Key Stats:
Villanova makes an absolutely absurd 28-of-32 two point shots, and as a result of hardly ever missing, they log an equally absurd stat — zero offensive rebounds. Creighton starts the game 0-11 from three-point range, finishes the first half 2-14, and shoots 5-23 for the game.
Standout Performance:
On a night like this, there wasn’t enough consistency from anyone to standout, much less carry the team to victory. Cole Huff started strong, scoring six points in the first ten minutes but just seven the rest of the way, while continuously getting beaten on defense. James Milliken scored the last seven points of the first half to cut the deficit to five, started the second half in place of Khyri Thomas, and went scoreless in the frame without even attempting a shot. Mo Watson was limited in the first half by foul trouble — thanks to a silly foul 90 feet from the basket — and then played 19 minutes in the second half, where he scored 12 points on 5-10 shooting and 2-3 from the line with three assists. Geoff Groselle attempted one shot the entire game in 25 minutes, and played perhaps the worst defense he’s played all season.
Recap & Analysis:
Determined to not allow Villanova to do to them what they did to Xavier, Creighton did an admirable job of not allowing Villanova to get open looks from three-point range, and forcing them to drive the ball inside. The problem with that strategy: they had no answer, and seemingly no ability, to stop anyone from Villanova once they got inside. The Wildcats only missed four two-point shots all night, and scored 60 of their 85 points either on points in the paint or from the free throw line. They put on a clinic for blowing past defenders, and everyone in white and blue was guilty.
Daniel Ochefu (9-10, 19 points) abused Creighton’s frontline all night, creating his own shot all night long and making everything he shot. Jalen Brunson (6-8 overall, 2-3 from three-point range, 15 points) and Josh Hart (10-14 overall, 2-4 from three, 25 points) were equally unstoppable for Bluejay defenders.
And yet somehow, the Jays did just enough to hang around and keep the outcome in doubt for 3/4 of the game. For most of the game, the teams traded runs — every time Villanova tried to pull away, Creighton got back to within two or three possessions, only to see Villanova immediately push the lead back out. The end result was a frustrating defeat, because this felt like a game of missed opportunities. If the Jays make more than 2-14 from three-point range in the first half — and at least six or seven of the misses were wide open looks that they’ve made a million times, and that were great-looking shots until they weren’t — they probably lead. Despite all of the defensive lapses, they trailed by just seven with 10:00 to play. And until the final eight minutes of the game, it honestly felt like they were three possessions away from flipping the outcome — three stops in a row and three baskets away from a lead — because they were right there.
Of course, their normally average defense being several notches below average on this night kept that from happening, their normally potent offense going silent kept them from keeping up, and combined with the fact that Villanova is just a much, much better team, the Wildcats emerged with a dominating win.
They Said It:
“Villanova was great. There was no question who the better team was. I was disappointed in — granted it’s a short prep, and it’s not the easiest team to play on a short prep — our inability to follow our plan, from a scouting report standpoint. And the bottom line is, sometimes this game comes down to ‘It’s me against you, and either I’m a bigger man or you’re a bigger man. Either I’m going to the basket or you’re going to stop me.’ And tonight…they went to the basket.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“We didn’t provide near enough resistance with the person guarding the ball or with the consistency of our help. It’s one of two things. Either what we’re doing technically is wrong, and I have to evaluate that and try to put them in better positions to be successful. Or the people I have out there doing it are the wrong people, and I have to get some different people on the floor. And I’ll evaluate that as well.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“Our gameplan was that, four out of their five guys can shoot, so we had to guard the dribble and then provide help defense. We didn’t come out aggressive enough on defense. We didn’t have the same intensity on defense we have in practice. And when you allow a team who’s a Top 20 team in the country to shoot 70%, you’re not going to win no matter how many shots you make.” -Maurice Watson in postgame press conference
“I think Villanova is a very disciplined team. They stick to what they do. But total, we shot almost 50% for the game and we missed a lot of open looks from three. So I think that even though they played great defense, we still shot almost 50% from the field and we just didn’t make some open threes. That’s our identity, to Let It Fly, and shooting 5-23 is tough. So we have to get in the gym and get better.” -Maurice Watson in postgame press conference
“I think the reason why we were able to stay in the game in the first half is because I think they might have had ten turnovers in the first half. They didn’t shoot the ball well from three either, and that allowed us to stay in it. When we run our offense, and we knock down some threes, that gets our crowd into it, and it seemed like every time we were ready to make that run, a three rimmed in and out. That is kinda deflating when you’re a team that shoots threes, it takes your confidence away a little bit. I was telling my guys, keep shooting. I’m gonna keep coming back to you, and I’m gonna keep giving you the ball. It’s deflating because that’s our identity. But we won’t change. We need to come more prepared, and we’re going to keep fighting for these fans, for everybody in white and blue, for our coaches. Everybody’s disappointed in the defensive end. Our offense will come, we’re not worried about that. You won’t shoot 70% every night, but when you don’t have those great shooting nights, you have to be able to buckle down on defense, and we didn’t do that tonight.”-Maurice Watson in postgame press conference
“I’d say it’s just a lack of discipline. We talked a lot about staying down on shot fakes, because we know they like to shot fake and get into the paint and spray it from there. We just weren’t disciplined enough to do that. We came out and people were flying around but we just have to be better as a team defensively to cover up for those mistakes.” -Isaiah Zierden in postgame press conference
“As Mo said, they’re very disciplined, and they stick to what they’re supposed to do. Whenever we got by the first defender, they had somebody there waiting. We tip our caps to them, they did what they were supposed to do defensively.” -Isaiah Zierden in postgame press conference
“We’re extremely disappointed. We drill it in practice every day for a good amount of time. We can do it in drills, it just has to find a way to carry over to the game. I think that’s just a mentality of breaking it down individually, and individually taking your man’s will away, so to speak, and making sure that he’s not going to beat you tonight. But then also, when somebody does get beat off the dribble, you gotta be there to help and have their back. So it’s really just a mentality of carrying it over.” -Isaiah Zierden in postgame press conference
“Hart hit a couple of those face-ups, that we had scouted and he was supposed to be guarded and he wasn’t. Some of his baskets came off of situations where we were forced to help and the person that was supposed to help Geoff or Zach wasn’t in the right position, and so he got an easy one. We just made some really foolish decisions at times defensively. For no reason. We did things we don’t practice, where guys just went off on their own, and when one guy does that, the other four aren’t expecting it and that makes it really hard to cover up for. All of my fears, and really everything that I’ve talked to our team about, as we moved along here through the non-conference portion of our schedule, came to fruition here tonight. I was worried this could happen to us. We’ve tried to address it as the players alluded to. We spend a tremendous amount of time on it on the practice floor. But when the lights go on, you’ve got to do it. And we didn’t do it, and that’s my responsibility to make sure they do it. So like I said, either we have to tweak what we do or we have to tweak who is doing it. And maybe it’s a combination of the two.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“The frustrating part is I think there are some individuals that just refuse to take ownership of what they need to do on that end of the floor, and how that would impact our team if their approach was slightly different. Take a guy like Zierden. He’s probably the least-equipped defender that we have in terms of size and length and athletic ability. But yet he probably does as good a job as anyone on our team. So it’s possible. You don’t have to be the strongest and fastest and longest to be a good defender. You just have to be be in the right spot, you have to have some toughness about you. For example, that play Toby made at the end on that ball screen. He got a hand on it, he dove on the floor for the loose ball. Where are those plays out of the rest of the frontline? They’re not happening. Why aren’t they happening? The opportunities for them to happen are there, but they’re not happening. So we have to make sure the guys we put on the floor are willing to make those plays.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“Obviously Toby’s been out, and for this being the first time back, he did some good things. He had five rebounds, he made some hustle plays in the 16 minutes he played. We have to get him back on the floor more. Cole got off to a good start offensively, but he can be better defensively. This was one of Geoff’s poorer games defensively. They’ll look at the film and they’ll be hungry to get better. And I have to help them get better. That’s the reality. So we’re going to hook it up tomorrow and just see who wants to do it. I think it’s in there, I really believe it.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“But don’t misunderstand, I’m not going to push the panic button. We just got beat by a team that just beat a Top-10 team in the country by 30. Blew their doors off. So this is a very talented and confident and experienced Villanova basketball team. We got it to 61-54 with seven or eight minutes left, and then they come out and score on like seven or eight possessions in a row. They hadn’t made threes, and then bang-bang-bang, Brunson hits two back-to-back. They have to ability to do that to you. Frankly, they have the ability to make you look stupid defensively. In the games they’ve lost, they were 4-32 against Oklahoma or that game’s totally different, and they go into Virginia against a Top-Five team and it’s a two-point game with three minutes to go. There’s some great basketball teams in our league, but they’re still the class of our league until somebody does something about it. They are. They pick their spots, they find the weakness in the other team’s defense, and they exploit it. They have the roster to be able to do that. We tried to limit the number of threes they got the first half. They said, ‘Alright, we won’t shoot threes, we’ll drive on you.’ Teams that have packed it in on them…well, that’s kind of what Xavier does, and they made 15 threes on them. You really have to pick your poison with this team because they’re extremely well-coached, they’re extremely experienced, they’ve got a big guy they can throw it into if things get a little rough and they can usually get either a basket or free throws. You’re real fearful to double-team because of the threat of the shooters they put on the floor.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“I have to have a balance in my disappointment at how we competed and how we played, while making sure I tap the brakes a little to understand we got beat by a very, very good basketball team. They shot an incredible percentage and a lot of it was because it was easy shots. But we also hung in there for 30 minutes despite them making all those shots. We certainly did some good things to keep ourselves in the game. Like every game, win or lose, you evaluate it, you try to learn from it, and then you scrap it. That’s what you have to do, especially when you’re in a league like we’re in this year.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“I thought we got really good looks in the first half at times. Z had a couple, Cole had a couple, James had some. They’re shots we have to make. I felt going in, if Villanova played well we were going to have to make 10-12 three-pointers. When you’re playing a team like Villanova, or Oklahoma, or Indiana, you have to do something pretty well. We make 12 threes at Oklahoma, it’s a close game until the last three minutes. Tonight we don’t and it kind of gets away from us. It’s tough because that’s who we have to be. They did a good job of switching some screens and keeping us off-balance. When we got the matchup we wanted inside, we were impatient. Rather than keeping the ball moving, waiting to get it to the other side and then get it in against a mismatch, we attempted to get it in on the first side. We turned it over three or four times that way. We know better, because we practice it. We just have to execute it.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference