For roughly 30 minutes on Saturday night, Creighton played with the level of poise and intensity they knew they would need in order to give themselves a chance to win a championship. The other 10 minutes or so were a perfect Storm as St. John’s knocked down 14 consecutive shots in a span of 16 possessions to turn a 41-40 deficit just before the under-12 media timeout into a 15-point lead with 4:14 to go.
The Jays just didn’t have enough fuel left in the reserve tanks to fight off the avalanche, falling 82-66 in their fifth unsuccessful attempt at winning a Big East Tournament title since joining the league prior to the 2013-14 season.
“They just wear into you over time,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said of the Red Storm. “I would have guessed at halftime that 66 points might be enough to win the game the way both teams were defending, but they made some shots in the second half and then we made some mistakes … sometimes you make mistakes, but they don’t cost you because they miss shots. Tonight, every time we made a mistake, they made us pay.
“We lost to a really good basketball team. I think they’re going to represent the Big East in a positive way next week.”
When Creighton last faced this same Red Storm team at Madison Square Garden back on February 16, they raced out to a 14-4 lead before St. John’s settled in and eventually pulled away for a 6-point win. Saturday night’s title game followed a similar script with the Jays jumping out to a 10-2 lead to force an early timeout by Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino.
CU scored on seven of their first 10 possessions and led 17-9 with 13:22 left in the first half. The game settled into a rock fight shortly after that, but the Jays continued to match the Red Storm’s physicality and tenacity to take a 28-25 lead into the break.
Freshman forward Jackson McAndrew had eight points and four rebounds at the break. Senior guard Jamiya Neal was the do-it-all dude again with nine points, five rebounds, and two assists while playing the entire first half once again. Redshirt sophomore forward Jasen Green added four points, three rebounds, and two steals to help Creighton secure the 3-point edge at halftime.
In his halftime interview with FOX, Greg McDermott said that they weren’t going to accomplish what they set out to accomplish if they didn’t establish Ryan Kalkbrenner on the block in the second half. The players took his message to heart as they steadily fed him the rock inside, allowing him to score six of their first nine points out of the locker room to extend the lead a bit to 37-33 with 15:44 to go.
They didn’t know it yet, but the tide was about to turn against them for good. Big East Player of the Year RJ Luis, Jr. knocked down his first 3-pointer of the night to tie the game at 38-38, then the league’s Most Improved Player Zuby Ejiofor converted an old-fashioned 3-point play to tie it up again at 41-41 with 12:28 to go.
Creighton senior point guard Steven Ashworth provided Creighton with their final lead of the game by cashing a three from the left wing off a dribble handoff action with senior center Ryan Kalkbrenner. That put the Jays in front 44-43 with 11:31 to go.
The rest of the game was a St. John’s highlight reel with each bucket further igniting overwhelming pro-Johnnies crowd of 19,812 at The World’s Most Famous Arena. Red Storm fans haven’t been able to celebrate a Big East Tournament title since 2000. With each of the 14 straight shots they watched their team knock down from the 12:28 mark until there was only 5:16 left in the game, the celebrations got louder and more exuberant as the Johnnies opened up a lead as large 15 points before McDermott waved the white flag and subbed out his worn down and dejected starters.
Luis, Jr. was limited to just two points — largely due to foul trouble — in the first half. He made up for the lost time and then some in the second. The newly minted best player in the conference put a stamp on his award-winning week with a 27-point second half on 10-of-13 shooting to add Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Player to his collection of accolades.
“Like Coach P says, there’s not that many second chances in life, so when the opportunity presents itself, you’ve got to grab it by the neck,” Luis, Jr. said. “Coach P is the mastermind behind all of this. I mean, it’s truly special. I’m at a loss for words … I’m just truly blessed, and I’m just very happy to bring this championship back to New York City and obviously St. John’s University.”
Luis, Jr. led the Johnnies with a game-high 29 points and 10 rebounds. In the two games against Creighton at Madison Square Garden, the junior wing averaged 26.0 points and 12.0 rebounds. Ejiofor put up 20 points of support on 8-of-15 shooting, while Richmond had a double-double himself with 12 points and 12 rebounds to go along with four assists.
For Creighton, Kalkbrenner led the Jays with 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting. He hauled in seven rebounds and blocked three shots in 37 minutes in his final game at The Garden. McAndrew finished with 14 points and six rebounds. Ashworth and Neal each had 13 points and combined for 13 assists between them, though the former struggled from the field going just 3-of-19 from the floor, including 2-of-10 from 3-point range.
He was broken up about how the game went down, especially after the way the first 25-30 minutes went. But he’s not planning on taking very long to sulk over it with the last NCAA Tournament appearance of his college career right around the corner.
“I’ve been in this position before, unfortunately,” Ashworth said. “I’ve been in college basketball five years. Lost in the conference championship game or taken second in the conference regular season four times. There have been just some of those moments where even in the regular season when you find out that you can no longer clinch the regular season title, and that was something that you were chasing for so long, you really just have to shift your focus of okay, well, in a few weeks, we had a chance to go win a conference tournament.
“When that doesn’t happen, then it’s about shifting the focus to advancing in March, and making some noise, making a run, and just keeping this team alive, because we only have one life as a team, and the only way that we keep playing together and stay together from here on out is if we win.”