James Milliken was 1 of 4 Bluejays in double figures in the win on Saturday night (Spomer/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
If there was any chance of Creighton returning to the court from their Thanksgiving, title-belt winning trip to Sin City all fat and happy, Western Illinois and their nation-leading 51.9% mark from three-point range got the Bluejays’ attention. With a short turnaround before the game, Creighton (5-1) locked in to their scouting report and executed it well enough to earn a 97-67 win over the Leathernecks (5-1) on Saturday night at the CenturyLink Center.
“I’m relatively certain we beat a pretty good basketball team tonight,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “In watching Western Illinois as we prepared for this game I became a fan, because they take good shots, they don’t turn the ball over, they don’t get away from who they are — guys seem to play their roles extremely well — anytime you play a team like that it’s scary. I thought we were able to disrupt them a little. I thought our pace as the game wore on was probably a reason they didn’t shoot it as well in the second half as they did in the first half.”
Western Illinois only shot 41.4% overall from the field, but they converted 7-of-12 from three-point range to keep the game within reach at halftime at 44-31. They wouldn’t hang around much as soon as the second half started, however, as Creighton’s depth, physicality, and pace wore down the previously unbeaten Leathernecks.
Creighton junior point guard Maurice Watson Jr. and freshman guard Khyri Thomas combined to score all of their team’s points in a 12-4 run to start the half that pushed Creighton’s lead out to 56-35 with 17:09 remaining.
Watson only scored two points in the first half, but used that strong start to the second half to wind up with seven points, four rebounds, five assists and only one turnover in 21 minutes on the floor.
“I thought Maurice established early that the ball was going to move and the pace was going to be fast,” McDermott said. “When he does that it’s really contagious.”
Khyri Thomas picked up the scoring in the second half with many spectacular drives to the basket (Spomer WBR) CLICK TO BUY
One player who definitely caught the movement and pace disease was Khyri Thomas, to the detriment of the Western Illinois defenders. Thomas tied his career with 18 points, 14 of which came after halftime. Most of them were of the grab a rebound or a loose ball and sprint to the rim variety. He knocked down two 3-pointers, but otherwise most of his offense was created by him slashing and attacking off the dribble. Part of the mindset he has been coached to play with.
“Our message to him is just be aggressive,” McDermott said. “He’s so worried about making mistakes. I don’t know that I’ve ever coached a guy that is as humble and just wants to be perfect as Khyri. When he’s aggressive good things happen. He’s hard to guard, he’s kind of slippery when he’s trying to slash to the rim with the ball, and he can finish with either right hand or left hand as you saw. His anticipations skills are great on the defensive end of the floor, and it creates some opportunities for him to attack. It was good to see.”
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See the full Photo Gallery from WBR photographer Mike Spomer
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Despite Watson Jr. and Thomas helping to push Creighton’s lead out to over 20 points, it was senior center Geoff Groselle setting the tone down low for the second game in a row. The fifth-year senior scored 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the second straight game to go along with three blocked shots in 26 minutes.
Geoffrey Groselle is playing tremendously well the past few games. Here’s the end of the tip dunk from Saturday’s game (Spomer/WBR) CLICK TO BUY
“In the locker room we were like, ‘Geoff, [your man’s] a freshman, make him look like one,’ and I guess that’s what Geoff did,” Thomas said. “He rebounded really well, got to the free throw line, and got a couple ‘and-one’s’, which kind of started our energy off.”
Along with sparking the team in the first half, he also blew the roof off the CenturyLink Center when he followed up a missed layup by Watson Jr. with a one-handed put-back dunk, on the run, over a Western Illinois player to give the Bluejays an 11-point lead that never shrank to single digits the rest of the game.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into Geoffrey, but I hope it’s here to stay,” McDermott said. “That dunk, I don’t know that I’ve ever … I do know that I’ve never seen it before. That was an incredible play. That’s a big time basketball play with his off hand, his right hand in traffic, that’s a big boy play.”
Groselle and Thomas led four Bluejays in double figures in the scoring with junior guard Isaiah Zierden chipping in 11 points, while senior guard James Milliken poured in 12 points in 23 minutes off the bench.
Creighton led by as many as 32 points late in the game before settling on the final 30-point margin of victory. Though Western Illinois shot a respectable 45.5% on 24 attempts from beyond the arc they were held to just 3-of-10 from three-point range over the final 2o minutes of action.
“In the locker room Coach Mac just kept saying to run them off the line because most of them were three-point shooters,” Thomas said. “We just ran them off the line and hedged it a little harder, and then got back in front to not allow them to get the shot off.”
After the game McDermott singled out James Milliken for his defensive effort on Western Illinois’ Garret Covington. The Leathernecks’ 6-foot-5 junior guard came into the game average 19.4 points per game on 56.7% shooting from the field. Milliken and Thomas drew him as an assignment and held him to 14 points on 5-for-16 shooting in 34 minutes.
“I told James it was the best game he’s played defensively in a Creighton uniform,” McDermott said. “I don’t know that he ever believed that he could guard a good player and challenge him, and tonight they were running Covington off of screen after screen after screen, and that’s hard — you have to have your head up, you have to work hard, you have to have some anticipation skills on when the screen is coming and whether you want to chase it or short cut it. That’s something that James wasn’t even great at last year, and he’s gotten better. His off the ball defense has improved. He’s playing like a fifth-year senior.”
The win brings an end to a month of November that saw the Bluejays get knocked to the canvas against then 14th-ranked Indiana only to watch them get right up and finish out the first month of the season with double-digit wins over Rutgers, Massachusetts, and Western Illinois.
Next time they hit the court they will face off with the Arizona State Sun Devils on December 2nd at the CenturyLink Center. The game is scheduled for an 8:05 p.m. tip-off and will be televised on CBS Sports Network.
Listen to postgame interviews with Greg McDermott, Khyri Thomas, and James Milliken