Subscribe to our Newsletter

Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 75, Texas Pan-American 60

By
0
Share

[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton nearly doubles UTPA on the glass, holding a 46-24 edge in rebounds, including a 16-4 edge on the offensive boards. That leads directly to a 20-3 edge for Creighton on second chance points, which is more than the margin of victory.

Favorite Moment:

If you’re talking about favorite moments on the court, it’s a two-horse race between the inbounds alley-oop under their own basket to Will Artino and the ridiculously athletic scoop-shot-thing that walk-on Mogboluwaga Oginni made in the final minute of the game. But if you’re talking about favorite moments, overall, it has to go to the Creighton Video crew for those timeout JibJab-style videos, doesn’t it? How many times has a video gotten a standing ovation from the crowd in CLink history? Exactly.

First, there was the Bluejays dancing the Macarena in reindeer suits, which was pretty amazing.

Various Bluejays dance the Macarena in a funny video shown at Friday's game. (Photo by Adam Streur for WBR)

Various Bluejays dance the Macarena in a funny video shown at Friday’s game. (Photo by Adam Streur for WBR)

Then immediately after that, a video of Mariachi Bluejays playing Jose Feliciano’s classic “Feliz Navidad”, and that slayed the crowd — there was audible laughter and a standing ovation at the end. As the huddle broke, I saw Austin Chatman glance up at the board, see himself in that Mariachi outfit, and have the strangest look of bewilderment I’ve seen in a long time. Coach Greg McDermott caught a look as he walked down the sideline, and tried VERY hard not to break a smile. There was 14 minutes left in a close game, after all.

A Bluejay Mariachi band plays "Felix Navidad" in a hilarious video shown Friday night. (Photo by Adam Streur for WBR)

A Bluejay Mariachi band plays “Felix Navidad” in a hilarious video shown Friday night. (Photo by Adam Streur for WBR)

On the one hand, it’s really too bad they didn’t upload those to YouTube for people who weren’t at the game to enjoy. On the other hand, maybe it’s better that way — it might be one of those “You had to be there” moments.

Quick Recap:

In the final home game before Big East play starts, Creighton played perhaps their most complete game of the home slate, leading for nearly the entire night and bookending the win with two runs of shutout basketball. They scored the game’s first seven points, held Texas Pan-American to just four baskets on their first 17 possessions, and built a 22-9 lead ten minutes into the game. Then late in the game, as UTPA tried to make a late run, the Jays took care of business with a 12-0 run that blew open a 61-51 game into a 73-51 blowout. That allowed Greg McDermott to get Leon Gilmore and others some playing time, and Austin Chatman and Isaiah Zierden some rest.

The early burst was keyed by Creighton’s big men, as Toby Hegner and Zach Hanson scored the game’s first seven points. Then Geoff Groselle, checking in early in the game, continued the solid post play with an offensive rebound that led to a lob to Hegner and a 9-3 lead. Zierden hit a three on the next possession, and the Jays were off and running.

Then with six minutes to play, UTPA cut what had been a 17-point lead down to ten, and was looking to make things interesting. Instead, Creighton showed a killer instinct they haven’t had so far this year, and put the game away. The run started with an in-bounds alley-oop to Artino for a dunk, and featured a three-pointer from Chatman, a baseline-drive layup from Avery Dingman, and a dribble-drive for a hoop from Devin Brooks. Everyone got in on the fun, and suddenly it was a 22-point cushion.

Quotables:

“That was important that I played better tonight, because James (Milliken) is not with us right now unfortunately. A lot of us will be playing a few more minutes. And we really needed this win, coming off that tough loss to Saint Mary’s. I thought we came out early, punched ’em in the mouth, and never let up.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“That Saint Mary’s game was a tough one to lose. When it went into overtime, I thought we should have beat them. We didn’t execute down the stretch, we didn’t come up with stops, it was really frustrating. I couldn’t remember the last time we lost at home, so it felt really good to come out and get this win.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“Our passing was as good tonight as it’s been all season, especially against the zone. That’s something we practiced this week. Swinging the ball around like we did tonight makes us tough to guard. I think they stopped us on only four possessions in the first half where we didn’t turn it over, so if we would have eliminated those turnovers, we’d have had a little bit more of a lead.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“We saw some zone at the end of last year and struggled with it, which is a strange thing considering how well we shot the ball last year. A huge thing against the zone is getting it into the paint. As we looked at film this week, we thought our next two opponents would throw some zone at us so we really worked on getting guys to the high post, we added a few things to our offense, and it worked pretty well.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“It’s really tough to prepare during Finals Week. Mentally, you have to change from the books when you step on the practice court to the basketball aspect. It’s tough. But I thought we had a few good days of practice leading up to this. And finals went well, for me personally, I only had one on Monday. I was just hanging out this week, kicking it (laughs).” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame

“We were talking about it in the locker room before the game, and said that defense and rebounds would win us this game. I thought I needed to come out with a little more bite to me, and I think a lot of my rebounds came in the first four minutes.” -Toby Hegner on 1620AM Postgame

“I’m my own worst enemy. No one hates missing shots as much as I do. I felt like I hit a wall a couple of weeks ago, but let me tell you, I was in the gym on my days off at least twice a day. I needed to figure it out. Coach D-Rock helped me, we figured it out, and now shots are starting to fall again. I was fading away too much, and not keeping my chin tucked in. If you watch the film from today, there was still a couple where my head fell back on the shot, but it’s getting there.” -Toby Hegner on 1620AM Postgame

“Life’s a little easier when you’re +22 on the boards. I thought we did a great job keeping them off the offensive glass, and particularly early in the game. I think three of our first scores were a result of an offensive rebound. We thought that was something that might be there tonight, and I was really proud of the way that starting group got us off to good start. UTPA only scored on four of 17 possessions to start the game, we functioned pretty well offensively, got some easy shots, got the big lead, and then kind of held on. Obviously we threw some different lineups out there, but Avery did a good job of not letting Joesaar get started. He got started against Saint Louis and they couldn’t get him stopped. So that was our focus — let’s not let him get on a roll early. Now, unfortunately we let Hines get going, and really blew some assignments with him, but for the most part defensively and on the backboards we did what had to be done.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“We knocked them out of their zone, which not many people have done. I thought out ball movement, especially when we got to the middle of the zone, where we were able to throw it out of the backside, some good things happened. Also, they got spread out some, and we were able to get some isolations one-on-one with Zach and Geoff inside. And we had more of a post presence tonight because of that then we’ve had in the past. That was good to see. I thought Geoff had a good first half. He wasn’t feeling well at halftime, and the trainers decided we’d better hold him out the second half. I thought Zach did some good things, Geoff did some good things at times, and Will had a big play on that out-of-bounds dunk and made a few hustle plays on the defensive end of the floor. As a group, that three-headed monster performed decent tonight.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Toby was really good. He made some extra hustle plays on the boards, and did a good job of boxing out and got some defensive rebounds in traffic which is good to see. He missed a couple of shots that he’s normally going to make, but I think he’s feeling better about how he’s playing and that’s encouraging to see. We’re going to need him to play well. Defensively, except for that stretch where Hines got going on him, I thought he was more active defensively. He followed the gameplan to perfection, as far as when to help and when not to. He just got caught by a couple of screens and let them hit a couple of 15-17 footers.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I’ve said it before, this team is going to be a work in progress for a while. There’s still stretches in games where there’s not much flow. And especially when we get caught with the wrong lineup out there, if we’re resting somebody. And for a while tonight, UTPA went small, and we’ve got Toby guarding their backup point guard. Teams like that where you don’t have the typical front line can pose problems for us.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

And Now, Here’s What You Had to Say:

0
Share
Newsletter
Never Miss a Story

Sign up for WBR's email newsletter, and get the best
Bluejay coverage delivered to your inbox FREE.