Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Recap & Analysis:
At the under-12 timeout of Saturday’s battle with UConn, Creighton had just eight points, three days after scoring just six points in the first eight minutes against Providence. But instead of trailing 23-6, as they did against the Friars, this time they were tied. The Bluejay defensive rotations were crisper, they shrunk passing windows by tracking the ball quicker along the perimeter, and despite giving up a ton of offensive rebounds, they consistently reset their defense to make second chance points few and far between. As a result they kept themselves in the game while their slumping offense found its footing.
“It’s been a tough week where we lost two games that essentially both came down to a single possession,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “Those are games where something you did on one play could have flipped the outcome. When our players watched that on film, and realized the magnitude that one possession can have, that hit home pretty hard. So I was really pleased the way we were locked in defensively to start the game. We didn’t make shots early, but we kept them in check.”
They got a little help, too, when UConn coach Dan Hurley earned a technical foul. In an 8-8 tie game, his temper tantrum when an official asked his bench to stop crowding the court gifted CU two points at the line. It was the start of a 15-5 Bluejay run that included Mitch Ballock knocking down a three:
And assisting on a three in transition:
And assisting on another three in the halfcourt:
Ballock’s floor game was on-point in the early going, as he was more aggressive in putting the ball on the floor and forcing the defense to do more than just cover him behind the perimeter — by both looking for his own shot more often and doing a better job of using defensive attention to him against the Huskies, he opened things up.
“There’s no question Mitch needs to be more aggressive,” McDermott said. “If they’re going to run him off the line and into the paint, he can’t be afraid to shoot the pull-up or to go to the rim. He can’t be afraid to make a mistake. He was really good today.”
But after opening a ten-point lead, 23-13, the Jays surrendered a 15-6 UConn run to end the half. All the momentum from their own 15-5 disappeared, as Creighton turned the ball over three times, made just 1-of-5 shots and missed three free throws over the final nine possessions of the half. And there were signs of trouble on the stat sheet: UConn had missed 24 shots and rebounded 11 of them. The Jays had made just 3-of-12 from three-point range. And with the separation they’d briefly created now gone, a third straight loss was staring them in the face unless they changed things quickly.
At least right away, the trends from late in the first half continued. But after ties at 44, 46, and 48-all, Creighton went ahead for good on a jumper by Denzel Mahoney with 10:03 to play.
“We came together during one of the fouls and said that weโve been through this before,” Mahoney said. “They came back and made it a close one at halftime. So we just talked to each other and focused in on making sure (a loss) didnโt happen again.”
Mahoney scored five of the Jays’ 14 points in a decisive 14-2 run that turned a 48-48 tie into a 62-50 Bluejay lead. His steal and layup midway through the run, giving CU a nine-point lead with seven minutes to go, felt like the back-breaking play. And in fact, UConn was never closer than that the rest of the afternoon.
“You know it’s going to be a smash mouth game against UConn. Once you get punched in the mouth, you have to get back up. We did that today,” McDermott said. “I’m proud we were able to grind it out. The guys needed this.”
Key Stats:
In his second game back from a hamstring injury that cost him two games, Marcus Zegarowski scored 15 points in 38 minutes, turning it over zero times against a long, athletic, aggressive UConn defense. And in the game’s closing minutes, after the Huskies had hit back-to-back threes in a desperate comeback, he silenced it with this layup where he exploded past his defender. At least on this play, the hamstring injury looked non-existent.
“Marcus ran the team, he got some pace to our offense both in transition and in the quarter-court, and he didn’t turn it over,” McDermott said. “He made sure we got good shots without turning it over, and that’s what makes him as good as he is. He had really good looks at the basket from three, and he just missed them. We’ll take those looks all the time.”
Meanwhile, the Jays’ big men didn’t put up huge numbers — combining for 18 points and six rebounds — but affected the game in other ways. They drew 11 fouls on UConn’s bigs, which changed the lineups the Huskies were able to use in the second half. And they fought to make everything difficult for UConn in the paint.
“Christian and Ryan both did a good job. But man, Christian gets some cheap calls,” McDermott laughed on his postgame radio show. “He’s just…he’s trying to do the right thing and he kinda gets slapped on the hand a lot for some things that he doesn’t do. But he kept fighting and I thought Ryan came in and did a terrific job, and that allowed us to keep Christian on the bench long enough to make sure he didn’t foul out before the stretch run.”
McDermott stopped short of openly criticizing the refs — the Bluejay Radio crew of John Bishop and Brody Deren stepped in to do it for him and save him from answering an angry phone call from the Big East office on Monday. The call that seemed to irk them the most? A bump along the baseline that wasn’t, which drove the 1,800 fans in attendance crazy when it was replayed on the video boards.
It felt like another “off” game for the Bluejays offensively, and understandably so — they made just 6-of-20 from three-point range, the third straight game they’ve made less than their season average of 36.4%. They were 6-of-23 (26%) against Butler, 4-of-23 against Providence, and now 6-of-20 (30%) in this one. But that followed a pair of games where it seemed like they couldn’t miss — 13-of-24 (54%) against Seton Hall and 16-of-36 (44.4%) against St. John’s. That’s regression to the mean, in statistician terms.
Even with that being the case, the Jays’ 74 points were the third-most points UConn has given up so far this year. And at 1.13 points per possession, Creighton was extremely good, believe it or not. The Jays’ offensive rating of 110.4 is by far the highest surrendered by UConn all year; St. John’s is next-best at 101.4 and every other opponent including Creighton from the first meeting has been under 100. Five opponents have been under 90.
It’s a textbook case where the eye test tells you one thing, and the stats tell another.
Defensively, a lot of attention goes to UConn’s gaudy rebounding totals, and rightfully so. But don’t lose sight of the fact that a decent offensive team even without James Bouknight missed 40 shots. Anyway you slice it, that’s a lot.
โThey got half of them back on offensive rebounds,” McDermott pointed out, “but I liked that when they got the offensive board, we reset our defense. We didn’t just hang our heads and give up an easy basket. We kept playing, and that’s what you have to do. Points in the paint was 32-22 to us. And if we can do that against a team this long and physical, we’re going to have a good chance of winning.”