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Morning After: #21 Georgetown 67, Creighton 40

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton makes just 11 field goals on the afternoon, and misses 23 straight shots at one point. The End.

Standout Performance:

It stands out in a bad way, but it’s a standout performance nonetheless. James Milliken went 1-12 from the floor on Saturday, including 0-6 in the first half when the game was being decided. He wasn’t alone — everyone shot poorly, even the halftime act that was dunking off of trampolines — but he was the worst offender. Yeesh.

Recap & Analysis:

Last January, Creighton rolled Butler 88-60 by scoring on 14 straight possessions. That 32-6 run encompassed nine minutes and 47 seconds. I bring this up because on Saturday, Creighton experienced the yang to that yin — they missed 23 consecutive shots over a span of 17 minutes, during which Georgetown turned a 15-12 Creighton lead into a 43-18 edge.

That’s a 31-6 run, if you’re keeping score. Eerily similar to what Creighton did to Butler a year ago, no?

In the aftermath of Saturday’s humbling loss, it was tempting to think that this game was an outlier, just as Wednesday night’s great shooting display against St. John’s was an outlier on the other side of the season graph. Except, it’s really not. This is a team that went 16 minutes without a field goal against Middle Tennessee State back in November; you’ve probably tried to forget that hot mess of a game where they made three second-half field goals yet still won, but it happened. This is a team that made just seven first-half field goals at North Texas and trailed by 27 points before rallying to nearly win. They scored a meager 50 points last Sunday night in Philadelphia in a loss to #4 Villanova, scored just 52 points at Marquette, and logged only 53 points at Providence. They’re a bad offensive team that occasionally is less bad, and every once in a while is pretty good. That’s harsh, but what else is there to say?

The shame of Saturday is that those games above all came on the road, while this one came at home, in front of a sold out crowd that was ready and willing to do its’ damnedest to will the team to victory. After Georgetown jumped out to a 9-0 lead out of the gates, Creighton erased it — and took the lead! — thanks to a 15-3 run. I’m telling you, the arena was loud, poised to do their part to help Creighton pull the upset.

And then they didn’t score for the final ten minutes of the half.

Amazingly, the defense (or Georgetown’s offensive execution — it was hard to tell through the glare of all the missed shots) kept the score respectable, and they trailed by only 11 at the half. This despite sitting Rick Kreklow for the final 18 minutes of the half because he picked up two quick fouls. This despite Toby Hegner going 0-4 from the floor, James Milliken going 0-6, and Austin Chatman going 1-6. It was 28-17 Georgetown, which wasn’t terrific, but all things considered not as bad as it should have been.

There were people who honestly thought the Jays could come back. And why not? They erased a nine-point hole earlier in the game relatively quickly, so what’s an 11-point deficit?

Seven more scoreless minutes, which coincided with an explosion of offense from Georgetown, put those thoughts six feet under. The Hoyas used a 15-1 run to take a 43-18 lead, and that was that. Creighton finally made a shot (a three from Avery Dingman ended the drought), and they even strung a couple of mini-runs together, but they never got closer than 17 points the rest of the afternoon.

The 40-point output is their lowest since scoring 38 points in a 71-38 loss to Missouri State in February of 1994 (the third-to-last game of the Rick Johnson Era).

It’s a new low point in a season filled with lows. For the afternoon, Milliken finished 1-12 from the floor and 0-4 from three-point range, scoring three points in 33 minutes. Hegner went 1-7 for five points, but continued his growth as a post player with eight tough rebounds against Georgetown’s front line. Chatman went 1-7 from the floor, but had zero turnovers and managed to assist on three of the Bluejays 11 made baskets. And Devin Brooks went 2-8 shooting, though he had seven rebounds and two assists.

Yuck. Bad offensive nights — although hopefully not ones this bad — will happen from time to time, even to the best of teams. The thing that’s unforgivable is the energy and the effort that the team played with on Saturday. Coming off of their first win on Wednesday, I really believed they’d come out with a ton of energy and give Georgetown a helluva game. Hell, I thought they’d win, and predicted as much. Instead, they came out flat. They didn’t play as hard as they’re capable of. They didn’t look focused. They didn’t go all-out. That’s really surprising, and really disappointing.

Georgetown's Jabril Trawick blocks Devin Brooks' shot attempt. (Photo by Mike Spomer for White & Blue Review)

Georgetown’s Jabril Trawick blocks Devin Brooks’ shot attempt. (Photo by Mike Spomer for White & Blue Review)

Quotables:

“That was a pretty poor performance on our part. I don’t think we had the intensity we needed from the start of this game to the end. We didn’t have everybody buying in and leaving it all out there. They’re a big, physical team, and if you’re doing to do that against anybody, this is not the team to do it against. But that’s exactly what we did. That’s exactly why we got blown out at home like this.” -Rick Kreklow on 1620AM Postgame

“We were not ready. We didn’t have it today in terms of being ready to play as hard as we could, to play a physical game, and to do the things we have to do to make up for not being the most athletic team. That’s something we didn’t come out and do today. That’s why we saw the results that we did, when you tie that in with just not shooting the ball well tonight, which is going to happen. You do all those things, you’re in for a rough game.” -Rick Kreklow on 1620AM Postgame

“Offensively, we did get some good looks. I think they’re a long team that can alter shots — I don’t know how many blocks they had, but they had a few — but even still, when you get those little midrange jumpers, they’re already kind of tough shots to begin with but when you get a hand in your face it makes it even a little bit tougher. And I don’t think anybody had it going from outside today, in terms of getting good clean looks and knocking them down. I just…we didn’t do a lot right today.” -Rick Kreklow on 1620AM Postgame

“That first foul was just stupid on my part. I mean, I just saw the Georgetown player being lazy with the ball on a rebound and thought I could poke it out. Those are frustrating because those are happening all game on both ends. But you get a ref looking at it at the wrong time, you get called for a foul. And then, you tell yourself you have to watch out for that second one, and sure enough on the next play it was a drive-and-kick, and I turned around to try and throw my hands straight up. You don’t want to try and put that kind of play in the refs hands, but that’s what I did. And I got bit by it. It was rough having to sit the rest of the first half on the bench, and then trying to come out and find a rhythm again in the second. It makes it tough to play and it’s my fault for putting myself in that position. But it’s also just a little bit of bad luck there too.” -Rick Kreklow on 1620AM Postgame

“We can’t be…well, obviously, you’re never satisfied being 1-8, but there can’t be any slip-ups for us. I know I’m kind of saying the same thing again, but we don’t have a lot of room for error and we can’t make the mistakes we’re making. You know you’re going to miss shots, it’s part of the game in basketball. You’re going to have some turnovers. But you need to make sure you shore up what is in your control. And that’s how hard you’re playing, attention to detail on the scouting report, and knowing what you individually have to do to put your team in the best position to win. We did not do that.” -Rick Kreklow on 1620AM Postgame

“We didn’t really give ourselves a chance. I don’t care how good you play on defense, if we shoot it that bad we’re not really going to have a chance to be in the game. It’s tough. I thought we played well defensively in the first half, and we missed a lot of bunnies so it could have been an even game, really. We outrebounded them. We just didn’t hit shots, as simple as that. And then in the second half we lost focus.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“From the first couple of possessions, we just seemed a little off. I’m not really sure what to attribute it to, but we started off slow. Then we hit some shots, it was a game, and then we let them go on a little run to end the half. We just couldn’t hit shots. I don’t know what it was. We threw up multiple air-balls. It was just not there for some reason today.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“I did not see anything in the locker room or in practice that would have tipped me off that we were in for this kind of performance. I thought they were loose, I thought they were in a good place, I thought they really understood what we had to do defensively. And that’s always part of the equation with Georgetown. But part of the equation with Georgetown, as we found out today, is that it’s hard to score. They’re long, they’re physical, they’re athletic. We have to convert the open shots that we get. In the first half, we had layups at the rim that were uncontested and we missed them. That’s very deflating to a team when that happens.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I thought the guys stuck with them when we got down 9-0, and we came back and went on I think a 13-0 run to take the lead. But I’ve never been part of a game like this where our offense was as anemic as it was today. We preach movement in our timeouts, and we never got it. We preached movement at halftime, and we never got it. We have to figure out why that happened. The reality of it is, you have to make shots, and over the course of time, once we continued missing shots, it started affecting other parts of our game. It’s not often you have a game like this where everybody on the roster shoots it bad the same night. That’s what happened today.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Foul trouble really derailed us. As I told Ricky, that first foul was really foolish. It was 94 feet from the basket. You just can’t make that foul. And then on the next play we were forced into a situation where we had to help, and you get another one. If I had to do it all over again, I’d have played him with two fouls. My intention was to get to the 12-minute timeout and go back with him, but during that stretch we went on the run. That group was playing great together, and it stayed at 17-15, I think it was 19-15 inside of the last timeout. We talked as a staff and decided let’s leave him on the bench, as long as we can stay within a basket or two we’re OK. And then of course they hit two baskets at the end there to stretch the lead and go up 11.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“We felt pretty good to be down 11 as bad as we played offensively. We were 5-22 from the three-point line, but 6-31 on two-point shots. We have to figure out a way to get easy baskets, because it’s so hard for this team to get easy baskets. When we do get one, we have to finish it. We didn’t finish many of those today.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Josh Smith’s foul trouble probably hurt us. He’s somebody that you have to gameplan for because there’s nobody like him in our league, much less in the country, that’s as big and physical as he is in the low block. Him only playing 14 minutes really hurt us because it didn’t allow us to do what we wanted to do defensively to defend their ball screens. And on the other side, Hopkins is athletic enough and quick enough that he can stay in front of our guys and challenge their shots, and also make them tough at the rim. It’s a good Georgetown team, they’re ranked in the Top 25 for a reason, but it’s unfortunate. I was scared that this could happen to us at some point because I’ve seen stretches of it in practice over the course of the year. I just didn’t think it would happen today, coming off our best offensive performance in Big East play, and a couple of pretty good days of practice. Guys had a bounce in their step and were shooting the basketball pretty well. After three games in six days, were we tired? I don’t know, I don’t have an answer to that. But those were some of the poorest offensive numbers I’ve ever been a part of.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Much like the rest of the year, we’re going to have to find a way to keep these guys’ chins up. My guess is they’re going to be as down as they’ve been all year after this, because it’s one thing to have it happen, but it’s another thing to have it happen to the extent that it happened. And then you throw on top of it that it was in front of a great crowd, and we just never were able to get the crowd engaged in the game except for early in the first half. And we really appreciate people sticking with us, and being here today. It means the world to our team. I know that. And we’re not home for awhile, we only have two home games in February and I think they’re two days apart.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I’m disappointed for our guys, I hurt for our guys, I know they don’t have any answers as to why shots aren’t going in but I’m confident that they’ll go back to work. You have to be careful of not making it bigger than it is. It’s one game, it’s a loss, certainly a devastating loss, but given what we’ve been through we can’t dwell on it very long. This group is very fragile. I don’t know, I don’t have the answer. I talked to the staff a little bit after the game and we were all a bit speechless because we certainly didn’t see it coming. We thought this was a prepared team. We left the practice floor yesterday afternoon and left the film room this morning thinking everybody was on point as to what we needed to do. And I think defensively, in the first half, we did it. But I have no answer for what’s going on offensively. It was really a struggle today.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

And Now, Here’s What You Had to Say:

 

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