Inside the Box Score:
Creighton attempted 36 free throws, their most in a game in four years, and made 29 — meaning that 35% of their points came at the line.
CU’s big three played all but six combined minutes of a grind-it-out wrestling match, and carried the team to victory. Marcus Zegarowski had another monster game with 20 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists in 38 minutes, making 12-of-14 from the free throw line. Ty-Shon Alexander had a double-double with 19 points and 11 rebounds in 39 minutes. And Mitch Ballock had 17 points and 7 rebounds in 37 minutes.
Denzel Mahoney, making his Bluejay debut, joined them in double figures with 14 points thanks mostly to making 6-of-8 from the line.
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Recap:
“If we want to go where we want to go, this has to be the blueprint of how we’re going to play,” sophomore Marcus Zegarowski said in the postgame press conference. “We’re not the biggest team. We’re not the strongest team. But we can be the toughest team.”
For 40 minutes on Tuesday night in a game where emotions ran high and both teams competed with the sort of physicality that turns a basketball game into a knock-down, drag-out wrestling match, Creighton was exactly that. The Jays were the tougher team. And as a result, in a game where they went nearly nine minutes of the second half without a field goal, they not only won but won by double digits.
They won a game where they shot under 40% for just the third time in the last six seasons by battling for rebounds, out-hustling Oklahoma to loose balls, and playing some of the best sustained defense over the course of a full game in recent years.
Simply put, this is not a game Creighton would have won a year ago. It might not be a game Creighton wins a week ago, for that matter, when they’d have had to play without Denzel Mahoney.
The mid-season addition made quite the impression in his Bluejay debut, scoring 14 points in 29 minutes by forcing the action — driving into the defense to draw fouls, absorbing contact to make tough layups, and hitting a couple of three-pointers to keep the defense honest. He’s precisely the type of player who has given the Bluejays fits over the years, and precisely the type of player they’ve needed to win on nights when shots aren’t falling.
He entered the game just 17 seconds in, when Christian Bishop picked up a foul on the game’s first defensive possession. And he received a standing ovation from a crowd eager to see him in action.
“I was doing pretty good with my emotions today until they announced my name when I entered the game, and this place went nuts,” Mahoney said on a postgame radio interview. “I thought to myself, ‘This is real now.'”
“You could see the crowd when he subbed in the first time,” Marcus Zegarowski said. “They lit up. And that’s how we felt as well. I’m so happy for him.”
His first shot attempt came on a three-pointer from the corner, which he promptly buried.
Mahoney hit a second three later in the half, and in between, drew three fouls and made 5-of-6 free throws:
The threes were unexpected. His ability to initiate contact and draw fouls was exactly as advertised.
“He brings a great dynamic to the team,” Zegarowski said. “He can shoot, he can guard one through five, he’s strong, he can makes plays off the dribble, and he plays for the team. He brings so much. He’s going to be huge for us.”
“I think that by the end of the season, even though he missed 10 games, Denzel will lead our team in free throws,” Coach Greg McDermott said in his postgame radio interview. “He has the ability to have defenders bounce off of him.”
While Mahoney was bouncing off of defenders and drawing contact, his teammates were lighting it up from long range. Creighton got five 3-pointers from four different players in taking a 15-12 lead into the first media timeout.
A 9-2 run out of that timeout gave CU a 24-14 lead, thanks in large part to seven consecutive made free throws from Mahoney and Zegarowski. Oklahoma answered with a 7-1 run to cut the deficit to 25-21, as Alondes Williams and Kristian Doolittle got hot. Creighton answered and extended the lead back out to 37-28 on five points from Ty-Shon Alexander — a driving layup and a three — and the second three from Mahoney. And then the Sooners answered that with a 10-4 run to end the half, with Williams and Austin Reaves providing the scoring. Back and forth they went, trading punches.
“I told Marcus late in the first half, hey, they’re making it hard on you. So just don’t play into their hands,” McDermott said. “If they’re going to do that to you, somebody else is open. Pick ’em apart with the pass. We’ll wear into them, and that will take care of itself.”
Zegarowski had just five points at halftime, and took just two shots. But heeding McDermott’s advice, he dished out four assists and set up teammates for easy scoring chances on multiple other occasions. And then just as McDermott predicted, as the Jays wore into the Sooners, there were opportunities for Zegarowski to begin picking them apart to create offense for himself.
They blasted out of the locker room with a 13-3 run that was keyed by — who else — Zegarowski. He assisted on two straight buckets, a three-pointer by Alexander and a layup by Damien Jefferson. The latter came on a long bounce pass through traffic, splitting the defense and leaving the Sooners shaking their heads.
Then he hit a three of his own to push the lead to 10, 51-41. Seconds later Mitch Ballock stole the ball and nailed a three to send the game into the first media timeout with Creighton in front 54-41.
Just as they had in the first half, the Sooners punched back, and circumstances snowballed on the Bluejays — questionable calls by the officials, one clutch shot after another by the Sooners, unforced errors by the Jays. It began with 14:49 to play, when Mahoney was whistled for a flagrant foul on Kristian Doolittle. The crowd was incensed; Mahoney pleaded with the officials; McDermott got in between to protect his player; the crowd got more incensed.
“Denzel’s emotions were all over the place today,” McDermott said on his postgame radio interview. Stifling laughter, he continued, “Marcus told me while we were heading to the media room, ‘Coach, he hasn’t played a game with referees for like two years! He didn’t know how to react when that whistle blew and he didn’t like it!’ I had to tell him several times, ‘Hey man, CALM DOWN.'”
Jefferson turned it over on the next possession, and Austin Reaves answered with a three-pointer to cut the lead to 56-48. On the next trip, Reaves took a wild, off-balance three and drew a foul on Alexander. Once again, the crowd went berserk and McDermott lit into the officiating crew. This time, Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger wasn’t thrilled with them, either, because Reaves was called for a contact technical on the follow-through for blasting Alexander with his elbow. Reaves made two free throws as boo-birds rained down. Alexander made two free throws on the other end. Brady Manek stuck a huge three-pointer for the Sooners, and it was 58-54. After several empty possessions in a row for both teams, Alondes Williams hit a mid-range jumper to make it a one-score game at 58-56.
There was 11:41 to go, the wheels were falling off the bus, and it seemed like just a matter of time before Oklahoma landed the knockout blow. It never came. Creighton’s defense held them without a point for nearly six minutes; by the time Oklahoma scored again, CU had a 12-point lead. Heck, Creighton’s defense held the Sooners to just two more field goals the entire rest of the game — a three by De’Vion Harmon with just under six minutes to play, and a three by Kristian Doolittle on the final possession of the game.
Freshman guard Shereef Mitchell changed the game and was the unsung hero. Checking in at the under-12 timeout with the Jays clinging to that tenuous two-point lead, he immediately locked down Austin Reaves who had been in a groove. After scoring five points early in the half, he went scoreless with Mitchell guarding him. He only took two shots. He went from being key to their second-half surge to being invisible.
“I thought Shereef and Christian really changed the game when they went in in the second half,” McDermott said. “Christian made so many hustle plays on the offensive glass and had a couple of big defensive rebounds, too. And Austin Reaves wanted nothing to do with Shereef. He was in his face, and he locked him down.”
Meanwhile, they were locked in a field goal drought of their own, going nearly nine minutes without a made shot — bookended by Mitch Ballock’s three-pointer at the 16:23 mark and Ballock’s three at the 7:08 mark.
In between, they made 10-of-12 from the line and grew their lead through guts and toughness and some of the best, sustained defense in several seasons. When the last of those free throws fell through the net, they led 71-56. It was never closer than nine the rest of the way.
“This felt like a tournament game,” McDermott said. “This is why you play these type of games — it’s high quality basketball, they’re games that can help you later on. They’re games that frankly teach you a lot about your team. We learned a lot tonight about ourselves.”
Mahoney’s toughness set the tone early in the game. On both ends of the floor, he gave the Bluejays a physicality and a willingness to initiate contact that hasn’t always been present on McDermott’s teams.
“It was good to have him out there,” McDermott said. “He impacted the game in a huge way. I don’t think we win this game without him.”
But it’s Zegarowski’s fingerprints that were once again all over the win. Bottled up in the first half, he scored 15 points after halftime, hitting a pair of threes and making 9-of-11 from the line. His swagger and refusal to lose have remade this team’s DNA in his image. For the third time this season — first against Louisiana Tech, then against Texas Tech, and now against Oklahoma — Creighton won a game they probably would have lost a year ago. When things began snowballing on the Jays, when the other team seemed poised to take over the game, Zegarowski simply refused to let it happen.
“We’ve talked a lot that no one is going to win here,” he said. “We want to protect this place.”
