Davion Mintz and the Bluejays didn’t have an answer on Saturday night (Spomer / WBR)
Junior point guard Davion Mintz had heard a hostile Pinnacle Bank Arena crowd before. His breakaway dunk in the final seconds of a lopsided Jays’ win in Lincoln two years ago acted as a dagger in the heart and drew boos from the hundreds of fans still in the stands. On Saturday night, he heard the same hostility — magnified by the thousands — only there was no dagger for him to deliver as Nebraska jumped on Creighton from the opening tip and never let the foot off the gas enough for the Bluejays to make them sweat in a 94-75 rout.
Nebraska senior guard James Palmer, Jr. drilled a 3-pointer, then another, then another. Seven straight points, then nine straight points, then a 10-3 run. It was an avalanche of big-time shots, big-time plays, and it created a big-time environment that saw the Huskers roll to a 40-19 lead with just under five minutes left in the opening half.
“I knew it would be crazy,” Mintz said. “They wanted this win. It’s been a few years, and they came out really hot — that surprised me. I remember one timeout where my ears started ringing. I was trying to tell everybody to calm down, but I couldn’t even hear myself talking. They brought a really good crowd today. There isn’t much you can say when they come out hitting threes like that. That was an abnormal thing from them as far as what they started with at the beginning of the season. Credit to them.”
It wasn’t just noise, either. It was hostile. As sophomore guard Ty-Shon Alexander stepped to the free throw line with Creighton trailing 43-22 the student section — which extends from baseline to baseline behind the team benches — started chanting “Greg’s a cheater” in reference to the FBI investigation that Creighton was linked to on numerous occasions throughout the offseason. For his part, Mintz said that he couldn’t hear anything specific, and head coach Greg McDermott said he wouldn’t be coaching this long into his career if he paid any attention to the noise coming from the stands.
Mitch Ballock did everything he could to keep the Jays in it. (Spomer / WBR)
Mitch Ballock wasn’t asked what he heard, but after he banged two threes late in the half — including one with under 10 seconds left to cut the deficit to 47-34 — the sophomore guard wasn’t biting his tongue as turned toward the student section on his way back to defensive end of the floor.
At that point it was no longer about overcoming the hostile environment. The Jays had their edge back. Now it was all about making enough plays and stringing together enough stops to make things interesting.
Ballock picked up immediately where he left off in the first half by burying two more 3-pointers in the first two minutes of the second. Creighton’s offense produced 20 points in the first eight minutes of the period, scoring on 8 of their first 12 possessions. However, they were unable to put even a minor dent in the deficit as Nebraska matched that production by scoring on seven of the eight possessions that Creighton scored on to stay in front, 67-54, with 12:07 to play.
The Bluejays made a late push with a 7-0 run to cut it to 10 with 6:05 to play, but they would not get any closer than that as Nebraska extended the lead again and cruised to their first win over their in-state rivals in eight years, and head coach Tim Miles’ first victory over a McDermott-coached team in 15 tries.
Ballock led CU, which fell to 6-3 on the season with the loss, in the scoring column with 23 points and knocked down a career-high seven 3-pointers on just 10 attempts. However, the night belonged to 24th-ranked Huskers and their star James Palmer, Jr. The senior got the home team off to that blistering start offensively and carried the day with a game-high 30 points on 9 of 12 shooting, including a career-best 6 of 7 from behind the 3-point line. As a team, the Huskers buried 14 threes, shot 53.3 percent from the field, and averaged 1.446 points per possession on the night.
“Nebraska played great,” McDermott said. “We were concerned with their dribble penetration and their ability to get to the free throw line, so we tried to plug up the lane a little bit early. To their credit, they made us pay with the 3-point shot. That got the crowd into the game, got us off to a rough start, and then we were fighting an uphill battle the rest of the game.”
As the final minutes ticked away, Ballock sat on the bench, staring straight down at the court with a towel over his head. He wore that disappointment in the post-game press conference as well, but when asked about his team’s resolve under duress in a hostile environment for the first time this season, the sophomore guard from Eudora, Kansas offered a glimmer of optimism.
“Everybody in the crowd is looking around wondering did we handle it well? Probably not, because we got beat by 20,” he said. “We probably didn’t handle it right to you guys, but we have a tight knit group, we talk about it all the time. We are together and we can only go up from here. We’re young. This is the first time I’ve played in this environment, obviously, and the first time a lot of us have played here. With that being said, we grew up a little bit. Even though the score sheet doesn’t show it, I think we learned a lot and we stuck together. Going forward this is going to be huge for us in late February and early March.”