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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 68, Cal 54

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[Box Score]

Key Stats: Creighton outrebounds Cal 39-31 overall, and 10-9 on the offensive glass after getting outrebounded by 15 last year in Berkeley. Cal shoots 2-12 from three-point range in the first half, and Creighton shoots 3-13.

Favorite Moment: Devin Brooks still makes enough silly mistakes that you understand why he doesn’t get more minutes than he does, but man alive can he get to the rim like few Bluejays have been able to in recent years. He checked into the game at the 12:54 mark, and both teams were struggling to score as they settled for contested jump shots. Brooks immediately took the ball to the rack, and scored on a ball-fake that not one but two Cal defenders bit on. It electrified the crowd, which had been subdued to that point thanks to just eight combined points in seven minutes of action, and more importantly, it put a jolt in his teammates’ step. It typically takes junior college transfers a semester of play to really understand the system and their role; if Brooks’ improvement from November to now is any indication, he’s going to be an unstoppable force by March.

500-ish Word Recap: In one of the best defensive performances of the Greg McDermott Era, Creighton held a Cal team averaging 75 points a game to just 54, and 19 in the first half. There was some suggestion on Twitter and on the Bluejay Banter postgame show that Cal simply had a bad night shooting — 36% overall, 20% from three-point range — and that praise of CU’s defense was misguided, or at least overblown. The more I think about it, however, the more I disagree with that.

The number of times where the shot clock got down to 15 seconds before a shot went up, with Cal forced to reset their offense after all of their initial options were taken away, shows just how effective Creighton was defensively. Yes, Cal missed a ton of shots. And yes, some of them were the result of poor shot selection. But to leave it at that and not give credit to Creighton for causing both of those things is, well, it’s not something I’m going to agree with.

In developing their gameplan, the Bluejays pinpointed Richard Solomon as the player they needed to limit in order to be successful. It was a smart plan, as Solomon had averaged a double-double for the season and two of Cal’s three losses came in games he missed due to injury. Coach Mac noted after the game that they also knew Solomon was a player that could become frustrated easily, and sure enough, early in the game he became frustrated at his inability to get an open look — in one instance, openly disengaging from an offensive set momentarily in a demonstrative show of disgust. He did throw down a monstrous dunk a couple of possessions later, the kind of showtime dunk a frustrated player often performs to let off steam, but was mostly a non-factor offensively the rest of the game thanks to the relentless double-teams he faced.

Creighton’s best defensive performance of year could not have come on a better night, because offensively, they were decidedly average. They missed one open look after another in the first half, with Doug McDermott struggling mightily against the length and athleticism of Solomon (who, to his credit, didn’t take his offensive frustration to the other end) and David Kravish. Ethan Wragge missed shots he normally makes, as did Grant Gibbs. Thankfully, Devin Brooks was able to provide a spark off the bench, scoring on a nifty drive to the rim on his very first possession and assisting on three buckets for teammates in just nine first half minutes.

With Solomon a non-factor, and Kravish in early foul trouble, Cal got even more bad news when Jabari Bird went down with a lower-leg injury late in the first half, making their already shortened bench (it was announced Sunday morning that starter Ricky Kreklow is out 4-6 weeks with a broken hand) even shorter. All totaled, they mustered just 19 points in the first half. When they made just one of their first seven shots after the break, it was clear they were still bothered by CU’s defense, and with the Jays finally starting to knock down shots, you got the feeling things would get out of hand quickly. Creighton’s lead ballooned out to as many as 20, as the Jays combined better offensive flow with continued defensive pressure to squeeze Cal to the brink.

If the Jays had won, say, 90-75, I’d have been equally as happy — a win is a win — but not as excited for conference play as I am following this 68-54 win. This was one of their worst offensive nights of the year, and yet the game was never truly in doubt. They led wire-to-wire and nearly blew a team out while not even getting free pizza for the fans. That’s incredibly encouraging. They had a superior gameplan, they executed it brilliantly, and the result was excellent team defense. If that becomes a trend, the Jays will be able to beat people either by outscoring them or by shutting them down, which is something we haven’t been able to say about the previous two squads. And there’s evidence that it is becoming a trend — they’ve held seven of eleven opponents to under 40% shooting from the field, and are 60th in the country in adjusted defense according to Ken Pomeroy.

Quotables:

“We didn’t let Justin Cobbs get into a rhythm, and I thought that was key. When he gets into a rhythm, he gets hot and can really hurt you. We did a really good job of containing him and making him take tough shots.” -Austin Chatman on 1620AM postgame

“All week long, we did a whole bunch of box-out drills and crash-the-board drills. We put a big emphasis on the guards helping the bigs get to the glass, and we did.” -Austin Chatman on 1620AM postgame

(On whether they’re a better defensive team without Gregory Echenique, because everybody has to be more locked in) “I think we’re getting there, but we really had to change a lot of our schemes. Collectively, as a group, we’re starting to get there to the point where we’re right at the same level, or maybe a little better than last year. But like I said, last year when we played Cal with basically the same team, we wouldn’t have been doubling the post. We’d have had Gregory playing them straight-up. So we’re getting adjusted to new schemes and rotations, and I thought we were really locked in, to a man, collectively tonight.” -Grant Gibbs on 1620AM postgame

(On outrebounding Cal) “To a man, we boxed out. We work on it every day, and it sucks. You get beat up. But that’s what we have to do. We have to have five box-outs on every play, because we’re not going to out-jump anybody. I thought Ethan and Doug, Ethan especially, he only had four rebounds but I think his box-out numbers were really good. He kept Solomon from getting boards. He’s really working hard down there to keep opposing bigs from getting boards, so that our guards can fly down there and get them.” -Grant Gibbs on 1620AM postgame

“This is a tough night to play a game. That’s why you see so many goofy scores December 19, 20, 21, 22, those kids can’t wait to get home. I lost to South Dakota State when I was at Iowa State on December 21 or 22. Our guys were so ready to go home for a couple of days, so to have a game like this where it demands your focus because of your opponent, it really helps. You get a good crowd in the building, and that helps too.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“This was pretty good tonight, in terms of locking into a scouting report and executing it. They scored on one out of ten possessions to start the game, and one out of seven to start the second half, so that sets the tone. We talked in the pregame about trying to frustrate Richard Solomon, and keep him off-balance, in terms of ‘is there a double’ and ‘where’s the double coming from’. It takes five guys to do that. The two guys in the trap are obviously very important, but the other three guys have to make sure they’re covering up and then coming out of it and understanding who’s a shooter, who’s not a shooter, who do I need to defend, who do I need to get to, that’s not as easy as it looks.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“Well, we spent all week on (rebounding). It was box-outs, box-outs, box-outs. Our guys understand the importance of not giving a team like Cal, and Kravish and Solomon in particular, six or seven extra chances a game. You have to put a body on them. We told our guys, if you’ve got Solomon, I don’t care if you get the rebound, but just make sure he doesn’t. One of the first ones in the game, he just went up over top of everybody and tipped it back. That’s the type of athlete he is. I thought our guys did a good job of limiting that the rest of the game.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“I thought once Doug settled in and realized what they were giving him and what they were taking away, he was better. We had some open shots early — Grant had an open one, Austin had an open one, Ethan had an open one — and the reality is, when we have open threes, we have to take them. That’s just who we are and how we play, so if that’s what they’re going to give us, that’s what we have to take. To be up 6-2 after ten possessions when you haven’t played well offensively, that’s what you have to have sometimes. You’re not going to be perfect all the time.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

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