Marcus Foster led the second half surge for the Bluejays (Williams / WBR) $ CLICK TO BUY $
Greg McDermott continues to push back at questions about his team’s perceived struggles in the first half. The way he sees it, the 10th-ranked Creighton Bluejays are keeping up a 40-minute pace that their opponents have only been able to match for half the time. That was the case again on Tuesday night as the Buffalo Bulls came out of the visitor’s locker room at CenturyLink Center Omaha for the second half facing a 41-39 deficit only for Creighton to send them back to it 20 minutes later with a 93-72 loss.
The Bluejays’ offense scored 52 points while their defense held the Bulls to 35.0% shooting in the second half after Buffalo shot 53.8% in the first.
“I thought we came out of the locker room with some energy, some fire, and our box outs were more physical,” McDermott said. “The reality of it is our pace isn’t going to have that much of an impact in the first half, but over the course of a game they are going to get tired and we’re going to get some easy ones in transition. They aren’t quite as aggressive going to the glass, because they were tired, or they are a little apprehensive to go to the offensive glass because they know what’s coming when we get that rebound.”
Creighton’s start to the game was actually more lopsided than their start to the second half. Senior point guard Maurice Watson Jr. and junior shooting guard Marcus Foster engineered a 9-0 run that turned a 6-6 tie into a 15-6 lead for the Bluejays with 13:18 remaining in the opening half.
Buffalo wouldn’t let the Jays get a very big cushion, however. Senior guard Willie Conner scored 11 of his season-high 21 points in the first half, and Bulls’ leading scorer Blake Hamilton did his part by scoring 15 points over the last 12 minutes of the half, including a jumper with 3:03 to go before halftime to give the upset-minded Bulls a 34-33 lead.
Justin Patton continues his early rise during his freshman season (Spomer / WBR) $CLICK TO BUY$
It was a short-lived advantage, though, as reigning Big East Freshman of the Week Justin Patton threw down a dunk, nailed a pull-up jumper in the lane, and buried the first 3-pointer of his college career to put the Bluejays back in front as they headed into the locker room.
The redshirt freshman center from Omaha went 5-for-6 from the field in the first half and led his team with 13 points in 17 minutes.
Fellow hometown kid Khryi Thomas followed Patton’s lead from the end of the first half to help the Bluejays at the start of the second. The sophomore guard hit a 3-pointer from the left corner, then came up with a steal and a layup on the ensuing possession to push the lead out to 46-39.
After what essentially was an Omaha flavored 13-5 run, Buffalo trimmed the lead down to a one-possession game when senior forward Raheem Johnson scored down low to make it 54-51 with 14:15 to play. Like they did early in the first half, the dynamic back court of Maurice Watson Jr. and Marcus Foster lit another fire for the Bluejays as the game tightened. They combined to score nine of their team’s points during a decisive 13-o run over a three-minutes stretch to extend the lead to 67-51.
The Bulls (4-3) seemed to keep moving slower and slower as the game wore on while Creighton (7-0) seemed to be speeding up as the pace at which they operate took over the game.
“We just had to keep playing Creighton Basketball,” Watson said. “We’ve been shooting it pretty well the first six games, and Coach Mac told us in the locker room that when you’re rolling you can shoot on the first pass, but when you’re not you’ve got to keep playing as a team. If our threes aren’t going in we kind of get down on ourselves. We’re trying to work our way out of that to keep playing hard and keep sticking together as a family. We told ourselves in the locker room to just back to Creighton Basketball. Play as a team, move it, push it in transition, and we’ll get what we want.”
Watson finished with 15 points and eight assists — his sixth game of the season with at least seven assists. Foster led all scorers with 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting in his 33 minutes on the court.
The Omaha boys, Patton and Thomas, meanwhile, each posted the first double-double of their Creighton careers. Thomas finished with 18 points to go along with a career-high 12 rebounds and a career-high four steals. Patton also had a pair of personal-bests with 21 points and 10 rebounds on 9-of-10 shooting from the field.
Their impact extended beyond the box score in the form of hustle plays that ignited the hometown crowd and energized their teammates.
Maurice Watson, Jr., helped lead the Bluejays to victory dishing out 8 assists. (Spomer / WBR) $CLICK TO BUY$
“A great example is the out-of-bounds play. I don’t know if there was a miscommunication on the play, I thought everybody knew what we were doing, but we just threw it into the back court and Justin takes off sprinting, dives on the floor, just to save a possession. Khyri made the extra effort on the offensive glass, and he had four steals, but he had twice as many deflections. His hands were active.”
“Those two just do their job. Obviously they’ve gotten better at doing their job; Khyri from last year to this year, and I’ve said it from the beginning that Justin is growing in front of our eyes. He’s a special, special player that has a long basketball career ahead of him.”
“He let it come to him tonight. The first time he had an open three, he turned it down, shot-faked, shot the 15-footer, then the next time he shot the three. First, second, or third game of the season he pulled that first three, so he’s maturing. He’s understanding what he can do and how he should do it. He was big for us tonight.”
Patton and Thomas helped Creighton earn a 42-40 edge on the glass for the game after they grabbed eight apiece in the second half, two fewer than the entire Buffalo team. Their work inside translated to the offensive side as well. They grabbed nine of Creighton’s 13 offensive rebounds on the night and scored 24 of the team’s 44 points in the paint.
Through seven games, the young Omaha hoop stars are currently first and second on the team in rebounding, blocked shots, and field goal percentage (among players who have taken more than 30 shots), and they are sitting at second and third in scoring behind only Marcus Foster.
“They’re both from here, so they have that home crowd advantage on top of the fact that we already have great fans,” Watson said of the impact Patton and Thomas’ play has on the rest of the team. “We saw some emotion out of Tazz tonight, we usually don’t see anything on his face, and Justin is really coming into his own.”
With the win, the Bluejays closed out the month of November a perfect 7-0. They will return to the court on Saturday night when the welcome the Akron Zips (5-1) to Omaha for a 7:00 p.m. tip-off from the CenturyLink Center. The game is scheduled to be televised on Fox Sports 2.
See photos from WBR Photographers Brad Williams and Mike Spomer of the Win.