The first possession of the game for each team revealed the entire story at a packed-out and crazed Gampel Pavilion on Wednesday night. Samson Johnson and Tristen Newton hard-hedged a ball screen involving Trey Alexander, nearly creating a backcourt violation, and forced Creighton into a late-clock and-one by Steven Ashworth. On the other end, they pulled Ryan Kalkbrenner away from the basket to contest a deep 3-pointer by Alex Karaban, while Newton and Johnson went unchecked to the rim which resulted in a putback dunk by Johnson.
Although Creighton came out of that 43-second sequence with a 3-2 lead, it would prove to be unsustainable glimpse into what ultimately transpired over the following 39 minutes as the newly-anointed No. 1 ranked Huskies led by as many as 22 points and cruised to a 62-48 victory of No. 18 Creighton — the most lopsided game of the now the 4-year-old series between the two programs.
Overall, the Bluejays held UConn to 32.7% shooting on the first shot of the possession but allowed 18 live-ball offensive rebounds and 21 second-chance opportunities overall, which resulted in a 19-5 final tally in second-chance points — equaling the final margin on the scoreboard.
“We weren’t very good, and UConn had almost everything to do with that,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “They really knocked us out of our rhythm offensively. Our first shot defense was really good. Much like the games we played against them last year there were really two tough, hard-nosed defensive teams that try to take away what the other team does well, and I thought we did a decent job of that, but we couldn’t keep them off the glass. If you let this team get on the glass and you give them live-ball turnovers, they are going to score. They are just elite at that.”
Creighton led 12-9 early after a 3-pointer by Ashworth, but six offensive rebounds by the Huskies over the first 11 minutes of the game eventually ignited a 14-2 run and forced McDermott to call a timeout with 9:09 remaining in the first half. To CU’s credit, they responded well, initially, after getting rocked by that run. They held the Huskies scoreless on the next three possessions and pulled within four at 23-19 on a mid-range jumper by Alexander and a 3-pointer from the right wing in transition by Francisco Farabello.
That burst prompted UConn head coach Dan Hurley to use one of his timeouts. Unfortunately, that marked the beginning of the end for the boys in baby blue. Creighton made just one of their nine shots over the final 6:55 of the first half, then followed it up by missing 11 of their first 13 out of the locker room in the second half to find themselves in an unsurmountable 52-30 hole with 7:23 left to play on the road against the reigning national champions.
CU’s offense finally warmed up enough to score six times in a span of eight possessions to trim UConn’s commanding lead down to 56-46 with 2:33 left. But a cutting layup off of a sideline out of bounds set by Cam Spencer capped off a 42-second possession — thanks to another offensive rebound for good measure — and ended any hope of a miracle comeback against the top-ranked program in the country.
UConn’s defense limited Creighton to just 26 points in the paint, including free throws on shooting fouls at the rim, and 18 points on 26 shots from 3-point range. The Jays finished the game with 18 made shots and 14 turnovers. Being ranked number one in the Associated Press Poll for the first time since 2009 provided the fuel for the Huskies to turn out their best overall defensive performance of the season to this point.
“We couldn’t [lose],” Hurley said after the game. “You can’t lose the next game after you’re ranked first. We all knew that coming in. The problem was we were playing one of the best teams in the country in here … but our mentality should be like carrying around a belt. It’s like carrying around a UFC heavyweight belt or some type of WBC boxing belt, man. When you’re number one in the country — it’s not going to have any bearing on how our season goes whether it’s the regular season, Big East Tournament, National Championship, Final Four, Elite Eight, or any of that shit, but somebody should have to pry it off our lifeless body and our dead hands. We should play so hard to keep this thing right now that somebody is going to have to rip it out of our lifeless body.”
Despite shooting a season-low 35.7% from the field, they were able to win going away by being disruptive sideline to sideline. When they missed shots, they went after them. When they got out in transition, they converted. When Creighton did secure stops, they got down in a stance and worked to make it as difficult as possible for the Jays to build any rhythm or momentum. Their relentless tenacity from one end of the court to the other never allowed CU to get uncorked for any significant stretch until the game was already out of reach.
“That is hard to do versus these guys,” Hurley said. “Everyone talks about Mac’s offense because he’s such a great coach. He’s one of the best coaches … but his defensive scheme with Kalkbrenner and their ability to take away 3-point attempts and the drop [coverage] and what they take away at the rim, they had a lot to do with us missing 45 shots. We settled for some bad [mid-range jumpers] that we’d like to get back, but we were just tough, man. We were Big East tough. We were warrior — we were ‘man shit’ tough tonight.”
Steven Ashworth led Creighton in scoring with 14 points, but he along with preseason All-Big East guards Trey Alexander and Baylor Scheierman needed 39 shooting possessions to produce the 37 points they put up between them. Senior center Ryan Kalkbrenner outproduced UConn big men Donovan Clingan and Samson Johnson by himself with 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting, eight rebounds, and five blocked shots in 35 minutes, but after getting a dunk and a putback layup within the game’s first 10 possessions, he didn’t take another shot at the rim until Creighton was down 20 with 8:58 left in the game.
Fifth-year guard Tristen Newton led three Huskies in double figures with game-highs in points (16), rebounds (8), assists (5), and steals (2) in 33 minutes of action. He set the tone with his pressure on and off the ball defensively against Alexander while also playing with a pace and purpose that made him difficult to bottle up on the offensive side of the floor.
“I thought Tristen was great today,” Hurley said. “He was engaged. When you have an engaged Tristen with what he can do on the backboards and what he can do defensively and the things that he sees as a facilitator, he’s one of the top guards and one of the best players in this league. He’s having as good of a year as any guard in the country. He’s got to stay connected, and he’s got to stay engaged, and you’ll get games like this.”
UConn improved to 16-2 on the season and 6-1 in Big East play with the win to move into a first-place tie with a surging Seton Hall in the Big East title race. Creighton fell to 13-5 overall and 4-3 in conference play, but they won’t be afforded much time to sulk as they are staying out on the east coast and preparing to take on the aforementioned league-leading Pirates in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday morning before returning to Omaha for a three-game homestand.
“All of us have to trust our training,” Ashworth said on his post-game radio interview with Creighton play-by-play man John Bishop. “We’ve put hours and hours into our craft, and we have to play with the swagger and the confidence that we should. We have to learn from this, but then flush it. There are things that happened tonight that are a little uncharacteristic of us and we have to make sure that coming into the next game that we are locked in and have confidence. We are a really, really good basketball team. When we play the right way and are physical and are a little bit more demanding, it’s going to be a good thing for us. Moving forward we have to use those opportunities to fix those things, because they are all fixable when you look at it.”
Tip-off between the Bluejays and Pirates (13-5, 6-1 Big East) is set for 11:00 a.m. (CT) on FS1.