Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Inside the Box:
Creighton matched their season-high with 13 made three-pointers, shooting 13-for-26 (50.0%) for the game. They had a season-best 25 assists, with only eight made shots coming without an assist. They made 57.9% of their shots overall. And their 18 (!) steals tied an all-time program record, matching a mark they’ve had four times previously (12/18/1991 at Cleveland State, 12/12/1999 vs Illinois State, 11/07/2007 vs Savannah State, and 11/20/2008 vs Arkansas Pine Bluff.)
DePaul had 21 turnovers, leading to 30 Creighton points. CU won the rebound battle 34-31, outscored DePaul 32-30 on points in the paint, 30-16 on points off turnovers, and 26-8 on fastbreak points.
Ty-Shon Alexander was on another level, even compared to what he’s been doing the last six weeks. He scored 24 points on 8-of-12 shooting and 3-of-5 from three-point range. He had eight assists and five steals. And he took away DePaul’s only legitimate perimeter threat, Jalen Coleman-Lands, with suffocating defense.
“Ty-Shon is playing incredible defense,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “Coleman-Lands is the one guy on that team who can make five or six threes and he just gave him no room. And then besides that, some of his anticipation skills off the ball were outstanding. He’s playing at a high level right now.”
CU also got 12 apiece from Damien Jefferson and Mitch Ballock, and 11 apiece from Marcus Zegarowski and Shereef Mitchell. Jefferson’s continued brilliance in the open floor and in the paint, Ballock getting back on track after being shut out at Seton Hall, and Zegarowski captaining the speedboat that is Creighton’s offense were all great. But it was Mitchell’s return to the lineup after nearly three weeks that was the most exciting.
“Shereef returning is huge,” McDermott noted. “Number one, because he changes the game. It’s like bringing in a pitcher that throws 102 under your chin instead of someone who throws a changeup and a bunch of junk. That’s Shereef. He can get into the ball, he can change what the ball handler is thinking, he allows us to take some chances behind him and at the same time it allows us to give guys who are playing 35-40 minutes a little bit more of a rest.”
DePaul’s Paul Reed and Jaylen Butz, averaging 25.5 points and 15.9 rebounds a game between them (15.1/10.6 for Reed, 10.4/5.3 for Butz) were rendered nearly invisible by the Bluejay defense. Reed had 3 points and 3 rebounds. Butz had 2 points and 1 rebound. Both were benched for long stretches of the second half as yet another Bluejay opponent found themselves unable to compete with traditional big men on the floor, and had to go small to stay in the game.
“We tried to make Reed’s catches difficult,” McDermott said. “Reed and Butz are two terrific players. We were worried about both of them because of their physicality. But I thought (Christian Bishop) really battled early and (Damien Jefferson) really did a good job of making his looks tough, making sure he doesn’t get easy stuff in transition, making sure he doesn’t get easy stuff off of an offensive board. Sometimes a good player like that, all they need is to get jump-started and then you have to deal with them the rest of the night.”
Recap:
#23 Creighton was ready to run from the moment the ball was tipped Saturday night. 45 seconds in, Christian Bishop stole the ball, started a fastbreak, and Damien Jefferson finished it with an alley-oop. Some fans were still filing into their seats for the 6:30pm tip and the Jays were already flying high above the rim.
They grabbed a 10-5 lead after five minutes, featuring a three by Mitch Ballock and a dunk from Bishop. DePaul’s best player, Paul Reed, had yet to attempt a shot. The Blue Demons already had four turnovers. So when the visitors flipped the script and scored five straight to tie it, briefly quieting the crowd, it was slightly surprising.
All it did was kick Creighton into another gear. They unleashed a 12-0 run that started with Denzel Mahoney initiating contact at the rim and finishing the basket. Though he missed the free throw, he made up for it on the very next possession by drawing contact again at the rim, and this time making the free throws.
A second three-pointer from Ballock followed, as the guard was making up for lost time after Seton Hall’s defense held him scoreless on Wednesday. Ten seconds later, Ty-Shon Alexander stole the ball from DePaul’s Charlie Moore, raced down the floor, and threw down an emphatic dunk.
After a three from Marcus Zegarowski, it was suddenly 22-10 Creighton. Romeo Weems ended the run, briefly, with a jumper for DePaul — but then Ballock hit his third three of the game on a fastbreak run to perfection. Bishop got the rebound and passed immediately to Zegarowski. Two dribbles. Pass to Alexander. One dribble. Pass to Ballock in the corner. Bang. 25-12.
Alexander added one of his own on the next trip down floor, and the Jays had doubled up on DePaul 30-15. They’d scored 20 of the next 25 points after DePaul had tied the score at 10.
What made it even more impressive was their dominance on both ends of the floor. A few possessions later, the Jays deflected a pass, blocked a shot, and came up with a steal all on the same trip down the floor for DePaul — why worry about offensive rebounds when you’re this relentlessly scrappy?
The Blue Demons managed to seize some momentum late in the half, briefly slicing the lead to 12 on a couple of occasions. The Jays had sputtered offensively, scoring just 11 points with five turnovers on their final 15 possessions of the half. They were saved, in some respects, by Damien Jefferson burying a fade-away jumper as the horn sounded — it got the crowd engaged again, and it sent the team running into the locker room with a spring in their step.
No one had the slightest clue about what we were about to witness. And we’re not talking about the KC Disc Dogs halftime show, though that was entertaining and amazing in its own right.
Ahead 42-28 as the second half began, Creighton was about to embark on a breathless four minutes of basketball the likes of which haven’t been seen in these parts in a long time.
The Run began with Bishop feeding a driving Alexander for a nifty layup at the rim. 44-28 Bluejays, 19:39 to go. Next, Bishop and Zegarowski trapped DePaul point guard Charlie Moore, and with the ball knocked loose, Zegarowski dove to the floor to secure it. With one knee on the court and his back to the rest of the team, Zegarowski threw a one-handed backwards pass to Ballock. Two dribbles. Alley-oop to a streaking Jefferson who had gotten behind the defense. 46-28 Bluejays, 19:17 to go.
25 seconds of suffocating defense followed, where DePaul couldn’t get a good look at the basket and settled for a contested jumper. Bishop blocked out two DePaul players vying for the offensive rebound, and Ballock grabbed the board. Four dribbles. One-handed swing pass at halfcourt to Alexander. Stop, pass to Zegarowski in the corner, wide-open three. 49-28 Bluejays, 18:42 left. Timeout DePaul.
After defending well on DePaul’s possession out of that timeout, Romeo Weems took a long three late in the shot clock. It missed, and Zegarowski fought off two DePaul players under the basket for the rebound — after a couple of seconds, the ball scooted free to Ballock. And even though the Blue Demons managed to stop his dribble around midcourt and forced the Jays to run their offense from a half-court set, they simply took a quick breath, reset, and scored anyway. The play: Bishop catching the ball at the top of the key, drawing the collapsing defense, and throwing a back-door pass to Zegarowski for a layup. 51-28 Bluejays, 17:58 left.
Moments later, Paul Reed’s pass into the paint was deflected by Zegarowski, who tipped it to Ballock. One dribble. Jump pass to Alexander at midcourt. Zero dribbles, alley-oop to a streaking Jefferson who once again managed to get behind the defense. 53-28 Bluejays.
Reed temporarily silenced the crowd with a three-pointer on the other end, ending an 11-0 run, but only temporarily. Alexander converted a three-point play on the Jays very next possession to make it 56-31. More suffocating defense followed, and a heavily contested shot by Charlie Moore was rebounded by Jefferson. He brought the ball up the floor, and while looking at Ballock in the corner in front of the bench to get DePaul’s defenders to collapse that direction, he threw a no-look pass to Bishop under the basket for a dunk. Are you kidding me? 58-31, 16:23 to go.
With the crowd officially at fever pitch, Jefferson stole the ball on the perimeter from Romeo Weems and started another fastbreak. This one was the capper: at midcourt, Bishop passed to Alexander. Two dribbles. Alexander throws an alley-oop back to Bishop. Thunderous dunk. 60-31. An 18-3 blitz to begin the second half, turning a 14-point lead into a 29-point blowout in four minutes by scoring on eight straight possessions without a missed shot.
Jefferson then blocked a shot on DePaul’s next possession, starting yet ANOTHER fastbreak. Against a scrambling defense, Ballock launched a three-pointer from the logo, because why the heck not? It missed off the rim, saving the roof of the CHI Health Center from being blown off. Here’s the entire sequence, in one quick little video clip.
“Ty-Shon (Alexander) and I were talkingโฆthat was probably the craziest six- or eight-minute stretch weโve had since weโve been at Creighton,” Mitch Ballock said in the postgame press conference. “When you have runs like that, itโs just demoralizing to a team.”
“We just wanted to have fun,” Alexander added. “We were building a lead and getting stops on defense, so why not try to put on a show for everyone?”
In our group text, WBR’s Matt DeMarinis said he hadn’t seen an offensive explosion like that from the Jays since January 20, 2014 at Villanova. I was actually reminded of a game two weeks prior to that. Against Butler in Omaha, CU led 21-18 midway through the first half and then wrecked the Bulldogs with a 32-6 run. The Jays scored on 14 straight possessions that night, overwhelming the visitors on both ends of the floor. Regardless, that’s what we’re comparing this to — the Senior Year Doug McDermott Bluejays playing at their apex in mid-January of 2014.
The combination of defensive intensity, jumping of passing lanes, blocking shots, finishing at the rim, and ball movement was as complete a four minutes of basketball as we’ve seen from the Creighton Bluejays in a very long time. It was more of a tidal wave than a run, as they overwhelmed DePaul on both ends of the floor the way the 2014 team did to Butler on that January night in 2014. This was better though; the run against Butler was elite offensively, to be sure, but was more the product of missed shots by a bad team than great defense on the other end.
DePaul had no chance. Not on this night, and not against this team.
“I thought we had chances to throw some knockout punches in the first half and get the lead to 20. And we didn’t,” McDermott said. “Fortunately, DJ hit a big jump shot right at the end that gave us a little momentum going into the locker room. I told them we can defend and get stops, and if we get stops we can get out in transition. Anytime you’re playing two bigs against our team, it’s hard to get matched up in transition. That was evident early in the second half. I didn’t like our pace in the first half, I thought we were stuck in the mud on some of our cuts. The first play of the second half, we had a set play drawn up but before we got to the action Ty scored on a backcut. Those sorts of things are what our offense needs and the type of pace and spacing that it requires.”
DePaul chipped away against Creighton’s bench, with Jett Canfield and others seeing extended minutes once the game was seemingly out of reach. But once the Blue Demons inexplicably pressed against that unit, cutting the deficit to 23, CU went back to their starters and promptly blew them right back out. An 8-0 run gave Creighton a 81-50 lead once more, and was capped off by this play — Zegarowski stealing the ball, tipping it to a falling Ballock at midcourt, who threw an over-the-head behind-the-back pass to Jefferson for a dunk.
The 93-64 win is Creighton’s third straight, and they’re 7-1 over their last eight games. At 20-6 and 9-4 in the league, they’re very much in the race for the regular season title in the Big East — and with Seton Hall’s loss at Providence late on Saturday night, they control their own destiny. If the Jays win their final five games, concluding with Seton Hall on Senior Night, CU will be the Big East champs.
That’s a helluva thing for a team picked seventh in the league back in October, isn’t it?
“These last five games are really meaningful in terms of the conference race, they’re meaningful in terms of Big East Tournament seeding, and they have NCAA ramifications as well,” McDermott noted. “You want to be playing those kind of games in February. It’s a credit to these guys that we’re in this situation. Hopefully we can finish it off.”