Recap:
Shot after shot, all night long, clanked off the rim. Some were short, most weren’t close to going in. All (but one) missed. For 37 minutes on Thursday night in Austin, Creighton was shooting as poorly as they have at any point in the Greg McDermott Era, not only statistically but aesthetically. These were ugly shots. That the game wasn’t a blowout was testament to how well the Jays’ defense executed their game plan.
But Chris Beard’s Longhorns make a living capitalizing on the smallest mistakes, and though the Jays only turned it over eight times and were just -1 on the offensive glass, Texas outscored the Jays by 12 points off of those two stats. It’s what allowed them to hold off a pair of second-half surges from the Jays, including Baylor Scheierman nearly single-handedly bringing them back with four 3-pointers in the final three minutes.
After trailing for most of the first half, Creighton pulled to within a single point four minutes into the second half with a 9-2 run. They did it by attacking the paint and getting to the rim, instead of taking three-point shots they were struggling to knock down. Ryan Kalkbrenner scored five points in that surge on a dunk and a three-point play, and it was punctuated by this hammer slam from Arthur Kaluma:
But Texas’ stellar backcourt answered, first with back-to-back threes by Sir’Jabari Rice and Marcus Carr, and then with a pair of layups. Meanwhile, the Jays abandoned what had gotten them back into the game — three of the four shots Creighton took in that 10-0 Texas run were three-pointers, none of which came close to going in. Two minutes after closing to within 37-36, it was 47-36 Texas and the Moody Center was rocking.
“We made a couple of mistakes where we slid under a ball screen,” Greg McDermott said, “and the three that Carr hit was a back-breaker.”
Carr shot just 7-of-20 for the game, but hit big shots all night — and in the game’s waning moments, after another Creighton surge nearly allowed them to steal the game, it was Carr who delivered the knockout blow. Baylor Scheierman had hit back-to-back threes to pull Creighton to within one possession at 62-59…
And with 1:12 to play, Carr got just enough separation off the dribble between himself and Trey Alexander to get off a mid-range jumper. Scheierman answered with his third three-pointer in three minutes, a wild shot with 22 seconds left, to cut the lead to 66-62. He’d hit a fourth moments later. But it wasn’t enough. Carr iced the game at the line, and Texas escaped with the win.
“They scored 72 points in a 73 possession game,” McDermott said. “That gives you a chance to win. I thought we fought and competed. I’m proud of our guys.”
Inside the Box Score:
Creighton started the game 1-for-22 from three-point range, and though they made 3-of-5 to end it, that barrage was too little too late. I feel relatively safe saying it’s an outlier — we’re now 25% of the way through the season, so the sample size isn’t small anymore. After making 8-of-34 (23.5%) in the opener against St. Thomas they had made at least 37.5% of their threes in every other game, and more than 40% in four of the six. They aren’t likely to have another game like this the rest of the year.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t frustrating. It absolutely is.
They defended well enough to win, did enough other things offensively to keep themselves in the game, and even with the poor three-point shooting were in a position to steal the win at the end.
Defensively, they got Texas to take the shots they wanted them to take. The Longhorns are really good if they can get to the rim, and they were on Thursday — of the 23 shot attempts they had at the rim, they made 15. But the vast majority of their shots came from other places. 51 of their 74 shot attempts were jump shots (32 two-point shots away from the rim, 19 three-pointers). And Texas made 37.5% (12-of-32) of those mid-range twos, and 21% (4-of-19) of their threes. Combined with the fact that CU defended without fouling (Texas took just eight free throws), it was a really good defensive effort.
According to Shot Quality’s data, every Texas player who attempted more than three shots had a ShotQuality Percentile lower than 50% — in other words, the Jays forced them into taking shots they historically make less than half the time.
The Jays had just eight turnovers on 66 possessions (12%) against a defense that has forced a turnover on 25% of their opponents’s possessions this year. But Texas turned it over just three times themselves, and had an 11-5 edge on points off turnovers. That’s the difference in the game. Combine it with an 11-5 edge in second chance points, and that’s a 12 point hole the Jays dug for themselves.
It’s a case where two things can be true at once — it’s discouraging that they wasted a defensive performance that was good enough to beat the #2 team in the country on the road. An average, C+ offensive game might have been enough to steal the win. This was a winnable game that they have to find a way to win by the time March rolls around.
But it’s encouraging that they were able to stay in a game and nearly win when they shot this poorly, because other Bluejay teams would likely have lost by 20 or more on nights like this. It’s a sign of the team’s maturity that they stuck to the defensive gameplan and continued to lock in despite their own shots not falling; young teams often fall into the trap of letting one dictate the other. McDermott specifically mentioned Alexander and Kaluma’s defensive efforts as outstanding given their offensive struggles. Texas couldn’t pull away, and because of that, the margin was this slim: if they make 7-of-27 from three-point range instead of 4-of-27, which would still have been their worst shooting night of the year, mind you, this is a different story. We’d be talking about how they gutted out a signature win on a night where they shot poorly.
Alas.
Highlights:
Press Conference: