Recap:
The little things often make the biggest difference in a championship-level game. Tuesday night in the game that will likely decide the regular season Big East champ, Creighton’s little mistakes added up and became too much to overcome.
Ahead 32-20 with 4:58 to go in the first half after a three by Ryan Nembhard, the Jays got sloppy. They went 2-1/2 minutes without a point, committing two turnovers and missing the front end of a one-and-one. Defensively, they surrendered baskets to four different Marquette players, and after a communication breakdown on the weak side with just under two minutes to go, Tyler Kolek found a cutting Stevie Mitchell for a wide-open layup. CU’s 12-point lead was down to five — instead of stepping on Marquette when they had the chance, the Jays abandoned what got them there and gave the Golden Eagles life.
Then, the start of the second half. Oh, boy, the start of the second half. Leading 40-32, the Jays came out and committed a turnover on nine of their first 21 possessions. Marquette erased the lead with an 8-0 run in 2:52; they built a 10-point lead of their own with a 13-0 run over 4:00 a little bit later.
“We kinda lost our minds,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “It was every kind of turnover — we drove it into traffic, we had a travel against the press that was a pretty simple play, we tried to throw a couple skip passes without a pass fake first. It’s disappointing.”
It really was every kind of turnover imaginable.
- 18:21 – Trey Alexander dribbled into the paint and lost the handle; Tyler Kolek came up with the steal
- 17:42 – Alexander tried to lob a pass over the top to Ryan Kalkbrenner, but it was deflected by Oso Ighodaro
- 17:16 – Ryan Nembhard attempted a skip pass to Alexander, but it was deflected by Stevie Mitchell
- 15:19 – Kalkbrenner passed out of a double-team in the post, but his bounce pass was intercepted by Kolek
- 15:00 – Nembhard had a skip pass in transition deflected by two separate Marquette players, and stolen by Mitchell
- 14:00 – Nembhard travelled while catching the inbounds pass in the backcourt
- 12:49 – Baylor Scheierman dribbled into a double-team, and airmailed a pass intended for Shereef Mitchell on the wing into the second row of the seats
That’s seven turnovers in 5-1/2 minutes, the combination of an aggressive defense and an offense that felt the snowball rolling downhill — and couldn’t stop it.
“Carelessness. Just being careless with the ball,” Ryan Nembhard said. “Not getting in there, setting our feet, and doing what we said we were going to do in our scouting report. We did it in the first half but got away from it in the second. Once they got going and went on a run (deep exhale)…it was tough. It was tough.”
Despite that barrage of turnovers, CU led 53-50 after Scheierman came up with a steal of his own and scored on this layup, followed by a dunk from Fredrick King:
But then they went scoreless for four minutes, while Ighodaro and Kam Jones scored all 13 points in 13-0 Marquette run field by poor Bluejay shot selection and more turnovers. After the last of those 13 points, McDermott had seen enough of Arthur Kaluma’s defensive miscues and buried him on the bench for the final 8:08 of the game. Part of that was certainly a desire to go with a smaller lineup with an extra ball handler, but Kaluma was so bad it made the decision an easy one. Francisco Farabello subbed in, the Jays switched to a zone, and they started to mount a comeback.
“We talked about some adjustments at halftime, but we just didn’t execute them very well,” McDermott said. “Jones made some really tough shots over top of Kalkbrenner. When the point guard and the center are the two primary ball handlers and their best passers, it just presents some challenges that are very very difficult. So difficult that we switched into a zone. In hindsight, I wish I would have gone to it sooner, because it slowed their flow down.”
McDermott added that he felt like his team did not match Marquette’s physicality, noting that the Golden Eagles blew up their screens repeatedly — while on the other end, the Jays didn’t navigate their screens well at all.
“It wasn’t any adjustment they made, it was the rhythm they were playing in, honestly,” Nembhard added. “They were getting easy buckets in transition. They ran the same ball screen action all game. It’s tough to guard.”
That made the switch to a zone a smart tactical move, and Marquette didn’t have an answer for it. They went five minutes without a point and seven minutes without a field goal. In the meantime, Scheierman drained a long three to kickstart a run:
His decision to intentionally foul Ighodaro, a poor free throw shooter, with 3:02 to go, was not smart. The Jays were on a 7-0 run, having held Marquette scoreless for five minutes. The Golden Eagles were on the ropes with 18,000 fans screaming. And not only did Ighodaro make both free throws, it was Kalkbrenner who committed the intentional foul — his third. 20 seconds later he picked up his fourth when Olivier-Maxence Prosper managed to turn this bit of incidental contact into a dramatic 12-foot stumble that caught the attention of the officials. Or rather, of Jeff Anderson standing on the opposite end of the court, not of the official closest to the play.
Still, the run continued as Nembhard made a circus shot under the rim, then made a free throw to cut the lead to 67-65. Watch how Farabello creates the space for the shot with his movement — and then throws a perfectly timed pass to Nembhard cutting to the basket.
Scheierman then cleared a board after a defensive stop, and scored a bucket at the rim to tie the game with 1:32 left.
But then Kolek took over the game, first with a drive all the way to the rim to give Marquette a 69-67 lead:
And then, after Nembhard tied it on a pair of free throws, Kolek scored again on a floater over the top of Kalkbrenner.
But the Jays had the ball with the shot clock off and a chance to win. They created a really good look for Alexander, getting him an open three. It missed. And then the emotions of the night bubbled over on both sides.
Trailing 73-71 with 1.9 seconds left, Creighton got what they felt was a clean steal of an inbounds pass under their own basket — and a wide open game-tying layup by Kalkbrenner. But Nembhard was whistled for a foul, McDermott was outraged, and referee Jeff Anderson did what he does best by making himself the center of attention. After McDermott swung his arm in the air as he protested the ball, Anderson squared up to him in an aggressive posture, fists clenched.
Not a great look. And it turned an already frustrated crowd into an angry one — if part of an official’s job is to keep control of a game, Anderson’s reaction did the opposite.
I’m not a great lip reader but you can see exactly what McDermott yelled to him on FS1’s replay. “That’s bulls***. That’s bulls*** and you know it!”
Creighton and Marquette fans are never going to agree on this. Jays fans will say that sort of contact had gone uncalled all night, and that it was incidental to the outcome of the play — Jones isn’t catching that pass even if he doesn’t fall over. Marquette fans will point to Nembhard’s hands on his back prior to the ball being inbounded as evidence of a foul. It’s the falling over that’s really the key here; much like Kalkbrenner’s fourth foul where Prosper stumbled across the court before falling, Jones did an A+ job of selling it. That’s gamesmanship and to his credit.
My feeling is if that contact is a foul, then the contact on Alexander a week ago in Providence at the end of the game is also a foul. That went uncalled. This could have as well. The lesson, as always: don’t blow a 12-point lead at home, don’t turn the ball over 15 times, and don’t leave the outcome of a game up to an official’s judgment call.
And if you do, and you get burned, don’t blame the loss on that judgment call when it comes — which it inevitably will. That’s easy for me to say on the morning after, though. In the moment, fans inside the arena were livid. Things were thrown onto the floor in the vicinity of Marquette’s bench. Even in the heat of the moment, that’s obviously not OK, and McDermott was correct in calling it out.
“That’s unacceptable,” McDermott said. “We win with class and lose with class. We respect our opponents and we respect the game. We appreciate every one of the 18,000-plus that were here tonight but there’s no place for that kind of behavior at Creighton. You get upset at the call, that’s my job. But we don’t do that. That’s not what we’re about. I’m just disappointed that it happened and I don’t ever want it to happen again. It’s not who we are. It’s not who we’ve ever been and it’s not who we’re going to be.”
It certainly made Shaka Smart’s reaction after the final horn more understandable, even if he was diplomatic in his press conference afterward.
“I thought the crowd was phenomenal,” Smart said afterward. “You know, they were getting after us. They probably don’t like me, but we’re going to come in here or anywhere we go with an edge about us. We’re going to do everything we can to believe in ourselves that we can go in and win. There’s no other way. You can’t tiptoe in here.”
The loss ends any realistic chances of a Big East title for the Jays, which is disappointing because that’s what they were predicted to do in the preseason — and it’s the first goalpost they’ve been driving toward. They’ve now missed it, and will need to shift their focus immediately.
Up next is Villanova, who upset Xavier on Tuesday. To attain their other goals, they have to turn the page.
Inside the Box:
Over their last seven games, Creighton’s had double-digit turnovers all seven times:
- Marquette (15)
- St. Johns (15)
- Providence (14)
- UConn (11)
- Seton Hall (19)
- Villanova (10)
- Georgetown (10)
The big problem in this game wasn’t so much the number as it was the way they were bunched together — 15 turnovers spread across 40 minutes is one thing. Nine of them spread across a 21-possession span is quite another.
“Turnovers dictated the game,” Nembhard said. “We weren’t able to get shots up — if we got shots up on those possessions and make half of them, we’d have been in good position to win the game. But they do a good job of switching up and plugging gaps. They’re tough.”
They weren’t the only problem, of course. From December 22 when Kalkbrenner returned to the lineup until last night, CU had been limiting opponents to 43.1% shooting from 2 point range, the fifth best mark in the country. Tuesday, Marquette shot 57.5% on two-point shots, including 46 points in the paint. I felt in the Primer that Marquette would need to get hot from outside in order to win. I was very, very wrong. They made just five 3-pointers — and did to Creighton, one of the best interior defenses in the country, what they’ve done to every other team they’ve played.
Tyler Kolek was the main reason for that. As WBR’s Matt DeMarinis pointed out, Kolek was 0-of-3 from the floor with two turnovers in the first 18 minutes last night. From that point on he either scored or assisted on 12 of Marquette’s last 17 field goals, including the two game-winning baskets in the final minute — a righty layup and a lefty floater on back-to-back possessions. If you can stomach it, here’s a supercut of those plays.
His performance probably sealed the deal for Kolek as Big East Player of the Year, and after watching him carry the Golden Eagles to victory it would get no argument from me.
On the flip side, Creighton’s most important player was held to just 12 points on five shot attempts, as Marquette’s constant double-teams disrupted Kalkbrenner’s ability to score in the paint.
The loss, and all the ugly stats associated with it, obscure some really, really great things that happened. Baylor Scheierman had 18 points and 13 rebounds, hitting some key shots in their late comeback.
Mason Miller was once again a spark off the bench, drilling two 3-pointers and drawing a charge — in other words, providing exactly the spark you want from a bench player. Shereef Mitchell continued his resurgence, scoring just two points in six minutes but lighting up Kolek in the time he guarded him. You wonder what would have happened had Mitchell played more down the stretch, and how it might have changed the outcome given how well he defended the Golden Eagles’ star. That’s a question not many would have asked — or considered — a month ago.
Francisco Farabello played 20 minutes and was a big part of the late-game comeback that nearly won the game. His minutes came at the expense of Arthur Kaluma, who played just 16 minutes and spent the final eight minutes of the game on the bench. Kaluma began the night with a hammer slam on the first possession of the game — and didn’t score again. He was 1-of-6 from the floor, reverted to iso-ball that killed the offense’s motion, and his defense on Prosper was porous.
Creighton made 10-of-28 three-pointers (35.7 percent) and 26-of-54 field goal attempts (48.1 percent) overall — good enough numbers to win. The Jays won the rebound battle 34-32 and outscored MU 15-2 off the bench, again, winnable numbers.
But they didn’t win, and now they head into a final three-game swing needing a strong finish to solidify their position for both the Big East and NCAA Tournaments.
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