Key Stats:
The first half was good — nine assists on 20 made baskets, 55.6% shooting from the floor, and just six turnovers despite playing at a breakneck pace. In the second half, their numbers were even more absurd: 1.568 points per possession, with 12 assists on 20 made baskets, and just four turnovers. Oh, and they were 20-30 (66.7%) from the floor, 7-12 from three-point range (58.3%) and 11-11 from the line (100%).
For the game, Creighton scored on 45 of their 80 possessions, which is an average of 1.400 points per possession. How fast did they play? They used an average of only 15 seconds per possession, and quite literally ran a short-handed NC State team into the ground.
Racking up awesome offensive numbers is nothing new for CU. The way they did it Sunday night was. Nearly half — 52 — of their 112 points came in the paint, with Justin Patton once again posterizing hapless defenders with ferocious dunkage, including one where he took flight from just in front of the free throw line for a dunk over two defenders. And midway through the second half, they were winning by 16 points over an NCAA Tournament-quality team from the ACC while losing the three-point battle!
Let that one sink in for a minute. Wow.
Standout Performance:
Cole Huff likes neutral courts. He led the Jays with 17 points in Friday’s win over Washington State, then added 20 more against NC State. In Huff’s Bluejay career, he has averaged 22.0 points per contest in five neutral site games, making 33-57 from the floor (57.0%), and 22-37 of his three-point shots (59.5%). Huff was named MVP of the Men Who Speak Up Main Event in Las Vegas last year, then scored 35 points in his Madison Square Garden debut in the Big East Tournament last spring.
Sunday night was no different. Huff had a double-double with 20 points and 10 rebounds, going 4-7 from the floor and 4-5 from three-point range while making all eight of his free throws.
Recap & Analysis:
NC State coach Mark Gottfried decided running and gunning with the Bluejays was a winning strategy Sunday night, despite a depleted roster of just eight players. Creighton was happy to oblige, and from the outset of the game, played at a blistering pace. It was 11-9 CU after four minutes, as the teams traded offensive blows.
Creighton’s ball movement all night long was sublime, and their very first set of the game was a perfect example:
At least early, though, you could see why NC State thought trying to beat CU at their own game was a smart idea: it was working. With 12:35 to go in the half, the Wolfpack’s Terry Henderson had made four 3-pointers, Mo Watson had two fouls that sent him to the bench, and NC State led 20-15.
With Watson out and Tyler Clement in, NC State looked to take control, but Clement was more than up to the task. First Khyri Thomas converted a layup, Justin Patton came up with a steal and got the ball to Thomas for another basket, and then Cole Huff got into one of his zones: in a span of four possessions, Clement assisted on three Huff 3-pointers. The ridiculous display was matched by 3-pointers from NC State’s Dennis Smith, Jr., Markell Johnson, and a fifth trey from Henderson to keep the Wolfpack ahead 31-30. Finally with 6:18 to go, the Jays took back the lead on a Justin Patton dunk.
But not just any dunk. THIS dunk.
Creighton took the lead for good four minutes later when Watson made one of his patented off-balance-acrobatic layups and drew a hard foul. The three-point play gave CU a 49-47 lead, and they never looked back. Clement, back in for Watson after the hard foul, converted an acrobatic layup of his own and then drained a three-pointer to send the Jays to the locker room with a 54-48 lead.
Early in the second half, the Jays began to pull away and the Wolfpack began to lose their tempers. A Huff three opened the scoring, and then the Bluejays traveled the length of the floor with the ball touching the ground exactly one time — Foster to Thomas to Patton for a dunk:
and the Jays opened up a double-digit advantage. Moments later, Markell Johnson ran into a Cole Huff screen and fell to the floor; a verbal skirmish ensued with the teams needing to be pulled apart. Foster, who’d been in the middle of it, drained a three-pointer almost immediately after play resumed, and let the NC State defender know about it. He was T’d up, and the free throws were a lifeline to the Wolfpack who’d trailed by 12 after the basket but turned it into a four-point play (one free throw from Henderson, a three-pointer by Torin Dorn) to cut it back to eight.
With tempers still flaring, Patton threw down yet ANOTHER dunk, and while excitedly celebrating it, bumped into an NC State defender inadvertently as he turned to run up court. He was also T’d up, because referees hate fun.
(Actually, that’s not fair. Given the situation moments before, anything that might spark another skirmish needed to be nipped in the bud. So the result is that call. I don’t like it, but I get it.)
Fouls were mounting for the short-handed Wolfpack, though, and the pace of the game was wearing them out. With 10:38 to go, Beejay Anya fouled out, and with three of their remaining seven players saddled with four fouls, NC State had little choice but to sit back in a soft zone to keep from running out of players. The result was predictable; Creighton went over the 100-point mark with six minutes left, and ended with 112 points, their most since Willis Reed’s final Bluejay squad hung 115 on Indiana State in January of 1985.
They Said It:
“We were OK with some of what they did offensively. They were shooting, with the two exhibition games, we statted all of it — they were shooting 16% from the three point line. Now we knew Henderson was dangerous, and the ball looked good coming out of his hand even though he wasn’t shooting it great. But we were going to make him hit one or two and plug the lane, because they’re so good at getting to the rim and throwing up lob dunks. If you watched them against Montana, they were throwing those flip-up dunks that we did tonight, and we were able to keep them out of the paint. I think the points in the paint was a huge advantage in our favor — 52 to 26. When we can put pressure on the rim like that and go with our transition game? We’re pretty doggone good.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame
“Obviously, defensively we’re not where we want to be. Part of it is that we’re playing at an incredible pace and you give up a few things when you do that. Really proud of the guys off the bench. Tyler came in early with Maurice’s foul trouble, and we actually made up ground and took the lead. I think we were down five when I went to him. He’s had a great two games here. Toby, Zach, and Z just continue to be rock solid. I’ve never had it before where I’ve had that kind of experience on the bench. Usually you’re bringing young guys without experience in, and you don’t know what’s going to happen. Often times, things get a little bit better when those guys come in just because they’re fresh, they’ve been there and done that, and to their credit they’ve accepted their new role. They’re playing really well.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame
“One of the things we were concerned about was their offensive rebounding. We got bodies on them, and with every transition basket we scored, they were less and less apt to run at that rim to crash the offensive boards. That’s what our transition game has to do for us, it has to allow opponents that are great offensive rebounding teams to maybe think twice about crashing the glass because if they don’t get it, we’re going to get out and run. Maurice did a great job of putting pressure on the defense all night long, Khyri was great, right across the board really — Cole, I haven’t even mentioned him yet and he was outstanding, and Marcus I thought bounced back from a tough-shooting first half to play well in the second half. So we did some really, really good things offensively. Obviously when you put 112 on the board against a pretty good ACC team you’re doing some things right. We’ll continue to work on the defensive end and try to get a little better there.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame
“We rotated guys defensively on Dorn. Khyri spent most of the time on Smith, and did a good job of poking at the ball just enough to make him uncomfortable, using his length to his advantage. Maurice had to guard Dorn, which is a bad matchup because he’s bigger and longer, but we did it in an attempt to keep him out of foul trouble. And of course he still ended up with two early ones, both in kind of broken plays. Defensively I thought we did some good things at times. We put together a gameplan to take away the paint, and dare them to take some three point shots, and they made quite a few of them. Fortunately our offense was at an unbelievably high efficiency rate tonight.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame
“Everything starts with Justin. He’s going to be able to outrun almost every center we play all year. Just putting that pressure on the rim is huge, and Maurice has a trust level with him that he hasn’t ever had with any of our other centers, just to throw it up there somewhere — on that one in the second half, I didn’t know where he was throwing it (laughs) and Justin came from nowhere, grabbed it, and dunked it. There’s a great level of trust on this team right now. Guys coming off the bench have embraced their role, they’re working hard in practice, and I told my staff in shoot-around today that the focus of the five starters and the first few guys off the bench as we talked about what to do against the zone. Some of those corner threes were plays that we just added, we hadn’t run them before. We added them the last two days because of some things we saw on film. To be able to lock in and remember where you’re supposed to be on plays like that on a short turnaround is really a credit to the leadership of our team. They’re focused and they’re making sure everybody is paying attention.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame
You Said It:
https://twitter.com/crimebait/status/800519362516054017
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