Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Inside the Box Score:
The box score from this game comes to us straight from the Bizarro World. To wit:
Creighton outrebounded Michigan 38-27, including 18-4 on the offensive glass. Usually against a bigger, longer team — and particularly on the road — when Creighton loses, you can point to rebounds (or lack thereof) as a culprit. Not in this game. The Jays were undersized but scrappy as hell, and outworked Michigan on the boards. Unquestionably. And yet.
Creighton took 20 three-pointers — just over a quarter of their total shot attempts (73). A lot of times when a game goes sideways on the road, you can point to them falling in love with the three and dying by it when the shots don’t fall. That’s not really true in this game, either. They didn’t take that many, and made 35% of the ones they did take (7-of-20). And yet.
Creighton had just eight turnovers, with half of them committed by their big men. They had twice as many assists (15) as turnovers, with their guards taking care of the ball and making good, solid decisions most of the time. They negated most of their own turnovers with six steals defensively — as a matter of fact, Michigan had more turnovers (11) than the Jays did. And yet.
Creighton outscored Michigan 42-32 on points in the paint. Creighton outscored Michigan 13-2 on second-chance points. The Bluejays made one more field goal (31) than the Wolverines did (30) and attempted 20 more shots (73 to 53).
All of that was true, and yet they lost by double digits. Like I said, this is a box score straight from the Bizarro World, because if you’d have known all of that would be true before the game, the question you’d have asked is not “Did Creighton win?” but “How many did Creighton win by?”
The size disparity between the two teams didn’t manifest itself quite the way we thought it would, because the Jays were really tough on the glass — you can make up for a lack of size on rebounds with technique and desire. Where it showed up was in rim protection: the Wolverines had six blocked shots and countless more that were altered, preventing Creighton from scoring at the rim (and taking away their lob passes to the middle). It showed up in Michigan’s defenders being able to push CU away from the basket — they took away open three-pointers with their length on the perimeter, and took away shots at the rim with their shot-blocking ability, leaving CU with mid-range jumpers as their best/only offense.
That was the difference in the game. Michigan’s Zavier Simpson was able to get to, and finish at, the rim time after time. And largely as a result of being able to get into the paint off the dribble, the Wolverines got to the line 12 times, and made 10 free throws. Creighton attempted two free throws, and made zero.
The Wolverines won by 10 points.
Recap:
If you were penning a script for Creighton to win Tuesday night in Ann Arbor, it would have looked a lot like the first half. It was a shoot-out, Creighton’s shooters were hot, and the biggest area of concern (rebounding) was turning into an asset.
Mitch Ballock scored the team’s first eight points, including a pair of three pointers — the second with a defender draped all over him:
Ballock hit a third three-pointer with 13:34 to go that gave Creighton a 13-12 lead. At that point, he’d scored 11 of their first 13. But Michigan adjusted their defense during the next timeout, and he did not score a single point the rest of the night. They face-guarded him to prevent him from catching the ball in rhythm and firing up shots; he took just five more shots the rest of the game, two of them in end-of-shot-clock desperation mode where he heaved up a prayer of a shot. In their regular offense, he took only three shots over the final 33 minutes of game clock — despite being on the floor for 31 of those final 33 minutes (and 38 total).
With the Wolverines effectively removing Ballock from the game, Ty-Shon Alexander took over, at least for a while. Trailing 31-23 with just over six minutes left in the first half, he grabbed an offensive rebound of his own missed shot and put it back for a layup. Seconds later, he stole the ball from Jon Teske, tipped it to Ballock, and raced down the court for a layup in transition. Seconds after that, he stole the ball AGAIN, and this time took it coast-to-coast for a layup. After a timeout, he nailed a three-pointer; his personal 9-2 run cut the deficit to 33-32.
And after Marcus Zegarowski stuck a jumper to give CU the lead, 34-33, Alexander nailed another three-pointer to extend it to 37-35. They led 41-38 at the break largely due to the scoring of their junior guards — they combined for 25 points in the first half, with Ballock scoring 11 of their first 13, and Alexander scoring 12 of their final 18.
“That start of the second half, I really felt like if we could put an 8-2 run or something like that on them, we might get them to get the deer in the headlights look a little bit,” Greg McDermott said in a postgame radio interview on 1620AM.
That was the hope. It’s not what happened. Creighton missed their first three shots. Michigan made their first four to grab the lead, with three of them coming on straight-line dribble drives to the rim by Zavier Simpson.
“They really pounced on us,” McDermott said. “Simpson got three layups at the basket. We did a bad job with our ball screen coverage. We couldn’t stop the ball. And once he gets started he’s really hard to stop.”
CU briefly retook the lead, 47-46, on a layup by Kelvin Jones with 15:44 to play, but it was short lived. Eli Brooks hit a three for Michigan on the next possession, and Michigan never trailed again.
All totaled, Creighton made just six of their first 20 shots as Michigan built a lead — and then sustained it despite going into a long scoreless drought. Ballock was scoreless after halftime. Alexander scored just six points. With their two leading scorers taken away, CU was unable to keep pace during Michigan’s surge to begin the half, and unable to take advantage when UM went nearly four minutes without a point midway through the half.
“They did a good job adjusting their ball screen coverages,” McDermott said of Michigan’s halftime adjustements. “Teske is a hard guy to throw over the top of. We got a couple of them, but he took that away. And that’s a big part of what we do. He’s so big and so long. Defensively as a team, they do a good job of continuing to pursue from behind. We had some decent looks on mid-range jumpers, we just didn’t make them. But we also had some disjointed offensive possessions. I think some of it’s fatigue.”
CU went just seven deep on Tuesday, with Alexander (36), Ballock (38) and Zegarowski (37) playing nearly the entire game without a break. That will be less of a problem as the season goes along, especially once Davion Mintz and Denzel Mahoney join the active roster. While a loss is a loss, there were far more positives than negatives after this game. Creighton had an edge and fight to their play that will serve them well in the battles ahead.
“The story on the backboards tonight should, I hope, tell our fans what this group is about,” McDermott noted. “What we lack in stature we make up for in heart and toughness.”
Press Conference:
Highlights:
Full Game Broadcast:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kgRNfxsu24