Bluejay Beat Wrap-Up Show
There was a lot of talk, here and elsewhere, about Thursday night’s game against Ohio State serving as a litmus test for a young Bluejay team. A blowout loss, like they suffered in the Gavitt Games at Indiana in 2015, would show them to be a lot further away than anyone hoped. A win, like the last two years against Wisconsin and Northwestern in these Games, would ratchet up expectations. Instead Creighton gave us a third scenario — playing well enough to win, setting themselves up to do just that, and then not sealing the deal.
They fought back from a double-digit deficit to take a lead late in the game, and after Mitch Ballock nailed a three-pointer from the corner with 2:57 left — off an assist by Ty-Shon Alexander — the Jays led 60-56. The game was theirs to win.
Instead, they didn’t score another point, surrendering a 13-0 run to the Buckeyes to end the game. The run began with a long three by Ohio State’s Duane Washington, Jr., and after Martin Krampelj missed the front end of a one-and-one, C.J. Jackson splashed home a three to give the Buckeyes the lead 62-60. Moments later, a rare double-foul called jointly on Krampelj and OSU’s Washington while battling for a rebound signaled this wasn’t going to end well for Creighton. It was Krampelj’s fifth, and the Bluejay big man who had grabbed five offensive boards and blocked two shots in the game — while drawing a lot of attention defensively to open up opportunities for teammates — was done for the night.
It was a deflating moment, and on the very next possession, an emphatic dunk by Kyle Young provided the punctuation mark, turning a game Creighton could have won into a game they would lose in the span of less than 90 seconds on the game clock. That it happened while Coach Greg McDermott kept three timeouts in his pocket without stopping play to draw up something to get an easy basket, or to give his team a chance to catch their breath defensively, or at the very least to stem the tide of momentum shifting OSU’s way, was extremely frustrating to watch.
With Ohio State’s Chris Holtmann opting not to take timeouts, either — he said afterward that he was fearful of calling a play in a timeout because of how familiar CU’s staff is with his playbook from his days at Butler — the game was left up to the players. Ohio State’s made winning plays, Creighton’s did not, and the Buckeyes won 69-60. Sometimes basketball really is that simple.
“Late in the game, we stunted on a guy we shouldn’t have. We were half a step late on Washington. We were too short on a closeout on Jackson,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “We had a wide-open three that Marcus Zegarowski missed. Martin missed the front end of a one-and-one. You have to make those plays, and frankly they made them and we didn’t.”
It’s an incredibly disappointing result because it felt like Creighton exceeded expectations for large portions of the game. They jumped ahead 10-2 after five minutes thanks to a pair of threes from Alexander and a dunk from Jefferson.
A really nice dribble drive from Alexander gave the Jays a 12-5 lead, with seven of those points belonging to the sophomore guard.
But one possession later, Jefferson picked up his second foul and went to the bench for the final 12 minutes of the half. Alexander soon joined him after picking up his second, too. With Creighton’s best scorer and their best defensive player on the bench, Ohio State outscored them 20-7. While the run to end the game will get all the attention — and rightfully so — the 13-point differential in the first half with CU’s two most important weapons on the bench is equally galling.
“We may have to consider leaving Ty-Shon in with two fouls in the future. Either that or the guys that come in for him are going to have to play a little better,” McDermott said on his postgame radio interview. “And the combination of him and Damien on the bench with two fouls led to some strange lineups out there. Hindsight is obviously 20/20 on that. Our conversations on the bench were that if we could keep it within two or three possessions, let’s leave them on the bench. But it got away from us.”
The Buckeyes took a 37-25 lead into halftime, and when they continued to hold a double-digit lead after six minutes of the second half, it looked like the decision to hold Alexander and Jefferson on the bench in the first half would be the difference in the game.
But with those two back on the floor, Creighton began to mount a comeback. Trailing 43-32, they went on a 16-5 run to tie the game, starting with this drive from Alexander:
And ending with a three from Alexander that tied the game at 48:
After Ohio State briefly re-took the lead, Marcus Zegarowski nailed a three to tie it again at 53:
They went ahead 55-54 on a tip-in by Krampelj, then built a four-point lead on Ballock’s three. But as mentioned above, that would be their last points of the game.
The loss obscures the fact that there was noticeable improvement in several areas over last week — defensively, they took away enough of OSU’s weapons to give them a chance to win, and the things people were worried about coming in (i.e. the Buckeye big men) were held in check. Lineup rotations seem to be crystalizing a bit, including a new wrinkle with Marcus Zegarowski on the floor at point guard with Davion Mintz alongside him at the ‘2’ which seemed to allow both players to thrive. Zegarowski looks more and more comfortable running the offense with each passing game, and Mintz looks more comfortable playing the off-guard than he typically has at point.
And then there’s Ty-Shon Alexander, who’s activated Alpha Mode, taking the scoring reigns offensively and running with them. He scored a team-high 16 points, the second consecutive game where he’s scored the most points and taken the most shots on the team. One of the biggest question marks coming into the season was who would fill the void left by the departure of Marcus Foster — who could they lean on offensively when they had to get a bucket, or who they could rely on to score late in the clock? Through three games, Alexander has the look, the swagger, and the ability to be That Dude.
“Tremendous. He’s a really good player, a really good player,” Ohio State’s head coach Chris Holtmann said afterward. “I thought it hurt them him getting in foul trouble in the first half, but he got going in the second. We tried to mix a couple match-ups, but he’s a good player.”
We’re going to see a lot of improvement from this team over the next six weeks. The trick is going to be getting wins while they make those improvements against a tough non-conference schedule. That’s what makes Thursday night so darn frustrating — this was a game they could have had.
“That’s a win we wanted, and that’s a win that was definitely attainable for us,” Mintz said afterward. “We have to stick to the scouting report, even when we’re fatigued at the end of a game. Those two big threes at the end of the game hurt us, and we have to learn from that. Like coach said, we’re young, but we have talented guys. It’s not about being young. We’ve just got to grow.”
Indeed.