I haven’t felt this way after a Creighton game in a long, long time. New York City doesn’t just awaken your senses. It mashes them together, as interesting an entanglement as the subway system map to a stranger of the city. My emotions are similar right now, a few hours after Creighton dropped the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament Championship to Providence. After consecutive evenings of leaving the World’s Most Famous Arena excited, proud, and feeding off the positive energy of the fellow Bluejays fans around me, Saturday night served me a completely opposite feeling.
The Bluejays hadn’t lost a conference tournament game since the 2011 Missouri Valley Conference semifinals. Let’s be honest: CU fans aren’t accustom to watching the Jays lose in league tourneys. Greg McDermott’s teams the past few seasons had won Arch Madness thanks to gutty performances by role players, clutch performances by Doug McDermott, and a vocal and excessively large fan base setting up shop in St. Louis for a long weekend of fun.
CU’s 8-game conference tournament winning streak came to an end not because McDermott didn’t show up (game-high 27 points, 18 in the second half), and not because Jays fans weren’t out in full force on a Saturday night in NYC. Rather, the offensive firepower displayed by the entirety of the roster all season and in the first two games at Madison Square Garden disappeared during the Big East Tournament championship game.
It wasn’t quite as frustrating as the offensively challenged loss to Duke in last year’s NCAA Tournament, but it was close. No one other than McDermott — well, actually, Avery Dingman too (5-5 from the field, 10 points, just his second double-figure effort of the season) — could seem to make a shot, no matter how open the Providence zone left one of the nation’s most accurate shooting squads.
Doug McDermott works to get open against Xavier (WBR/Mike Spomer)
Creighton’s other starters were just cold as ice. Jahenns Manigat (41.7% for the season), Ethan Wragge (47.3%), and Austin Chatman (39.5%) combined to go 2-16 from three-point range (12.5%). Manigat was 6-10 from range in the first two CU games in New York. Wragge was 7-12, including a barrage of five three-pointers against Xavier in the semifinals. Chatman had been in double figures the previous four games, before getting handcuffed by the Friars defense into merely a distributor trying to find a willing partner in gray to knock down a shot or two over top of the PC zone.
Ethan Wragge could only connect on one three against Providence, after drilling five against Xavier (WBR/Mike Spomer)
Still, thanks in large part to McDermott, Creighton almost overcame an atypical offensive performance. Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Player Bryce Cotton drilled a jumper with 12 minutes left in the game to give Providence a 12-point lead, the largest of the night. McDermott answered with a triple, cutting the CU deficit to 9, and during the next 10 minutes he’d hit 3 more threes as Creighton whittled with Providence lead down to 2, 58-56, with 77 seconds left. LaDontae Henton would put PC back up 4 after a jumper, and the stage was set for McDermott to answer yet again. But a long three from the top of the key — on target, as alignment goes — fell just short. Henton grabbed his game-high 13th rebound, made two free throws after fouled by Grant Gibbs, and the game was effectively over.
Doug McDermott scored 18 second-half points against Providence, as the Jays came up short (WBR/Mike Spomer)
McDermott received a standing ovation from the MSG crowd while he checked out of his final non-NCAA Tournament game. He scored 94 points in three games in the Big East tourney, enrapturing crowds along the way. He sits fifth all-time on the NCAA scoring chart. His team will be wearing white jerseys next week in the Big Dance. He’s (hopefully) got a few more games to display his skills at the collegiate level before he plays in arenas in the same league as Madison Square Garden during the next part of his career. Here’s hoping the nation gets to see McDermott dazzle for a few more weeks, though, and carry Creighton to a magical run to end the best season in Bluejays basketball history.