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Men's Basketball

Morning After: # 4 Villanova 71, Creighton 50

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton outrebounds Villanova 40-27, including 13-7 on the offensive glass, but more than gives away that possession advantage by turning it over 19 times. Villanova scored 21 points off of those 19 turnovers…not coincidentally winning by 21.

Standout Performance:

Freshman Leon Gilmore III, who played nine minutes in his most extensive action since the Eastern Illinois game in late November, banked in a three-pointer with 6:47 to go in the first half for his first-career field goal. As the losses mount, it’s good to see increased minutes for guys like Gilmore who will be charged with getting Bluejay Basketball back in the coming years.

Favorite Moment:

I suspended this segment during the current losing streak because there have been no favorite moments while enduring nine straight losses, but this one’s so good not even my stubborn nature can keep it out. Late in the first half, Villanova’s Daniel Ochefu was shooting free throws, and one of Nova’s male cheerleaders walked out from their position behind the basket. The shot was good, and he did a backflip. The problem: the referee was standing right next to the cheerleader, and nearly got socked in the mouth by cheerleader feet. His two-handed “What the F***?” reaction is hilarious, as is the cheerleader’s stone-faced “What?” reply.

Recap & Analysis:

One year ago in Philadelphia, Creighton put on a three-point shooting exhibition that stood as the pinnacle accomplishment of the Let It Fly team, making nine straight three-pointers to open the game. Sunday night in Philly, the Bluejays had a game just as fitting for the Let It Clank team, going 4-21 from three-point range with just two 3-pointers in each half. It was the worst-shooting night of the season from long range, both in terms of made three-pointers (4) and percentage (19%), which is saying something considering this team’s mighty struggles.

They fell behind 15-0, didn’t score until 7:12 had elapsed, and made just six field goals (and no free throws) in the first half. Yet somehow, they lost by only 21? How is that possible? I saw some opinions on Twitter that Villanova coasted or somehow sleepwalked through the game after getting that initial lead; with Creighton blowing out ‘Nova twice last year, I kind of doubt the Wildcats would pass up the opportunity to return the favor. No, this was another instance of Creighton falling behind early thanks to turnovers and missed shots, only to improve defensively and make enough shots once the offense settled in to basically play even with their opponent after the initial poor start. Even against the #4 team in the country, the story remained the same. And sadly, so did the result.

Still, they continue to play hard and fight, and that’s what makes it so damn frustrating. It would be tempting to walk away from this season emotionally if they weren’t battling so hard and leaving everything on the floor. But they are. There remains that faint glimmer that maybe, just maybe, if they could not dig a deep hole to start a game just once, and that if maybe, just maybe they could finish off a close game just once, they could get on track and rattle off a couple of wins.

This latest 15-0 deficit came on three-pointers from four different Villanova players: Ryan Arcidiacano, JayVaughn Pinkston, Darrun Hilliard, and Josh Hart all connected from long range, with a jumper from Pinkston thrown in for good measure. That stretch saw five Bluejay turnovers (including two from Zach Hanson, who failed to corral a pair of post-entry passes from his guards that would have almost assuredly led to two easy buckets). Their first basket came from a walk-on, Tyler Clement, and their first three-pointer came from a scholarship player, Leon Gilmore III, who has played sparingly in his freshman season and hadn’t made a field goal in his career coming into the game. If that doesn’t sum up how things went, I don’t know what does.

There were good things in this game, though. Rick Kreklow continued to play at a high level, scoring eight points and grabbing four rebounds while playing admirably tough defense. And James Milliken played almost every second, scoring 13 points with six rebounds and two assists in 37 minutes, as the formerly-suspended guard continues to earn trust from the coaching staff.

But the bad things far outweighed the good. Austin Chatman’s slump, which has now consumed half of his senior season, reached a new low as he missed a season-high 11 shots (including a brutal 1-7 from three-point range) and dished out just one assist. Devin Brooks played just 12 minutes despite being one of the players on the team capable of creating his own shot, because he committed four turnovers in those 12 minutes — I’m all for allowing a guy to play through mistakes, but four TO’s in 12 minutes is too much. Zach Hanson had trouble catching passes in the paint, and turned it over three times, all on balls that should have been caught and scored easily. Here’s one of them. I mean…just, wow.

It was another ugly game in an increasingly forgettable season, as just ten regular season games remain to salvage whatever’s left of what appears to be the program’s first losing season since the mid-90s.

Quotables:

“Obviously, the start of the game is everything. We turned it over 6 out of 8 possessions; a lot of those turnovers were going to be layups at the rim. We allowed [Villanova’s Darrun] Hilliard to get started. So you’re down 14-0 to a team that is so good. You put yourself in an almost impossible situation. I was proud that we continued to defend. I think we got it to 19-11 and we had a couple of possessions where we had a good look at a three, to maybe cut it to five, but missed them.  And then obviously, they went on the run to end the half; that created some separation. Villanova’s a really good team. There is really no weakness in that lineup. For a team like us, we haven’t won much but we haven’t turned the ball over a lot until these last two road games at Butler and tonight. You cannot turn the ball over 14 more times at Villanova and expect to be in the game. That’s about as simple as it gets.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“I’ve got good kids on my team and we’ve got a good culture in our locker room. And I think that’s allowed us to stay relatively together through some challenging times. I certainly didn’t anticipate that we’d be in this situation. I knew we had some rebuilding to do; new guys in new places for us this year and not a lot of Big East experience in starting roles outside of Austin [Chatman]. But I wouldn’t have predicted this. To their credit, they have continued to practice hard. We’re limited in some ways and I think that relatively obvious. But they continue to fight.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“Austin Chatman is a career 40% three-point shooter and I think he’s shooting 10% in league play. Over three years you wouldn’t think that was going to happen. We have other guys that are much better shooters than what they are shooting. We were a pretty good shooting team in the beginning of the season. And then everybody has gone bad right at the same time. I thought we should have been able to score.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“The center position is still a puzzle. We had some foolish mistakes, some scouting report situations that weren’t executed properly that I expect to be executed. It has nothing to do with how tall you are or how fast you run or how high you jump. It’s how well you’ve prepared yourself. Then we dropped a few around the basket that could have gotten us off to a better start. We’ll continue to search and try to find a way. We played Hegner a little bit there tonight, so maybe we’ll give that a look as well.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“It’s a unique situation. We are not young; we have five seniors. But except for Austin, they are all playing a different role than they’ve ever played. [Will] Artino and [Avery] Dingman have been backups and they’ve been great in those roles. [Rick] Kreklow is new, coming from Cal. And Devin Brooks is playing a much more prominent role that he did a year ago. We have some guys learning new roles and it has not gone as well as I hoped.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

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