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Morning After: Ashworth Banks in a Game-Winning Three to Lift Jays to 62-60 Win at Villanova

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[Box Score]

With 1:24 to play in a game that had boomeranged back and forth, Creighton was clinging to a one-point lead, 57-56. But they committed a shot clock violation when Jasen Green didn’t make a play toward the basket in time. That turnover didn’t cost them when Villanova didn’t score, but they wouldn’t be so lucky the next time.

With 19 seconds to go and the Jays still leading by one at 59-58, Steven Ashworth’s pass was intercepted by Villanova’s Wooga Poplar. He raced down court for a go-ahead dunk. Then seconds later, Ashworth’s attempt at an answer airballed the hoop.

Both Green and Ashworth would have the opportunity to make amends.

As Ashworth’s missed shot careened out of bounds, Green grabbed it and called timeout in midair as he was falling out of bounds. The NCAA has gone back and forth on the legality of that play over the years, but last year they changed the rulebook to once again allow it. To Green’s credit, he knew that.

“I didn’t have time to look down to figure out where I was, but I kind of knew like my general position,” Green said on the postgame radio show. “I was already in the air with the ball in my hand. I remember, I think it was last year, we had a Big East representative in to talk about rule changes, and there was a rule change where you could call a time out if you were in the air as long as you had possession of the ball. Thankfully, I remembered that. I called the timeout because I didn’t know who to throw the ball to at the time, and thankfully, the ref gave it to us.”

“Unbelievable play,” Greg McDermott told John Bishop on the postgame show. “You know, heads-up to make sure he was in bounds when he secured possession, and then when he flew over the end line he immediately looked right at the official and got the time out. Big time play. It gave us an opportunity to win the game.”

Given a second chance, Ashworth made the most of it…with a little thanks from Green, who made a second huge play in a row.

After a timeout to set up a potential game-winner, Green was tasked with getting the ball in bounds. He pump faked twice as Ryan Kalkbrenner made a cut to the rim, tricking Villanova’s defense into thinking that’s where he was going with the ball. And when three defenders followed Kalkbrenner to the rim, Ashworth slipped into the corner by himself where Green practically handed him the ball. Pausing for a half-second to set his feet, Ashworth used the top corner of the backboard to bank in a three. 62-60 Bluejays.

Here’s how it looked on FOX, with the great Tim Brando on the call:

Here’s the view from behind the Jays’ bench, courtesy of assistant coach Derek Kellogg:

Here’s the view from the other sideline, courtesy of a Jays fan in attendance, which offers a great view of how the ball bounced off the glass and managed to go in:

And here’s how it sounded on Bluejay Radio, courtesy of Voice of the Jays John Bishop:

“We drew up the play for either Kalk or Steven,” McDermott explained. “We cleared out that side and set a little pin-down for Kalk, and oftentimes (as a defense) when you’re so worried about that — especially in a one point game — you forget about the screener. Steven was wide open. And you know, we had a little good fortune.”

About that: McDermott then told a story he hadn’t shared before publicly. When his mom passed away in the summer of 2023, a good friend of his gave him a coin. McDermott picks up the story from there.

“It says ‘where I go, you go’ and it has her name on it. I have it in my pocket every game, and I was rubbing that thing big-time at the end of the game. I think she probably steered that thing into the basket off the backboard.”

But there was still time for Villanova to tie or win it. Would they go to Poplar, who’d been almost unstoppable in the second half? Or Eric Dixon, the nation’s leading scorer? They went to Dixon, who tried to drive toward the basket with Jamiya Neal on his hip. Dixon dribbled the ball off his foot, it rolled out of bounds, and Creighton escaped. It was eerily reminiscent of last season’s overtime game against Villanova in Omaha, when it was Trey Alexander who dribbled the ball off of his foot instead of getting off a potential game-winning shot.

It was a classic finish, but for 38 minutes before that the game was a rock fight. CU made just 1-of-14 from three in the first half; VU was 3-of-12. The Bluejays led by as much as 23-15 after a three-point play by Ryan Kalkbrenner, but Villanova countered with a 12-2 run that featured seven points by Eric Dixon. That gave VU a brief 27-25 lead, and after trading baskets the teams went to halftime knotted up at 29.

The second half began as more of the same. But when Poplar caught fire for the Wildcats, it felt like they might be the ones to pull away. He made three straight baskets to help Nova take a 50-45 lead with 6:52 left, part of a 19-point second half.

Then Ashworth went to work. From that point forward, he had a hand in 13 of the Jays’ final 17 points. It began with a three to cut the lead to 50-48, and then he threw a long lob pass to Kalkbrenner for an alley-oop to tie it.

Another assist to Kalkbrenner for a layup gave the Jays the lead 54-52. Then after Villanova tied it, he hit his second three of the game to put them back ahead 57-54.

One of the baskets he didn’t have a hand in came next: Jamiya Neal dribbled into the paint and got off a shot, put back his own miss, and gave CU a 59-56 lead with 49.1 left.

“What a huge play. We put the ball in his hands and set a ball screen to give us a little more of a lane,” McDermott said. “He saw a seam and got to the rim, and then Mason — who hardly played because of match-ups today — goes in there and tips that ball, keeps it alive. Jamiya gets it and sticks it back in to get us a big basket.”

And then there was the game-winner.

“You know, in 35 or 36 years of doing this, I can’t say I’ve ever won or lost a game on a banked in three from the corner,” McDermott said. “So you pretty much see it all if you do this long enough.”

Inside the Box:

What a strange game, huh?

Creighton had 12 more turnovers than Villanova, and was outscored 25-4 on them. The Jays missed six free throws. Just on those two stats alone, someone who didn’t watch the game could easily assume they lost — and probably by double digits.

Throw in a poor shooting day from three-point range (6-of-26, 23%), and even people who watched the game might wonder how the Jays won.

In fact, according to research by John Bishop, this is only the second road win of the McDermott Era where they’ve shot less than 25% on threes with 15 or more turnovers. The other was at Georgetown in 2021.

The last win like that regardless of site was the dramatic comeback vs. San Diego State in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. Creighton’s overall record in those games is 7-10 (2-6 on road, 3-2 at home, and 2-2 at neutral sites.)

Even if you narrow it down just to games where they make 25% of their threes or worse, their record in the McDermott Era is 25-54. They’re 1-2 this season.

“I mean, they’re just a tough team to play here in general,” Ryan Kalkbrenner said. “But they really heated up our ball handlers a lot, and made it kind of hard to get from point A to point B. You know, some games you got to win ugly. Sometimes you got to win on defense, and I think that’s what we did today.”

So how’d they do it?

Defense, as Kalkbrenner noted. They held Villanova to 0.88 points per possession — a great offensive team with an adjusted offensive efficiency of 119.9, ranking 15th best in the country even after this game. In other words, more than 21 fewer points per 100 possessions than their average. Only two teams had held them under 1.0 points per possession all season (Xavier on Jan. 14, barely, at 0.98; Virginia on Nov. 15, 0.95).

The Wildcats were 3-of-17 from three point range (17.6%). Their next worst game? Providence, when they were 7-of-26, 26.9%). And that was with the second-fewest percentage of threes out of their total shot attempts in any game all season (just 29.9% of their shots). Lafayette in the season opener is the only game where took fewer (21.7% of their shots). And the only other Big East team to get them to take less than 35% of their shots from three is…Creighton in the first meeting. For the season, they’ve taken 43.9% of their shots from three. That’s the result of Creighton’s defense doing what it wants to do — running them off the line.

And once inside the arc, Creighton’s defense held them to just 20-of-41 (48.8%), their fifth-worst percentage in Big East play and well below their season average of 52.8%. The Bluejay defense was stifling, and it was just enough to overcome that 19-point deficit in points off turnovers.

Individually, they finally solved the Eric Dixon riddle (relatively speaking). He scored 17 points, seven below his nation-leading average and the first time they’ve held him below 20 points in three years. He was 5-of-14 overall and 1-of-5 from three; over their last 6 matchups, he’d been averaging 25.8 points on 54% shooting overall and 49% from three on 7.5 attempts per game.

Jasen Green was his primary defender, and he was disciplined against biting on Dixon’s shot fakes all afternoon.

“I feel like the biggest difference was just me having that first game under my belt,” Green said afterward. “Just kind of knowing how he moves and how he plays. It’s also a credit to our coaching staff. We worked on it a little bit yesterday, guarding him and how he moves and like all his double moves and stuff like that. It definitely makes me feel proud; I mean I’ve been here the past two years and he’s always played really well against us, so for me to be able to help hold him under 20 points is just incredible. It’s an incredible feeling.”

“Jasen did an amazing job on him,” Kalkbrenner added. “Jasen’s strong enough and quick enough to match (Dixon) on the perimeter and in the post. Dixon’s a great player, so he’s gonna get a few buckets here and there, but Jasen made his life really hard.”

Meanwhile, Ryan Kalkbrenner had 22 points on 9-of-11 shooting, eight rebounds, and two assists in 39 minutes. Jamiya Neal and Ashworth added 13 points apiece, and those three combined to score the Jays’ last 21.

And then there was Mason Miller. He got into the game for just one minute, and doesn’t have a single number in the box score. But he contributed a great “invisible” play by keeping the rebound of Neal’s missed shot alive with 49 seconds left. He couldn’t secure it, but managed to tip it back to Neal — who promptly scored.

Finally, how’s this for a random stat: Villanova became the first Big East opponent in two years to get into the bonus against Creighton in the first half.

Press Conference:

Highlights:

 

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