MC McGrory had a huge game against St. John’s on Monday afternoon (Spomer / WBR)
If you didn’t know that MC McGrory had logged 68 minutes in the previous two days, you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell by her performance on Monday afternoon. The junior guard from Edina, Minn., poured in 23 points (one shy of matching her career-high), grabbed eight rebounds, and dished a couple assists to lead the No. 7 seed Creighton women’s basketball team into the championship game of the 2016 Big East Tournament after upsetting the No. 3 seed Seton Hall Pirates, 77-56, at McGrath-Phillips Arena on the campus of DePaul University.
McGrory scored 11 points in the first half, and added 12 more in the second. By the time she fouled out of the game with 4:47 remaining in the fourth quarter, the game was already so well in hand that she received a standing ovation from the crowd as she headed to the bench with her fifth foul.
“I voted her as one of the top players in the league, because she is,” Seton Hall head coach Tony Bozzella said. “In our game in Omaha she got in foul trouble. That helped a lot. Today she got in foul trouble and we could never exploit that. I think she’s a great leader. She plays hard. She makes tough shots. When you get in the playoffs especially everyone knows everyone, so you have to have someone who can make shots — a shot-maker. She has turned into that for Creighton. She’s turned into their kid who they go to with five seconds left on the shot clock. They might not even be here if she doesn’t make that shot against Villanova at the end. That was a tough shot. If she misses and Villanova comes down and hits a three the game is completely different.
“She’s just a tough, hard-nosed kid. A kid who I love to watch play, and a kid who represents the Big East in the way that I think Big East women’s basketball needs to be represented; with a bunch of kids who work really hard, who are obviously great student-athletes, but work really hard and get the most out of their ability. That’s what our conference has to be built on, because we’re not going to get the number three-ranked player in the country, but we’re going to go who is really going to improve each year and really play hard all of the time — that’s her.”
The clutch shooting she has displayed throughout her career, and throughout this tournament, was on display again against the Pirates. With the shot clock winding down late in the first quarter, McGrory started to drive, then stopped to hit a pull-up jumper just before the horn to give Creighton a 13-6 lead. A few possessions later she beat the buzzer to end the first quarter with the upset-minded Bluejays in front, 15-8.
McCrory has stepped up since Marissa Janning went down earlier this season (Streur / WBR)
Much like the game against Villanova, the Pirates hung around and made enough plays to stay in the game, but Creighton had an answer for everything. That prevented Seton Hall from breaking off big runs that led them to two wins in the first two meetings between the teams.
“It’s always tough when you’re trying to make a run and they’re answering it,” Seton Hall senior guard Shakena Richardson. “It’s always tough. They just played really well.”
Creighton led 29-21 at the break, then stormed out of the locker room with a 12-2 run to extend the lead to 41-23 with 6:04 remaining in the third quarter. Although the Bluejays maintained a comfortable lead in the third quarter, the Pirates had cut it 52-39 to start the final period. They then scored on their first three possessions of the fourth to get to within seven at 52-45. To help trim the lead as well as speed the game up to a tempo more conducive to their style and their personnel, but despite a few frantic possessions, Creighton settled in and starting pick the press apart.
Sophomore point guard Jade Owens sliced through Seton Hall’s full court press and scored off the glass with a runner in the lane to make it 54-45. On the next possession it was McGrory again, this time finding herself wide open on the perimeter after a couple passes into the front court. Though she had a two-on-one advantage she decided to use it for the open three ball, which she buried to give her team a double digit lead again. As she has proven in the past, in the biggest moments against the toughest competition when her team needs her to make a play, she comes through for them. Her head coach attributes her big-play ability to her maturation as a leader, and the fact that she’s not afraid to fail as long as she’s making the right decision.
“I was saying before the game that the neat thing about her is that she has understood how important it is for her to be a leader on this team,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “When we recruited her I couldn’t get her to talk on the phone. I didn’t like calling her, because I couldn’t get five minutes out of the kid. Even when she committed and signed I wondered am I going to like coaching this kid, because she’s so introverted, but that introvert has become our best leader. When Marissa got hurt her leadership just kept building, and she committed even more to it.”
All the Bluejays are having fun right now. Jade Owens is starting to shine (Streur / WBR)
“To me with leadership and productivity, I tell kids if you get outside of yourself and be a really good leader you’re probably going to be less focused on production, and sometimes being less focused on production makes you more productive. I think with her she doesn’t worry that she just missed a shot or two. She’s about getting a good shot. To her if she’s taking a good shot, then she’s not worried about whether it goes in or not, and I think that’s a tough place for a 20 or 21-year-old to go to — ‘I’m going to make the right play. I’m going to have the right level of aggression to make this play here, and I’m going to live with the results.’ I think she has freed her mind up to do that. Part of that is because she feels great about her leadership role, and she isn’t just about what her productivity is. With younger players it’s all about their productivity, because they think that’s what going to get them on the floor or not. Mature players who are older, who buy into leadership as much as MC does, they don’t get hung up on productivity, and I think it frees them up to play better. I think that’s where she is right now.”
Owens, who scored a career-high 16 points in Sunday’s win said after the game, “MC is playing with a whole new level of toughness. That describes exactly how she’s playing. She plays through anything. She’s not thinking about being tired, an injury, or anything. She’s just fighting through everything, and we’re really feeding off of her energy as well.”
The lead only grew after McGrory fouled out. After Creighton broke the press with little effort, resulting in a couple unguarded lay-ups by sophomore forward Bailey Norby, both teams called off the dogs and let the reserves finish the game. When the final buzzer sounded the Bluejays rushed the court to celebrate as the win improved them to 17-16 on the season, making them postseason eligible, but more importantly moving them one win away from their first NCAA Tournament appearance since their final year as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference back in 2013.
“We’re just having a lot of fun,” McGrory said. “Now we have one more top seed to beat.”
Jade Owens is having a great tournament and a compliment to MC McGrory’s play. (Streur / WBR)
That top seed standing between Creighton and a trip to the NCAA Tournament is their Big East rival St. John’s. The Red Storm scored 34 points in the fourth quarter to upset top-seed and tournament host DePaul, 75-66, on Monday night. In 2012, St. John’s eliminated Creighton from the NCAA Tournament. They have also knocked them out of the Big East Tournament in each of the last two seasons. The three elimination games were decided by a total of 10 points.
The Bluejays got the upper hand in the regular season finale with a 64-57 win at St. John’s. While they have split the season series with the Red Storm in each of the last three seasons, they have come up short in the elimination games. After a wild weekend of tight games and upsets in Chicago, it’s only seems fitting that these are the two teams left standing at the end.
“I’ve said this year after year, I have so much respect for Creighton and Jim’s program and what he does,” St. John’s head coach Joe Tartamella said. “It just seems like we find a way to match up against each other every year in the Big East Tournament. They are as hot as you can be. They beat us up at home last week. They’re playing very well, very much together, and that’s why they are where they are right now. To see what they’ve done in the last two weeks obviously they’re very hot. We’ve played against each other, and we seem to find these moments, so we hope we’re able to show the rest of the country again what our league is about tomorrow night in the championship game.”
The Big East Tournament title match between Creighton (17-16) and St. John’s (22-9) is set for a 7:00 p.m. tip-off at McGrath-Phillips Arena. Just like the semifinals it will be televised on Fox Sports 1.
Listen to postgame interviews with head coach Jim Flanery and players Jade Owens and MC McGrory. There is also audio from Seton Hall’s head coach Tony Bozzella and player Shaken Richardson.
Bonus Audio from St. John’s head coach Joe Tartamella