reads it and as he passes certain people, Larry Bird is certainly a big one in both of our minds, he just takes it for what it is and moves on. He doesn’t get caught up in it. He’s very dedicated to wanting to help this team win. I’ve been coaching a long time, and even if he wasn’t my kid I don’t know that I’ve ever been around a player that has a knack for big games the way Doug has a knack for big games. One of my assistants came in before the game into the locker room and said, Doug is LOCKED IN. He said, ‘I like it when Doug is locked in.’ (laughs) And I said, ‘That makes two of us.'” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I’m really proud of him. It’s really hard for me to get my arms around what Doug’s accomplishing. But as I told the team the other day, and I’ve told Doug many times, you’re going to look back and enjoy this someday. So make sure you enjoy it now. If something’s that good that you’re going to look back five or ten years down the road and say, “Gosh, that was awesome,’ make sure it’s awesome now. Make sure you enjoy it now. I hope our fans — and they were outstanding today — they need to enjoy what they’re seeing as well because what Doug’s doing, and what this team’s been able to do the last three or four years has never been done here before. It’s just a unique group of young people that fit together in an unbelievable way. It’s really hard to do in my profession, to find the pieces that fit as well as this group. They’re so selfless. And this group has it. It’s so much fun to be around, and that’s why I love to see them have success because they deserve it.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

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