In a Friday night brawl at Gampel Pavilion, St. John’s set the tone for Super Bowl weekend in the Big East by outlasting back-to-back national champion UConn on their home floor. That message reverberated all the way to Omaha, essentially warning second-place Creighton that they were gearing up to run away with the regular season crown if the Bluejays failed to defend their home court on Saturday afternoon against conference player of the year contender Kam Jones and Marquette.
Creighton battled through foul trouble, illness, and just general fatigue from back-to-back road trips to Villanova and Providence, but they pushed through it all and outlasted an always tenacious Golden Eagles squad to secure a 77-67 win that moved them to 11-2 in conference play, still one game back of the league-leading Red Storm with seven regular season games to go.
“We are running on empty, and Marquette is not a fun team to play when you run it on empty,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “Those two trips this week and some illness we got going through the team and getting home and getting to bed at three in the morning on Wednesday was tough on these guys, but man, we showed some grit.”
Kam Jones finished with 27 points on 11-of-19 shooting, but Creighton’s defense held the rest of Marquette’s players to 40 points on 28.3% shooting.
Steven Ashworth led the Jays with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting. He was 6-of-9 from three, including a “night, night” dagger with under a minute remaining. Ryan Kalkbrenner made his first five shots of the game and later cashed a clutch 3-pointer of his own to finish with 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and four blocked shots. Jasen Green tallied eight points, seven rebounds, and two blocks while also taking on the main assignment of limiting Jones to four points on 2-of-6 shooting over the game’s final 10 minutes. Jamiya Neal sealed the deal on the Jays’ ninth consecutive win with 10 points and clutch play after clutch play over 10 foul-ridden second half minutes when it looked like Marquette was on the brink of stealing one in Omaha.
“Just really proud of our guys,” McDermott said. “Really good execution. Jamiya gave us a huge lift after dealing with that foul trouble coming off the bench and making some big plays on both ends of the floor. I thought Jason was outstanding defensively the entire afternoon. And then Kalk and Steven did what Kalk and Steven do. Enjoy it, because you’ve [only] got four more [games] to watch here in this building. It’s pretty special.”
After going 4-for-11 from the field in the first meeting back on January 3rd in Milwaukee, Kalkbrenner started off the rematch by converting each of his first five shot attempts. He scored 12 of Creighton’s first 18 points to give them a one-point lead with 13:08 left in the first half.
Ashworth took over down the stretch, scoring eight of his 14 first-half points over the final five minutes and change to send Creighton to the break with a 43-36 lead.
Creighton extended the lead to as much as 11 early in the second half, but the Golden Eagles used a 12-0 run and a 6-0 run to take a pair of leads, the last coming at 61-60 with 6:34 to play.
Neal responded to the first run with a 3-pointer from the top of the key area and a mid-range jumper on the break to put Creighton back in front. He punctuated CU’s response to the second run by scoring or assisting on eight of his team’s points during a 13-4 game-clinching run over the final 3:33.
“Our guys fought,” Marquette head coach Shaka Smart said. “The second game in a row on the road where we put ourselves in position in the last media time out. I think it was a one-point game at the media, and we didn’t play well enough down the stretch. Creighton serves a lot of credit. Jamiya Neal made some big buckets late, and we didn’t get enough stops.”
Creighton improved to 18-6 overall with the win, moving to 11-2 in Big East play in the process. They sit all alone in second place, one game behind St. John’s and two games ahead of Marquette.
Neal’s Second Half Power Surges
There are multiple options to choose from when looking for a hero of the game for Creighton. It could be Jasen Green for his versatile defense on two of Marquette’s most dangerous options in Kam Jones and David Joplin. It could be Steven Ashworth for his timely threes and steady playmaking in the face of relentless pressure. It could be Ryan Kalkbrenner for setting the tone on the offensive end, playing his typical All-American level defense, and his no hesitation, clutch three to turn in a one-point game into a four-point game late in the second half.
All three are worthy choices in their own way. But none of them flipped the momentum the way Jamiya Neal did in the second half.
When Marquette used a 12-0 run to take a 56-55 lead with 10:18 left in the game, Neal answered with a three and a mid-range jumper to put Creighton back up by four with 8:46 to go. When Golden Eagles pulled within one with 5:18 remaining, Neal drove and sprayed it out to Kalkbrenner for a three, then hit one of his own followed by a tough layup inside through contact. Every time Marquette made a big push with him on the bench in foul trouble, Jamiya Neal would always eventually check back in and immediately counter with a clean body shot to slow them down and help Creighton regain control of the game.
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“From the bench it looked like they were making their punch, and it was time for us to make ours,” Neal said. “I saw how the direction of the game was going, so I thought why not make an impact really quick and try to do something to change that.”
Since struggling at Alabama and going 2-for-8 with three turnovers in a humiliating loss at Georgetown, Neal is averaging 13.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.3 steals while shooting 56.7% from two and 36.2% from three to help Creighton win 11 of its last 12 games. Through an up-and-down first handful of months in Omaha, Neal has settled in to form a dynamic and dependable trio alongside Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth.
“I’ve never had a guy like Mac who just pushes you every day and wants you to be great,” Neal said. “I wasn’t used to that. A lot of days, sometimes I’d be like, “Dang, what’s with this guy? Am I just not good enough? Does he just not like me? Why is he always on me?’ But when I realized that he just wants what’s best for me, and what he’s saying is actually right, I think that’s when I started [improving by] leaps and bounds.
“At the end of the day, they want what’s best for me and I want what’s best for myself. I think once I started embracing what I needed to be for this team and what I needed to be as a player, that’s when I started making leaps and bounds.”
The Steady Playmaking of Fedor Zugic
With Marquette leading 61-60 with 6:34 to play and Jamiya Neal sitting on the bench with four fouls, Creighton was on the brink of losing their grip on a crucial win.
Fortunately for the Jays, Fedor Zugic was ready to step up and make a couple stabilizing play. The first came just nine seconds after David Joplin’s layup gave off an offensive rebound gave the Golden Eagles the one-point lead. Creighton pushed the ball up the floor and the ball found Zugic on the left wing, where he attacked a seam, jump-stopped, shot-faked, and laid one up and in off the glass to retake the lead. On the next possession, Zugic used a shot fake again in the right corner to open up a baseline drive that led to a trip to the free throw line. He knocked down both shots to make it 64-61 with 5:51 to play.
Zugic had three points and two turnovers, the latter of which led to a 3-point play the other way for Marquette in his only stint of the game in the first matchup. The second time around, the 6-foot-6 wing from Montenegro finished with six points and two rebounds in 12 minutes.
It’s been a long and arduous road, but Zugic is starting to come into his own as a key role player for the Bluejays with the season’s stretch run right around the corner.
“Five weeks ago, I couldn’t play him in this game,” McDermott said. “I put him in twice, he turned it over. He had obviously just become eligible. But I think it speaks to his growth and how much more comfortable he feels, not just on the offensive end, but what he’s doing on the defensive end. We really needed him.
“Fedor has grown. He’s getting better. He was out there during the Providence game because he was defending well and making good decisions with the basketball. Obviously, we’re becoming more confident in him because of what he’s doing on a daily basis, and probably most importantly I think it gives him a little confidence in himself as he tries to figure this out at the record whirlwind pace that he’s trying to learn everything.”
Ashworth Said “Night, Night”
In the first matchup between the two teams, Steven Ashworth dished out 10 assists and turned the ball over only one time against Marquette’s in-your-face pressure. The thing that ate at him in the aftermath of the 79-71 loss was his 1-of-13 performance from long range. It was the worst shooting night of his 5-year college career. He evened that out in the rematch by going 6-for-9 from deep, a performance that he capped off on a dagger to put Creighton ahead 75-67 with :46.4 seconds left. He sank it and turned to the crowd before hitting the “night, night” celebration to let everyone know that one was a wrap.
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He needed 20 shooting possessions to produce 13 points in the first matchup. On Saturday he was much more efficient, needing just 11 field goal attempts and one trip to the free throw line to put up 22 points.
“Ashworth, man, he’s like the Energizer Bunny,” Marquette head coach Shaka Smart said. “And our guys are pretty good at keeping up with people, but he got the better of us just with multiple cuts and movements and never stopping. I thought he was the best player in the game today.”
Along with his 22 points, he also produced an additional 16 courtesy of his seven assists. Of Ryan Kalkbrenner’s eight made shots on the afternoon, half of them were assisted by Ashworth. After the game, Smart couldn’t help but further praise the 6-foot-nothing floor general’s ability to control with his pace and his playmaking, whether he has the ball in his hands or he’s hunting for it.
“Ashworth makes Kalkbrenner so much better with his passing and with his cutting and his ability to use ball screens,” Marquette’s fourth-year head coach said. “Because what happens is he gets you behind, and then now Kalkbrenner is sprinting to the rim, and he already was bigger than the guy we had on him, but now if we end up having to switch because we’re behind on Ashworth, now he’s even bigger. As he said, when was [Kalkbrenner’s] media session last night or the night before? You’re not going to grow six inches overnight. He’s right.
“So, Ashworth, to me, was the MVP of the game, because not only did he score 22, but his ability to orchestrate their offense … he played with so much force today. Not that he didn’t at our place, but for such a small slight of build guy, his quickness and multiple efforts — which is normally a term that we talk about on defense — he has great multiple efforts on offense.”