Key Stats:
The two teams combine to shoot 8-51 from three-point range. Xavier got the worse end of that, going an unbelievable 1-21, which earned them this beautiful shot chart from ESPN:
Creighton out-rebounded Xavier 25-18 in the first half, lost the battle of the offensive glass by just one, 7-6, yet attempted nine fewer shots because of a ghastly 10 turnovers. Both teams made 12 field goals, but the Jays had a 10-point lead because they held a 5-1 edge in made threes, and an 8-2 edge in made free throws.
Xavier turned the tables in the second half, out-rebounding the Jays 28-19 and 9-2 on the offensive glass. The Bluejays made just one more field goal than the Musketeers (10-9) and both teams made 11 free throws, but CU was working with a 10-point head start, so holding serve was more than enough to win.
Standout Performance:
As Maurice Watson, Jr. goes, the Bluejays go. That sounds like a damning statement, but it’s not — he’s an all-conference-type player who has the unique ability among his teammates to completely take over a game and win it. If there’s a player in the Big East who means more to the success of his team, or whose team would suffer more without him than Creighton and Mo Watson, I haven’t seen it. Some nights defenses take away his scoring, and he kills them by creating for teammates (as in his brilliant 14-assist night at Seton Hall). Some nights defenses dare him to score himself, and he kills them by doing what he did on Tuesday. Occasionally he has a night where the opposition stops both facets of his game and the team struggles as a result, but when he’s on — either by scoring or distributing — he’s an almost unstoppable force.
Creighton scored 33 second-half points on Tuesday night, and Watson had 22 of them, including seven of their last 11 in the final 3:28. That’s roughly the same amount of time Georgetown needed to erase a double-digit lead two weeks ago against CU, but this time Watson wasn’t having any of it.
In one thirty-second stretch, he literally — not figuratively, literally — put his team on his back and carried them across the finish line. That’s the thing about Mo that makes his teammates believe in big things, and in turn makes Creighton’s fans dream of where this team might go under his leadership: He talks a big game, but boy, does he back it up.
Up 60-51 and coming out of the media timeout where he yelled that quote above in the huddle, he milked most of the shot clock away and then calmly drove to the rim for a very difficult layup that he made look easy. Next, he rebounded a missed three from Trevon Bluiett, set up the offense, and then drove straight into the teeth of the Xavier defense to make an acrobatic shot at the rim. To cap it off, just seconds later, he stripped Bluiett at the other end of the floor and raced down the court for a layup that made it 66-53 and put any thoughts Xavier may have had about a comeback to rest.
And when he came out of the game shortly thereafter, the huge, prolonged curtain call he received was one of those goosebump-moments that Bluejay fans in attendance will remember for a long time.
Recap & Analysis:
So, that was fun, huh?
Mo Watson scored Creighton’s first and last points on Tuesday night, setting the tone for a game where the Jays never trailed against the fifth-rated Musketeers. His teammates followed his lead on both ends, coupling solid offensive execution with a good defensive gameplan and a little luck. Xavier missed 13 of their first 15 shots and only scored on two of their first 16 possessions to begin the game, while the Bluejays built a 21-4 lead thanks to two three-pointers each from James Milliken and Isaiah Zierden.
Defensively, especially in those crucial first minutes, they forced Xavier to take jump shots and three-pointers, which were mostly contested. Obviously when a team shoots as horribly as the Musketeers did from long-range, it’s not just defense but also a bit of luck to catch them on an off night, but the strides CU has made defensively since the beginning of conference play are staggering — the layup lines and uncontested shots that teams like Xavier got earlier in the year against the Jays were nowhere to be found last night.
The initial surge to a 17-point lead kept the crowd engaged and gave the team a little extra bounce in their step, even when Xavier made their inevitable runs to close the gap. The first run came midway through the first half; an 11-2 Xavier run cut that 21-4 lead to just 23-15 after a Larry Austin, Jr. steal and transition layup from Kaiser Gates. As they did all night, Creighton answered — Cole Huff was fouled taking a three and sank a trio of free throws, Zach Hanson blocked a shot on the next Xavier possession, Mo Watson drove to the rack for a layup, the defense forced a stop, Huff grabbed a tough rebound in traffic, and then he drilled a step-back jumper to make it 30-17.
CU has had trouble finishing halves all year, and it looked like that might be the case on this night as well when Edmond Sumner scored four straight to cut the deficit to 30-23 with 4:31 to go. Just as he did at the end of the game, Watson put the team on his back — making four free throws and assisting on a three-pointer by Zierden — to give the Jays a 37-27 halftime lead.
He continued to do damage as the second half began, leading an 8-0 run with two free throws and his only three-pointer of the night to push the lead out to 45-27 just three minutes in. It was important to not let Xavier steal momentum with a big run at the start of the half, and they succeeded by turning the tables with a run of their own. Still, Xavier is rated fifth for a reason, and they refused to go quietly. Coach Chris Mack switched to a 1-3-1 zone, and it flustered the Bluejays. They scored six points in nearly eight minutes of action, watching a 47-36 lead get trimmed to 53-48 in the process.
Though he initially struggled to find a way to penetrate that unusual 1-3-1 zone, Watson eventually did, and once that happened it was curtains for the Musketeers. With 6:30 left, he found a crease and drove to the rim for a bucket that made it 55-48. After two free throws by Jalen Reynolds (followed by him screaming things unfit for print at a section of Bluejay fans that had attempted to distract him with noise), Watson again answered, this time on a jumper, and following a defensive stop, Cole Huff drained a three from the corner to push the lead out to 60-50 with 4:37 to go.
From there, Watson took over, and the rest is history.
It’s a humongous win for the Bluejays, because it gives them something they’ve lacked — a marquee, signature win to hang their hats on. They’re now 7-5 in the league, tied with Georgetown for fourth (and potentially tied for third after tonight, should Seton Hall lose to Butler). They’re back on the fringes of the NCAA Tournament bubble, and have opportunities over the next three weeks to play themselves into the tourney. Regardless of how things unfold, one of their goals coming into the year after last year’s disappointment was to be playing meaningful games in February. You can put a big ol’ checkmark next to that one, Bluejays. Now it’s time to move to the next goal of getting back to the postseason. We’ll likely have an answer to that one after the upcoming two-game road trip to Marquette and Butler.
They Said It:
“It was tough against that 1-3-1 zone because I couldn’t see (laughs). Macura has great size and so does Reynolds and so does Bluiett. The thing is, I had the jumper over Reynolds every single time, but as the point guard I don’t want to come down and shoot every single time without at least trying to get somebody else open. I think that’s why some of those threes I took in the second half were kind of off, because I didn’t really want to shoot them. I wasn’t really being aggressive dribble-wise because we practiced passing through the zone, until my teammates told me that I couldn’t really do that, and that I needed to try and drive through it. I saw that our lead was dwindling down, and knew this was a time that my teammates needed me to take over, so that’s what I tried to do.” -Maurice Watson on 1620AM Postgame
“I was actually a little worried to start the game because our layup lines were sloppy, and our routines weren’t as crisp as they normally are. We wanted this win bad. We’ve been talking about how we’ve put in so much work in practice, and it’s such a shame that we can’t carry it over to the floor. Tonight we did, we were able to get the crowd going. We say it all the time, when we get Isaiah making threes, we can feed off of that. Cole made some shots too, and that fast start was also about getting stops so we get get out in transition. If you remember in the game at Villanova, we made shots but we didn’t get stops. So to be able to make shots AND get stops, that got our crowd going, forced them to call, what, two timeouts? We frustrated them. And that big start gave us wiggle-room to struggle with their zone later and still be able to pull out the win.” -Maurice Watson on 1620AM Postgame
“Their guards struggled to make shots, and that’s a credit to Isaiah and James. We knew that without Tazz tonight it was going to be a big challenge with those guards. We made their shots tough. We wanted to get into their pocket and make it hard for them. They’re very talented and they have a lot of strength in their game. But the run we had at the beginning amped us up and then we locked in.” -Maurice Watson on 1620AM Postgame
“Geoff and Isaiah were really insistent on having a team meeting after the loss at Villanova. It was very relaxed team meeting, but everyone got a chance to go down the line and get some things off their chest. And it wasn’t anything negative, we didn’t come at anybody, but it was we saw and what everyone’s opinion was on how we could get better. I think that turned us around, because we were able to feel and to understand what our teammates were thinking and where they were coming from.” -Maurice Watson on 1620AM Postgame
“What’s the statement from tonight? That we’re here. We’re not going away. We lost three straight but we’re not going away quietly. Don’t count us out. We’re working hard just like everybody else and we’re not a team you can sleep on.” -Maurice Watson on 1620AM Postgame
“I’m just so happy for my team. We had a rough week-and-a-half. I kind of had to hold the tears back at the end tonight. To see us be able to come out and get results against a tough team, with a young team like ours, I was just so happy to get this win for them.” -Maurice Watson on 1620AM Postgame
“I’d like to think we made them do something they didn’t want to do, and that’s throw it inside time after time after time. I thought our help defense was really good on Sumner, and kept him out of transition. The decision to go small on Bluiett, and put our four-man on Abell, and that didn’t end up hurting us and actually helped us because now their ball-screen action with Bluiett, where they like to get that mismatch, we switched it. And they had no answer. Let’s be honest though, they missed some shots that they normally make, but we also missed some shots especially in the second half against that 1-3-1. We had really clean looks and we didn’t knock them down. That’s going to happen in a game like this, but our guys competed, they fought, and I thought Geoff’s energy early in the game — everybody fed off of it. They scored on two of their first 16 possessions. We jumped out to that 19-4 lead, the crowd was into it, and I knew we were going to need that because you know they’re going to make a run. They’re such a good team. Heckuva defensive effort from our guys.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Well, when they went big we knew the 1-3-1 was coming. They were down 18, they weren’t stopping us at all, and we’d prepped for that for two days. We had two or three things that we thought we liked against it. The problem is, and Maurice said it in the media room, they asked ‘What did you see when you went against that 1-3-1?’ He said that was the problem, I couldn’t see (laughs). You know, they’re so long. You want to make a pass to initiate another action, but he wasn’t able to get it. Now, as it wore on, I thought he got in the crease. Our timing of that high screen was a little better, and he was able to sneak in there and create shots for his teammates. One of the biggest issues defensively was whether to double-team the post. We got burned on it once because we were late on a rotation, we forced a turnover another time, and as we got up late decided to just play it one-on-one. Those two bigs are a tough matchup for Cole or Toby. There was a lot of things going through my head. We thought about zone, we thought about triangle-and-two, and we just decided you know what, this is what got us here, we’re going to stick with it and see what happens.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“When you sit here and you watch the game in person, you say ‘You know, Maurice went in there and he made a layup.’ When you go back and watch that in slow-motion, you understand the guys he was shooting that over and the degree of difficulty with how high off the glass he had to shoot some of those, they’re incredible shots. Maurice is a confident guy, as we know. But he also has backed it up with a lot of hard work. Working on shots like that, working on his mid-range jump shot, his three-point shooting even though it wasn’t great tonight. But it’s been much better on the season because he’s spent time on it. He did a great job offensively, obviously, but the job he did guarding Sumner was really impressive.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Khyri’s feeling under the weather, we’ll have an off day tomorrow and hopefully by Thursday he’s back and ready to go. We decided right before game time to hold him out and to James’ credit, because it’s not like you’re laying in bed last night knowing you’re going to start, he finds out 15 minutes before the game he was starting. He really got us off to a great start, making a couple of baskets early, and being really solid defensively.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“You know, going back to the end of the Georgetown game we had a couple of turnovers that led to baskets that really fueled that comeback. Seton Hall we gave up several baskets off our turnovers where they went and dunked it, or shot a rhythm shot because our defense wasn’t set. Villanova did that some as well. And we’ve talked the need to value the basketball and keeping the teams out of transition, of trying to eliminate those easy shots. Teams are going to hit threes on you sometimes when you’re plugging up the paint and doing some of the stuff we do, but we can’t give ’em stuff. And I didn’t feel like when things didn’t go our way tonight, unlike in those games, we fought through it. We continued to fight. We hung our head a little bit, felt sorry for ourselves, and obviously there was some mental adjustments along with making sure we put our guys in the best position to be successful. To their credit, we had some heart-to-heart meetings as a team and I think they had a meeting by themselves.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We want to play meaningful games in February. We talked about that before the season. Tonight was a meaningful game because we’re still on that bubble, albeit probably on the outside of it. At least we’re there, and we have opportunities with games like this to put ourselves in a better position. And without the win tonight, the game Saturday probably doesn’t mean as much. Now, all of a sudden, this road trip is a big, big road trip because we’ve put ourselves back in the conversation of a team that can possibly beat one of the top teams in the country. Saturday’s a huge game now. Marquette’s fighting for their lives.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Tonight’s crowd, it was deafening in here at times. It was a lot of fun for our guys. It was a special, special night. Unbelievable atmosphere. It was absolutely awesome. As I told the team, our crowd appreciates the way we played that first seven or eight minutes. Just grit and toughness and sharing the basketball and making the extra effort. Winning the hustle plays. Dominating the boards as we were at that point. That’s what our crowd wants to see and that’s what I want to see too (laughs). Just…have some fight and make sure you’re winning the fight. We talked about that the last two days. This is going to be like a street fight. That’s the way Xavier plays. They have an edge to them, they’ve very confident, and there’s a reason they’re confident. They’re a darn good basketball team. We’re going to be in a bunch of those fights and we can’t back down. We’ve got to continue to fight the fight. We did that tonight and I think our crowd appreciated it, and we certainly appreciated the crowd.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We’ve said it before, but this season in this league, everybody’s a little fragile. There’s so many teams that can beat each other on any given night. You can’t pat yourself on the back too much when things are going well, and you can’t hang your head very long when they’re not going well. Really outside of Villanova and Xavier, it’s pretty much happened to everybody at some point. This was big for us. I’m proud of our guys. I’m very appreciative of the unbelievable crowd we had here tonight on a Tuesday night. You start to take it for granted. We’ve been in the Big East for three years, and four years ago in the Valley if we had a #5 team in the country here we’d have had people in tents sleeping outside last night! Now, it’s like ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got another Top Ten team rolling into town.’ So, it’s been a change for our fans and the move to the Big East has been great for our institution. I know that I love it as a coach and our guys love it. I think our fans have grown to like some of the rivalries that are starting to develop in this league as well. It’s pretty cool.”-Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
You Said It:
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