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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 83, Saint Joseph’s 79

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[Box Score]

Key Stats: Creighton outrebounds Saint Joseph’s 29-28. Ethan Wragge buries a career-high seven three-pointers. Creighton’s bench outscores the Hawks 38-9.

Favorite Moment: It never occurred to me before, but it’s true. Doug McDermott — two-time All American, leading scorer in school history, holder of a huge chunk of Creighton’s records — had never made a game-winning shot. That’s insane, right? On Saturday night, he finally won a game with a last-second shot, and what a time to do it.

Trailing 79-78, the Jays had to inbound the ball four times (!) — on the first, they couldn’t get it in and called timeout; on the second and third, they were fouled because St. Joe’s had fouls to give, and on the fourth, they got it to McDermott. They ran a circle play, one of the most basic basketball plays in the book, and it created just enough confusion to get McDermott open for a split second. That was enough for Gibbs to hit him, and McDermott nailed the shot while being fouled mid-flight — his jumper put them up by one, and the free-throw put them up two. After the free throw, St. Joes inexplicably tried a full-court pass with 4 seconds remaining, instead of bringing the ball up the court. Devin Brooks intercepted it, made both free throws, and the game was in the bag. So that’s really two favorite moments, but that’s the way it is.

500-ish Word Recap: Two years ago, Creighton went into Hagen Arena and got smashed in the face by a more physical team — the Hawks did pretty much anything they wanted to around the rim (on both ends), scoring 46 of their 80 points in the paint, outrebounding the Jays by 12, and blocking seven shots.

From the outset Saturday night, it was clear Creighton was committed to preventing a sequel to that scenario. They schemed to keep the ball away from both Halil Kanacevic and Ronald Roberts, and sent help when they did catch it. This was a successful strategy, as both players were essentially non-factors offensively (and had none of the highlight reel plays that whipped the crowd into such a frenzy two years ago) with the two combining for 18 points and 14 rebounds. Good numbers, sure, but not game-changing numbers.

Problem was, the sagging inside on defense often left the perimeter open, where a calculated gamble by Coach Greg McDermott nearly burned them. Chris Wilson, who was 1-4 from behind the arc for the season, got hot early and buried three of six from outside in the first half alone and 6-11 for the game. But sensational freshman DeAndre Bembry, who we talked about a bit in the Primer on Friday, was the primary beneficiary of the defensive concentration on others — he went 8-14 from the floor and 4-8 from three-point range. Time after time, the Hawks would dump the ball inside to Kanacevic, who would draw defensive pressure and then kick it out to an open shooter, who then buried a long jump shot. He had 10 assists for the game, an unheard of number for a big man.

With 9:40 to go in the first half, it was 24-11 Saint Joseph’s. Doug McDermott was bottled up inside, unable to catch the ball much less get off a clean shot, and the offense was stagnant as a result. It was a night where someone else would need to come up big. Creighton had two such players.

Constant double-teams on McDermott left Ethan Wragge open, and he dropped seven #WraggeBombs from all over the court, en route to 21 points. And with the St. Joe’s defense intent on doubling McDermott AND containing Wragge, that often left the paint vulnerable to dribble penetration, something Devin Brooks was willing and able to exploit. He drove to the rim time after time, making either an easy bucket or drawing a foul.

By halftime, the lead had been cut to 45-40, and a 12-6 Creighton run to open the second half erased the big St. Joe’s lead entirely. From there, it was a back-and-forth affair, with four ties and five lead changes in the game’s second half. A pair of eight-point Bluejay leads were quickly turned back by the Hawks; the second of which, a 72-64 Jays lead with 7:04 to play, was stamped out by a 8-2 SJU run highlighted by a three from both Bembry and Wilson, and punctuated by a dunk from Ronald Roberts. With 1:09 to play and CU clinging to a 78-74 edge, Wilson buried his sixth 3-pointer of the game, cutting the lead to just one. Two free throws from Roberts gave St. Joe’s the lead on the next possession. And then it was time for Doug to save the day.

Quotables:

(On the final inbounds pass) “I thought he was going to throw it into the front court, but I tried to make it look like I wasn’t guarding the long pass so they’d throw it long. That’s exactly what they did, and I jumped up and intercepted it.” -Devin Brooks on 1620AM postgame

(On whether he was nervous for his first road game) “Nah, nah, I was excited, I was kinda happy. Even though I’ve never seen a crowd like this, they were crazy, they were talking to us before the game and then during the game…yeah. When I first got into the game, I said, OK, just take your time, take it easy, let the game come to you.”  -Devin Brooks on 1620AM postgame

(On playing with Ethan Wragge) “Oh my gosh. One word: WOW. It’s just so fun playing with him. The pick and roll when his man helps off, it’s just automatic. I’ve never played with anybody like that. He’s my guy…pick and roll, baby. That’s his bread and butter.”  -Devin Brooks on 1620AM postgame

“Yeah, coach is really hard on me defensively, because he knows what I’m capable of. Tonight I had to prove that I’m ready for the big time, to show him that he can have confidence in me. I think I did pretty well (on defense) at the end.”  -Devin Brooks on 1620AM postgame

“I didn’t start out well — I missed a free throw, I missed my first two, but once I got that first one to go, with the way they were defending the ball screens, it was a good night from there.” -Ethan Wragge on 1620AM postgame

“They were doing a great job of doubling both on the high post and on Doug. They kind of had him off his game. Just the way they were defending overall, they were daring other guys to shoot. So I thought, if they want to do that, when I get in the game I’ll go take advantage.”  -Ethan Wragge on 1620AM postgame

“Devin’s a big game kind of player. He has no conscience. We even asked him, before he shot the two free throws at the end, and he didn’t even know that was to ice the game. He just went up and made them both like it was no big deal.”  -Ethan Wragge on 1620AM postgame

“Saint Joe’s really came out and punched us in the mouth right away. They hit some tough shots and we had some mental mistakes. Kind of reminded me a lot of two years ago, at San Diego State, where they came out and did the same thing. They got up early, but we chipped away, chipped away, we got it down before halftime and that allowed us to take a deep breath and say, ‘Alright, now we can do this.'” -Ethan Wragge on 1620AM postgame

“That was heckuva of college basketball game. Eerily similar to San Diego State a few years ago, where we just got punched in the mouth early, and they were all jacked up, the crowd was into it. But to our guys credit, we stuck with it. In the second half, we got Doug moving a little bit more, he was a little stagnant in the first half. He put them in some tough spots in the second half, where two guys are running to him and they’re leaving a shooter, or two guys run to the shooter and he gets a seal inside.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“Really proud of our team, to be behind, to get the lead and lose the lead, and then have to execute at the end — we had to get it on the sideline three times — really proud. And then we ran our circle out of bounds play that we talked about on the pregame, you’d have thought I was crazy if I had said we were going to win a game with that play. I thought of it a couple nights ago when I was having one of those sleepless nights, to use against their switching defense. Coach Vanderloo informs me that his fifth grade daughter’s basketball team is running the same play, so yes it’s basic, but it was just able to create just enough confusion. There’s a little method to the madness, though. Grant’s got to slap the ball on the screen, he’s going to pass the ball when Doug’s in a certain spot, and the defense just got caught for a split second on a miscommunication, and Doug got loose.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“In some ways with Devin, it’s a square peg trying to fit into a round hole based on the way Devin’s always played and the way that we play. It’s been a challenge for me and for Devin to try to figure out how to make that work. I love the kid, he’s got an unbelievable heart. He drives me nuts sometimes, but he knows it. If you’d have told me it was going to be a close game and Austin Chatman was going to be out for the last five minutes, and we’d have to rely on Devin defensively…I’d have been very worried. But to Devin’s credit, he really did a good job. He’s probably the only guy on the team that makes that play at the end, to jump and intercept that full court pass. I wasn’t really expecting that pass, but I also don’t have Ronald Roberts on my team where you can just throw it up and he’ll go get it. That was a pretty good pass, but Devin made an even better play.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

“I’ve told some NBA guys that you’re crazy if you don’t look at Ethan. This guy will stand in the corner and make that shot for 12 years as well as anyone in the league. I really believe that. And he’s got toughness to go with it. He might be one-dimensional on offense, he may not post much, he may not handle it, although he did make a couple of nice passes tonight, but he fights his tail off defensively. He works, he blocks out, he does the little things like communicating with his teammates, he covers up for his teammates mistakes. So he may be one-dimensional on offense but he’s a complete player on defense.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM postgame

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