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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton 97, UMass 76

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton’s defense holds UMass’ big three of Jabarie Hinds, Trey Davis and Donte Clark to a combined 3-9 from three-point range after they’d scored 71 combined points on Monday night. The Bluejays score more points in the paint — 37 — than they had from three-point range (33). CU’s bench outscores UMass 37-12.

Standout Performance:

My goodness, Geoff Groselle. Wow. 6-7 from the floor, 8-9 from the free-throw line, nine rebounds, two blocks and 20 points. Great defense both on the interior and in helping Creighton’s guards corral those three UMass guards. What more can you say?

Two plays in particular, both in the second half, would have seemed preposterous three years ago with his injury problems at that point in his career. On the first one, he caught the ball on one side of the rim, used his seven-foot frame to swing the ball to the other side of the rim, and put in an up-and-under layup around the defender. Nice as that was, it’s the second one that people will talk about. Finding himself with the ball at halfcourt against a soft press, he dribbled four times all the way to the rim, all the while looking for someone — anyone — to pass it to. Finding no one, he kept it for himself and laid in an easy basket. Geoff Groselle, press breaker.

Flabbergasting.

Recap & Analysis:

It’s a cliche, but I think it’s true — no one saw this coming. After the defensive lapses at Indiana and against Rutgers, many wondered if this team was capable of defending as a team and executing a game plan to take an opponent out of their plan. For 40 minutes Wednesday night, they did just that. It’s tempting to think that a team like UMass who lives by the three simply died by the three in this game, because they didn’t make anywhere close to the 16 threes they had in the previous two games. But holy crap is that ever shortchanging the defense Creighton played.

Yes, those three UMass guards made just three treys. But they attempted only nine! They were so frustrated around the perimeter, guarded so tightly, denied the opportunity to get off even a semi-contested look, that they couldn’t even attempt a shot most of the night, much less make one. The Jays did a great job of switching on ball screens, keeping someone capable of harassing shooters glued to them almost all the time. Great gameplan, great execution.

Creighton built a big early lead on the back of that defensive effort, and might have put the game on ice in the first half if not for continued woes from the free throw line. They were just 8-14 from the line, with the six misses coming on front-ends of one-and-ones making it more like 12 misses. And it was across the board. Cole Huff was 1-3. Mo Watson was 1-2. James Milliken was 2-4. Tyler Clement was 0-1. The bright spot? Seven-footer Geoff Groselle, who sank 4-4 without even grazing the rim. Bizarre.

The lead might also have grown if not for nine first-half turnovers, including four from Watson. They cleaned both of those up in the second half — missing two free throws in the second half, turning it over just three times — and wouldn’t you know it, they pulled away. Funny how that works.

Offensively, they obviously had a big night from Groselle as we talked about above. Cole Huff also had another nice game, going 3-6 from the floor (all from three-point range) for 12 points. Mo Watson had 16 points on 5-11 shooting, including a perfect 2-2 from three-point range, with five assists. James Milliken chipped in 11 points on 3-5 shooting, and 2-3 from three point range. And Toby Hegner had 10 points on 4-7 shooting, and 2-5 from long range.

This was a fantastic effort all across the board, and gives them something to build off as December looms.

They Said It:

“Their three guards are really great players, Trey Davis — I played against him in high school, we’re good friends. So that was nice to play against him. We knew they were threats from outside, so we really had to get up on ball screens and help a lot. We really executed our gameplan well.” -Geoff Groselle on 1620AM Postgame

“Offensively, we were just trying to get in and out of as many ballscreens as possible. Especially when they had that big guy in, as he’s not as mobile as some of the other guys. So we were trying to make him move, and get the ball inside to me when we could. I really owe it to our guards with the way they played, I mean I don’t know how many of my points were unassisted but it wasn’t many.” -Geoff Groselle on 1620AM Postgame

(On his dribble-drive from near halfcourt to the rim) “I think that’s the furthest I’ve driven at Creighton (laughs). I don’t think I’ve ever taken that many dribbles or gone that far on the court! In high school, I actually took one coast to coast and dunked on somebody.” (John Bishop: “No you didn’t! Is it on YouTube?”) “Yeah, I did! I don’t know if it’s on YouTube or not. I don’t know. (laughs). The whole game, their coach was yelling ‘Leave 41 in the middle! Leave 41 in the middle!’ so they gave it to me, and I was dribbling down, trying to find the shooters — that’s what I was really trying to do! — and they just stayed out and gave me the lane. So I took it!” -Geoff Groselle on 1620AM Postgame

“We really had to bounce back from that Indiana game. I really took that loss to heart. That was embarrassing, to lose that bad. And Indiana’s a great team, don’t get me wrong. But we really practiced hard on Saturday and tried to get ready for this tournament. These two wins really helped boost our confidence.” -Geoff Groselle on 1620AM Postgame

“Our coaches really put a lot of emphasis on the scouting report before this game. Coach Preston (Murphy) did a great job with it. We did a great job executing it. We’ve got a very mature team and weren’t distracted at all being in Las Vegas. (Maurice) and I really emphasized that to the rest of the team.” -Geoff Groselle on 1620AM Postgame

“This was our best execution of a gameplan through five games. And to do it on a one-day prep, today we decided not to do a shootaround — we ran you out of the ballroom during your radio show so we could do our walkthrough — so we did our walk-through in the hotel. I thought the guys locked into what needed to be done against that talented guard court, and those three guards who had so many points Monday night — and a lot of it from behind the three-point line — they went 3-10 tonight. Not only did we limit the number of makes, we limited the attempts. That was a team effort. Defensively, the first half was great. We missed some free throws when we had a chance for some separation, and then I thought the first six minutes of the second half was critical. Defensively we kept them in check and then we went on a little bit of a run and were able to create that separation. Then it got into a situation where the refs were calling fouls on them, so they had to call them on us. I thought our bench did a good job of kind of keeping things where they needed to be, while we had so many guys saddled with foul trouble.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I thought this was the best defensive game Geoff has played in a Bluejay uniform. I thought he was low, he was active, his communication was loud and early so the guards were able to push the ball handler in the direction we wanted them to go. And then we stayed with those guys a couple of dribbles, and then tried to make them give it up. When you’re a guard going downhill on a seven-footer you’d better get low, and you could tell the difference between Geoff and some of our other guys. He executed that to perfection. Frankly, that’s what you want your seniors to do. He’s a fifth-year senior, he’s been in this program a long time, he’s got to be able to execute a game plan like that. I didn’t know he could break a press, dribbling down the middle (laughs). We might just save that one and call it good for Geoff (laughs). It was good to see him have such a great game tonight, he was huge.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“The reason we had Tyler Clement as the backup point instead of Malik was we didn’t want to put Malik in a tough situation on a short prep. Tonight’s ball-screen defense we really haven’t used before; we’ve practiced it with Tyler. And he can be on the scout team all week, but if I throw him into a game he knows exactly what we’re doing. I thought he executed the plan. He handled the ball and didn’t make any mistakes. He got us a couple of easy baskets because he made the simple play. We need Maurice to do that — he’s trying to make the home run play sometimes, and it’s getting him in trouble.”-Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Tonight, we had to play our bench. We didn’t have a choice with the foul trouble. To see those guys go in when the game was still in balance and keep the lead or extend the lead is going to be big for us down the road. This is a team that has to play with confidence. This isn’t a team I can beat into the ground to scare them into playing the way I want them to play. That’s not the personality of this team. Sometimes I have to back off a little bit. Now, we did have one really tough practice on Saturday after the Indiana game, because I didn’t like the way we competed. I thought we got selfish at times, and defensively we were so worried about our own guy we didn’t follow the scheme the way it was set up. They responded to that. They understood the importance of being able to execute a plan. I like where we’re at. We proved tonight that we can take a team that’s been really good offensively and take some things away from them and frustrate them.”-Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

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