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Men's Basketball

Creighton Digs Early Hole, Fails to Finish Late in Loss to Loyola

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

As a team, Creighton shot 33% (9-27) in the first half, and 50% (16-32) in the second, though the numbers from three-point range were ugly — 3-11 in the first, 3-9 in the second. And they made just two of their first 18 — yep, EIGHTEEN — attempts. Oy vey. They did have 12 assists on those 25 made baskets, but also turned it over 12 times. And their free throw shooting continued to be atrocious, as they went 9-16, including five second half misses.

Individually, three of their top scoring guards were invisible offensively. Mo Watson was 3-11 from the floor. Isaiah Zierden was 0-7 overall, and 0-6 from behind the arc. James Milliken was 0-5, with two misses from three-point range. Those three guards combined to shoot 3-23 from the field, scoring a combined 8 points (all from Watson). In a game where it came down to one possession, it’s hard not to look at all those missed shots from normally solid contributors and shake your head. Sitting in the crowd at Loyola, it had me doing more than shaking my head, but we try to keep it clean here at WBR.

Standout Performance:

Khyri Thomas, playing in front of a large (and loud) contingent of family and friends, almost single-handedly kept the Bluejays in the game in the second half. For the game, he made 9-10 from the floor, 4-4 from three point range, and grabbed five rebounds while scoring a team-high 22 points. In the second half alone, he was 6-7 overall and 2-2 from deep.

His free throws were another story. The freshman went 0-4 from the line, and missed two crucial ones in the final minute that could have tied the game. Still, they wouldn’t have been in position for those free throws to matter without him, so if you’re looking for a silver lining in an awfully cloudy day for Bluejay hoops fans, that’d be it.

Recap & Analysis:

Three days after losing to Arizona State in the final minute when Cole Huff missed two free throws that would have tied the game, the Jays lost in the final minute to Loyola when Khyri Thomas missed two free throws that would have tied it. Unlike the loss to ASU, this one wasn’t lost in the final minute, or even in the second half. This one was lost long before that. It was lost in the first 15 minutes of the game, when they allowed Loyola to dictate the tempo, slow down the game, and turn it into a low-possession game favoring the Ramblers. They made just two of their first 18 shots, and as the misses piled up, their frustration did as well, and their ball movement disappeared, their shot selection got progressively worse, and the bad vibes began to snowball on them.

Playing without 6’7″, 220-pound big man Montel James, who’d averaged 9.1 points and 5.6 boards a game, Loyola played four and sometimes five guards at once, and in doing so took away Creighton’s ability to create mismatches. It shouldn’t have been a foreign concept to the Jays’ staff, as Valley teams did this to them quite often in their MVC days, much to the consternation of fans and coaches alike. The side effect of playing all those guards was that Loyola plugged up passing lanes inside (Groselle and Hanson combined for just four shot attempts despite having a good five inches of height on anyone defending them), were able to slow the game down by pressuring the ball, and took away the mismatch CU often creates by having a forward that can stretch a defense whose 3’s and 4’s are used to playing around the paint. Guards are used to being outside, obviously, so you’re not stretching anything, not creating a mismatch, and you’re forced to change the way you play.

It took over 15 minutes of game time for them to adjust, and by the time they did, the Jays were playing catch-up, and down 27-11. To their credit, their defense held Loyola down just enough — it was not great, and not even good in stretches, but they held the Ramblers to five buckets on their first 15 possessions, which is good enough. Faint praise? Perhaps, but the fact is, for the half, they held Loyola to 34% shooting (again, not great, but good enough) and .806 points per possession, which actually is pretty good.

And in a game where their offense was NOT going 2-18 to start the game, that’d be more than good enough. In a game where they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn for most of the half, it was only good enough to keep the game from being a blowout. They shot 33%, had an atrocious .714 points per possession, and gave the Indiana game a run for it’s money for worst stretch of basketball played by a Creighton team in recent memory. Holy crap. Without a 12-2 run to end the half, making both the score and the stats respectable, this game might have been over.

Offensively, they improved in the second half (shooting 59% for the half, with an excellent 1.25 points per possession), but their defense went into the tank. They allowed 1.182 points per possession, which is bad in a vacuum but especially bad against a team averaging .96 for the season. By traditional metrics it was terrible, too; they allowed Loyola to shoot 54%.

And so it was that the game came down to the final minute once again, a close game in need of a play or two to close it out. They began the final three minutes down 59-51, and then Thomas hit a three and a driving layup to make it 59-56. The teams traded three-pointers on the next two possessions to make it 62-59, then traded two Loyola free throws for a Mo Watson drive to the rim. At 64-61, Loyola was fouled and made one of two; Groselle hit a bucket at the rim to make it 65-63, and then the Jays stole the inbounds pass, Thomas went up for a shot to tie the game, and was fouled.

You know the rest. He missed both free throws, then Zierden missed one last desperation shot, and the comeback ended just short.

There’s no sugar-coating this one. It’s a bad loss, not because Loyola is bad — they’re a solid middle-of-the-pack Valley team that will certainly give the top teams in the league fits — but because of how disappointing it is that the Bluejays came out with such low energy after a gut-punch loss three days prior. It’s a bad loss because they’re now 5-3 with tough games against Nebraska and Oklahoma to come, meaning they could enter Big East play with four or five losses, and with the Big East slate looming, even an NIT bid is a stretch if you enter league play with five losses. And it’s a bad loss because despite everything else — the poor offensive execution early on, the bad defense in the second half, literally in spite of everything else good or bad — if they make their damn free throws, they probably win the game. For the second straight outing. Ugh.

It’s reminiscent of the loss at North Texas last year, where the Jays played a true road game in an arena where their own fans made up a sizable portion of the crowd, fell behind by double-digits, staged a furious rally, and came up just short. When your frame of reference for a game is THAT one, it’s not good.

To end on a better note, everyone we met at Loyola, on their campus and in their arena, were awesome. The arena was small — 15 rows on all sides, the bottom half seats, and the top half bleachers — but very nice. The video boards, such as they were, were large LCD flat panels mounted in the corners (rather ingenious, when you think about it — even a 100″ TV is significantly cheaper than a video board, and in an arena this size, you don’t need a giant video board anyway).

Their concessions served beer, Chicago style hot dogs out of cute little miniature table-top Vienna Beef hot dog carts, and pizza, but not much else; although, if I’m being honest, if you have beer, pizza, and Chicago style hot dogs do you really need anything else? We sat behind the Creighton bench, and it appeared to me that perhaps 40% of the crowd were wearing blue and cheering for the Jays. The “Lets! Go! Jays!” chants brought out the best in the Loyola crowd, which I’m told is usually not as big nor as boisterous as it was on Saturday. Their student section was terrific, chanting “You let your whole team down!” after every missed CU free throw, and trying to drown out the Jays chants with their own. The image of Porter Moser running over to the student section after the game, fists furiously pumping, screaming, and high-fiving anyone in sight, was a cool college basketball moment. I wish it had happened while my Bluejays weren’t walking off the court in defeat, but alas.

They Said It:

“The first 26 possessions, we scored 11 points. And we missed front ends of one-and-ones, we missed some stuff down low, and I thought we rushed some shots during that part of the game. Fortunately, we played well enough defensively to keep us in it. Until we made our run, they had 29 points in 35 possessions. We knew they were going to try to control the tempo of the game. And with their big kid out, that put us in a difficult spot because they essentially started five guards, and as a result what they were doing was not very similar to anything they’d done in the past. That put out guys in some tough spots. But I’m just disappointed with the way the ball moved for us in the first half. It got stuck a lot, where guys weren’t moving. We tried to do too much with the ball too early in the possession without a ball reversal. And when we had opportunities to get it inside, we missed Geoff and Zach, which was disappointing because when we did get it in there, good things happened.” -Head Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“We had some fight, we got ourselves back in it at the end, but Khyri Thomas as a freshman should not be the one providing the energy for this team. That should be coming from our upperclassmen. But we had some upperclassmen that didn’t play very well today. And we have enough new guys on this team that we can’t afford to have juniors and seniors who aren’t contributing to the game on either end. Unfortunately, that happened today.” -Head Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“Loyola very seldom sent more than one guy to the offensive glass. Sometimes they didn’t send any. That meant their defense was set. So they really did a good job of taking away our transition game. That’s also why we outrebounded them by so many. That was because of what they chose to do. But I thought Z’s shots were relatively open. James had some good looks at the basket. Cole had a couple of wide open looks he didn’t hit. Khyri was great. He was aggressive, he was making things happen, he had his hands on a lot of balls, and I thought Geoff was great again. But we certainly didn’t have an ‘every guy having both feet in’ kind of effort today. Coming off what happened to us Wednesday that’s really disappointing.” -Head Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“On the last play, Toby really panicked on it. I don’t know what he was thinking. We were in a situation where they were small, and were just trying to flip it over the top and get an easy one for Toby or Geoff. Why Toby was in a hurry to get that up I don’t know. We’ll have to talk to him about it, because I’m just not sure. But once again, we were on the free throw line to tie the game, had a really good look at a three to tie it and don’t get it, and we didn’t get it done again. It came down to one possession again. But as I told the team, this one was decided in the first 15 minutes of the game, not in the last three. We did some good things to fight back and give ourselves a chance, but when you dig yourselves a hole like we did, you’re really asking for it.” -Head Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“Defensively, our effort at the beginning was good enough. They scored on five of their first 15 possessions, so they only had 12 points after 15 possessions. And that’s not great but it’s okay. But our offensive execution and ball movement didn’t match what we were doing defensively. Loyola’s chance at winning this game was to muddy it up and slow it down, so I give Porter (Moser) a lot of credit. He did that, and it worked.” -Head Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“We’ve got to get back to the drawing board on several things. Number one, we’ve got some personel changes we need to juggle a little bit. We need to look at the scheme to make sure we have the right personnel on the floor to match the scheme we’re running. There’s times where it’s not being executed the way we’d like it to be. And that’s on me as a coach and us as a staff to make them better.” -Head Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

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