Zach Hanson was tough down low challenging every Butler shot (Mike Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
You know it’s Butler Week when Creighton head coach Greg McDermott starts throwing the “t” word around. With the exception of an 88-60 blowout win for the Bluejays in Omaha in 2014, three of the four meetings between Creighton and Butler have come down to the wire. One of those game went in favor of the Bluejays, the other two went to the Bulldogs, but in all three the difference was always Toughness.
That was once again the case on Saturday night as Creighton defeated No. 18 Butler, 72-64, in front of 17,677 fans at the CenturyLink Center.
“I think it kind of solidifies what we’ve been working towards and what our coaches have been telling us,” junior center Zach Hanson said. “It’s good to see results, and it adds it a little credibility to what we’re doing.”
The Bluejays held Butler to 32.8% shooting from the field for the game, and outscored them 30-20 in the paint. However, as they expected it was hardly smooth sailing for all 40 minutes. Junior point guard Maurice Watson Jr. and senior center Geoffrey Groselle watched most of the first half from the Creighton bench after each picked up a pair of loose ball fouls.
Adding to the foul trouble of two key starters was cold shooting, reminiscent of the 50-48 loss to No. 12 Providence, and an inability to finish off possessions. Despite leading the majority of the first half, Creighton allowed 16 second chance points off of only six offensive rebounds. That allowed Butler to take a 34-29 halftime lead despite only shooting 11 of 31 from the field in the opening 20 minutes.
Sophomore forward Kelan Martin easily led all scorers in the first half with 17 points in 18 minutes off the bench. Martin scored or assisted on all of his team’s points during a 15-2 run that turned a 22-15 deficit into a six-point lead with 1:49 to go in the half.
Maurice Watson drew the defense time after time in the second half and he knew what to do with the ball (Mike Spomer / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
Trailing by five, Creighton came out of the locker room guns blazing. Maurice Watson hit a layup to begin the half, then assisted on next three baskets — a layup and a 3-pointer by junior guard Isaiah Zierden, and a layup by Groselle — to jump start an 11-0 run and put the Bluejays in front, 40-34, with 16:49 remaining.
After Butler’s Roosevelt Jones drove and scored, Watson took the ball right out of the net and raced down court for a layup, drawing Jones’ fourth personal foul in the process. The hoop and the free throw gave the Bluejays a seven-point lead and sent Butler’s most indispensable player to the bench with 14:17 left to play.
The Bulldogs — along with foul trouble to Jones and senior guard Jordan Gathers — were also playing without the services of starting point guard Tyler Lewis after he suffered a concussion in practice earlier in the week. However, Creighton was unable to put the game away due to struggles at the free throw line. They converted just 6 of 13 foul shots and missed the front end of a one-and-one with Jones on the bench to let Butler hang around.
“I jinxed us,” McDermott said after he watched his team’s early season free-throw shooting woes return in the second half on Saturday night. “I just was looking at our stats the other day and saw that we were almost to 70% from the foul line on the season. As bad as we had started, over the last however many games we’ve shot free throws pretty good recently, so I didn’t see this coming.”
With Creighton going cold from the line, a driving layup by Bulldogs senior guard Kellen Dunham cut the deficit to 62-57 with 1:15 to go, but Maurice Watson ended the drought at the free throw line just in time to ice the game away for the Bluejays. The Boston University transfer, who was recognized before the game for eclipsing 1,000 career points as a college basketball player, knocked down 5 of 6 at the line down the stretch, while Creighton as a team hit 10 of 12 to finish off the 18th-ranked Bulldogs.
“When you miss a free throw it kind of weighs on you, because you practice them so much,” Watson said. “You get disappointed in yourself, but when you have your team telling you to keep pushing, or your coach telling you next play, it makes it easier on you mentally.”
After playing only 10 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, Watson scored 18 of his team-high 20 points and dished out five of his game-high six assists in the second half, putting the team on his back offensively just as he did to help them finish off a win over Georgetown on January 5.
“He’s a good player,” Butler head coach Chris Holtmann said of Watson. “He got in the lane on us, and was able to finish over some bigger guys — he’s really good at doing that. He’s certainly the head of the snake for their group. He leads them in a lot of different ways.”
Listen to postgame interviews with Greg McDermott, Maurice Watson, Toby Hegner, and Zach Hanson as well as Butler’s Chris Holtmann and Kelan Martin
Matt’s Notebook
Zierden Matches Dunham Minute for Minute, Stride for Stride
Isaiah Zierden took it to Kellen Dunham on defense on Saturday night. (Adam Streur / WBR) CLICK TO BUY
It will be easy to look at the box score for Creighton junior guard Isaiah Zierden, see 13 points on 3 of 9 shooting in 40 minutes and think he probably could have done more to help the Bluejays on Saturday night. What doesn’t show up in those number is the job he did defensively on Butler senior guard, and leading scorer at 16.1 points per game, Kellen Dunham.
Zierden chased Dunham around for every minute of the game, and despite Dunham’s 20 points on 7 of 14 shooting, he drew praise from his teammates for making each of those 14 shots as tough as possible.
“I would say he’s our heart and soul,” sophomore forward Toby Hegner said. “He’s a defensive machine. If you watch the tape, Kellen Dunham didn’t hit an easy shot all night. Isaiah was there every shot, every possession.”
After the game, Zierden’s head coach wasn’t worried about Dunham’s 50% shooting from the field, or 100% clip from beyond the arc, but rather the attempts from — mainly the three 3-point attempts in 40 minutes. Dunham also logged 40 minutes in Butler’s previous game, a loss at Providence. In that contest, he went 6 of 12 from 3-point range.
“I thought he was outstanding, McDermott said of Zierden. “The number that sticks out is the three 3-point attempts. All of the things they do for him to try to get him 3-point shots, and for him to only get three is a heck of an effort by Isaiah.”
While Zierden himself will tell you he needs to shoot better, his teammates know his impact on winning and losing goes beyond his shooting percentages.
“I think Isaiah is, like Toby said, the heart and soul of our team,” Watson said. “He does so much on the defensive end that it doesn’t allow him to be as impactful on offense, because he’s tired and he’s doing so much. We feed off Isaiah. He’s probably the toughest guy we have on the team. To battle through injuries and even in practice he’s the toughest guy. He does a great job every night, and I tell him every night, ‘we go as you go.’
“People see the transition and they see me getting up the floor finding guys, but I get my confidence from Isaiah’s toughness. His toughness is something that we can follow as a team, as a guide to how we want to play.”
Avoiding Complacency the Key Going Forward for Bluejays
Sitting at 5-2 in Big East play through seven games after the eight-point win over No. 18 Butler, the Creighton Bluejays find themselves in a three-way tie for third place with Georgetown and Providence, and just a half-game behind Xavier in the regular season standings. After being picked to finish in ninth place when it’s all said and done, they couldn’t be happier with where they sit at this point.
However, despite the a start that has surprised outsiders, the Bluejays know the battle isn’t over.
“We lost eight games to start the conference last year, and just because we’ve won five doesn’t mean we can’t lose eight in a row if we get complacent,” Watson said. “We have to keep approaching each game the same way. Next game is another game to do what we do. If we don’t look ahead and we don’t look back, and we just focus on the now, then I think we’re going to be good.”
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See photos from WBR photographers Adam Streur & Mike Spomer of the win
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With five wins under their belt, they have already done in seven games what they failed to accomplish in 18 tries last season. But there are big obstacles still ahead. Two more games against Xavier and Marquette await, not to mention road games at Georgetown, Villanova, Butler, and Providence, the latter three of which have spent the majority of the season being ranked inside the top 20.
“I’m with the players, in this league it’s so fragile, because the league is so competitive,” McDermott said. “You have to stay ready, you have to stay prepared, you have to stay in the moment and get ready for the next day, because you can’t take a breathe. Obviously last year, I’d like to think what we experienced — there’s enough guys that were either in uniform or in the locker room that were part of that 0-8 start and understand how important one possession can be. I think there was certainly some learning and maturity that took place as a result of that experience, and it makes you a little bit better this time around.
“We haven’t been in many close games, and when we were, we lost. This was one where it was close enough there at the end that we had to grind it out and make some plays on both ends of the floor. The confidence you get from that is huge. I’m happy with where we’re at, obviously. It’s murderer’s row in this league, because of the quality of the league.”
The players know what it took to get off to the good start, but their goals entering the season extended beyond just winning one more conference game than they did during the 2014-15 campaign.
“We can’t be complacent,” Hegner said. “We need to continue to do what we do, and play Creighton basketball. We can’t be satisfied where we are. We have big dreams for this team, and we’re going to do whatever it takes, and we’re going to do it together.”
Next up for the Bluejays (14-6, 5-2 Big East) is a trip to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday night to take on the Georgetown Hoyas (12-8, 5-2 Big East) for the second time already this season. Creighton won the first match up in Omaha, 79-66. They are 0-3 away from home against the Hoyas since joining the Big East.
Tip-off between Georgetown and Creighton is scheduled for 5:31 p.m. on Fox Sports 1.