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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 75, DePaul 62

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[Box Score]

Key Stats: Creighton grabs 12 offensive rebounds, and turns them into 18 second-chance points. The Bluejays outrebound DePaul 38-22, including 12-5 on the offensive glass — and 10-2 in the second half alone. CU shoots 50% (12-24) in the first half and 48% in the second (12-25) in one of their most complete offensive games of the year.

Standout Performance: Austin Chatman has taken flak this year for his offensive struggles, but he was fantastic on Tuesday night, particularly in the second half when the game was being decided. He scored 10 points on 4-7 shooting, including going 2-3 from three-point range, and played all 20 minutes. He also made an absolute dagger of a shot late in the game that broke DePaul’s will. With two minutes to go, DePaul was attempting a last-minute comeback, had cut the lead to eight, and had forced the Jays to use 30 seconds of the shot clock without even getting a clean look at the basket. Chatman was heavily defended, yet threw up a desperation three from 25 feet out as the shot clock buzzed…and it went in. For a team that has been snakebit by last-minute comebacks from their opponents, it was the sort of cold-blooded shot this team has lacked.

Then he doubled-down on his big play quota. After two made free throws 15 seconds later, DePaul threw on a full-court press and thought they had Chatman trapped in the backcourt, but the senior guard saw Will Artino had slipped behind the defense and was all alone under the basket. He quickly passed the ball over top of all five defenders, and Artino slammed both the ball and any chances of another heartbreaking loss through the net.

Recap & Analysis: Tuesday night’s win in Chicago might be the most satisfying of Creighton’s four conference victories this year, despite coming against a struggling DePaul team in front of a road crowd that was decidedly pro-Bluejay. The Jays blasted out to an early lead, withstood a run by their opponent to tie the game, then re-built their lead and won going away. They played good defensively, they shot well, they dominated the glass, they kept turnovers to a minimum, and they led almost wire-to-wire. It was the most complete performance they’ve had in Big East play this year, and was the surest proof yet that unlike other struggling teams on their schedule, they’ve fought through the struggles to get better instead of fighting amongst themselves or packing it in.

In these teams’ first meeting, DePaul blasted out to a 20-5 lead in the first five minutes thanks to Forrest Robinson’s three-point display. Tuesday night, DePaul scored on just two of their first 16 possessions, and it was the Jays who took the big early lead. And when Ricky Kreklow sank his second three-pointer of the game at the 8:55 mark, it gave the Jays a 22-7 lead, equaling the advantage DePaul had in Omaha.

The Blue Demons regrouped and scored on 11 of their final 17 possessions, including a dunk from Forrest Robinson and a jumper from Jamee Crockett in the final minute, and cut the Jays lead to 34-27 at the break. They continued to cut into the lead as the second half commenced, and tied the game at 40 on a jumper from Crockett with 13:18 to play. Chatman answered with a three for Creighton, and Robinson answered him with a three to once again tie the score at 43. From there, the Jays steadily rebuilt their lead, and pushed it out to five points at 54-49 with less than eight minutes to play. DePaul would have one more opportunity to tie or go ahead, as they had the ball down 54-52 with 6:55 to go, but Durrell McDonald’s three-pointer was long. That would be their last gasp.

Creighton immediately went on a 8-2 run, highlighted by two baskets from Will Artino, and led 62-54 as the clock ticked under three minutes. Chatman’s dagger of a three came next, pushing the lead out to 65-54, and then it became a game of free throws to close out the win.

Quotables:

“All around, everybody was making winning plays, whether it was me on the defensive end when we needed a stop, or down there on the offensive end. Devin made big free throws when they counted. Will finished some big ones inside when we needed them. We got some stops and that let us get out and run, and that’s what allowed us to get on that streak.” -Austin Chatman on 1620AM Postgame

“Everybody was aggressive. It wasn’t just one guy, and that was big for us. And we were getting stops, and that fueled our offense because it let us get out in transition to run. We got it inside and they finished tonight, and when we can play inside-out we’re tough.” -Austin Chatman on 1620AM Postgame

“I think for me, when I’m not aggressive and I’m trying not to make mistakes, that’s when I make mistakes. I play better when I attack and play aggressive, and can make plays for my teammates like I did tonight.” -Austin Chatman on 1620AM Postgame

“Like Coach has been saying, it’s not how you start it’s how you finish. That’s something that everybody is trying to keep in their head: Finish strong. As seniors, we don’t want to leave a bad legacy so we want to leave our mark on this program by finishing as strong as we can.” -Austin Chatman on 1620AM Postgame

“We’ve been putting more of an emphasis on getting the ball inside, and our guards have been putting us in a good position. That means it’s our job to finish it, so we can reward them with assists and they can keep rewarding us with baskets.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame

“When things were working defensively, we were able to execute the ball screen rotations properly, doubling the ball and zoning the other guys. That’s what we were trying to do, and then just really stunting their three-point shooters to make them make an extra pass. At the same time, as big guys we had to stay in front of their bigs to keep easy baskets from happening. When things weren’t working, the complete opposite was happening. But we were able to get it done, and execute defensively for the most part.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame

“Between the first eight minutes of the first half and the first eight minutes of the second, we kind of got stagnant inside. We let them run too many ball screens and that allowed them to do what they wanted to do when they were calling ‘Ice’, which is to push it to the baseline. We were allowing them to take us out of our game. We had to get back to moving the ball around, and to coming up under to set more ball screens. Once we did that, we were able to get back into the flow of our game offensively.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame

“These two long layoffs were hard, but I feel like it definitely paid off for our team. We were able to work on ourselves for six days out of the 14 days off, scrimmage, work on our defense, and on our offense, instead of gameplanning an opponent. We’re further along than we were two weeks ago, and that’s a big reason.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame

“As our careers wind down, we’ve been trying to come in every day and enjoy it, and soak up what we have left. I love playing with these guys and I know that next year, whatever I’m doing, it’s not going to be the same. The camaraderie with those guys, I’ve gone through this process with Avery and Austin and Geoff for four years now, and the other guys for two or three years, so we’ve spent a lot of time together. We still enjoy being around each other. Instead of worrying about missing it, we’re all trying to enjoy it and doing what we can to put a little run together to see if we can do some damage in the Big East Tournament.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame

“Winning 400 games means you’ve been around awhile, and you’ve had pretty good players. It’s fun to get it on the road, the way we did. I was really proud of the way we came out from the jump to start the game. Defensively, we were active, we were in the right spots, and offensively the ball was moving, we were making the extra pass, and we had a good mix of finding rhythm threes and getting the ball inside. It couldn’t come at a better time, after a long break like that. There’s nothing better than winning on the road in college basketball. It never gets old.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Defensively against DePaul, you’re constantly having to adjust depending on who they have on the floor. If Robinson’s on the floor, all bets are off in terms of how you’re defending ball screens. And we got caught in some bad mismatches on Billy Garrett because we were switching that ball screen and did not want Robinson to have an open look. He still got a few off, and hit a couple of them, but we did well. We made some adjustments in the second half. They were hurting us on that high ball screen, so we put a little pressure on Garrett and pushed him up the floor a little bit to give our help a little more time to get there. I thought that was effective. Some of our switching was effective. And we went with the small lineup with Avery and Ricky for a long stretch of the second half so that we could switch a lot of those screens. Both of them are very capable of guarding Garrett on a switch, and they did a good job. They kept him in front of them, and played the game without fouling him. I told the team at halftime that I felt that was really critical that we don’t get them in the bonus right away. I thought that was an important reason why were up in the first half. Our ability to defend without fouling was really important for us.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“It was 19-6 to start the game. They hit those two three-pointers on their first 16 possessions, and those were their only two baskets. On the road, if you can set the tone like that — much like the game at our place, where we were down 20-5 and were playing from behind the whole time. DePaul got close and tied it up, and I went with my gut feeling and decided not to call a timeout, and Austin hit a big three. Sometimes you’re right when you make that decision (laughs) and fortunately I was right tonight. I thought we withstood their run — in watching their film, they’d get up by 15 and the game would get close, or they’d be down 15 and the game would get close, so we knew they had a run in them — especially in their building, I was proud that our guys were able to stand up to that run. And our rebounding effort was really good, and for the most part we took care of the basketball too.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Austin’s a one-man press breaker with his quickness. I thought he did a good job of keeping the ball in the middle of the floor, and looking up the floor. We got a couple of easy baskets attacking that press where he made a great read. They went to a double-team on their ball screens in the last five minutes, and Austin made some great reads out of that, too. I thought he played really well. He made big shots at critical times, but also did a good job of running the team and running the defense. The timeouts, from the first media timeout on, the guys were engaged, there was a lot of communication, and that’s what you want to see happen. I’m really proud of them, and I’m really happy for them after the long break and the tough loss to Butler. To bounce back and get another road win against a team that had just lost at Georgetown by four or five points is a good win for us.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“These long layoffs are hard. They’re hard for coaches, so I can only imagine being a player and in the middle of February having that long of a break. Especially, when you look at how our last game at Butler ended, you want to strap it up and play the next night. The last thing you want is to have six or seven practices before your next game. But to our guys’ credit, I think we moved forward during the break. I think we got better. We kept it pretty simple, we weren’t going to get too complicated with the things we were going over, and just tried to clean up some of the things we were already doing. That’s how we tried to get better, and I think they did that.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Our fans have been incredible. Much like last year, we had a great crowd here. A lot of people made the trip from Omaha, and there were also a lot of our Chicago friends who came to watch us play. It was great that Doug’s schedule worked out where he had a home game last night and an off-night tonight, followed by another home game tomorrow. I know a lot of our fans, some came early to see last night’s game, some are staying late to see tomorrow’s game. Theresa and I don’t get a chance to see Doug and Nick very often, because of how busy they are, so for this to work out and have them all here tonight was pretty cool. Doug’s having as much fun back in the locker room right now as the guys are, so it’s good for them to connect too. Obviously this program is still very important to Doug, and it always will be.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

And Now, Here’s What You Had to Say:

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