Nine minutes into the game, Fedor Zugic hit the Bluejays’ sixth three-pointer of the early going to give them a 23-18 lead. Considering they’d spotted St. John’s a 7-0 advantage to start by missing three straight shots and giving up easy looks defensively, it was a quick turnaround.
It was also an aberration. After taking that five-point lead, they spent the rest of the half getting dominated on both ends of the floor.
“We made enough jump shots early to kind of keep us in the game and actually take the lead, but I didn’t feel like we had much energy or juice,” Greg McDermott said. “We need to take a look at the film, but the first 10, 12, minutes of the game were fine. Obviously the 7-0 start wasn’t great, but I thought we responded to that OK. The end of the first half, that last seven or eight minutes was the game.”
“I think it’s 100% just our energy and physicality,” Fedor Zugic said on the postgame radio show. “When you get down by that many points it’s very hard to come back. You know, St. John’s is not a team who’s just gonna let you hang around. They’re very physical, they go get offensive rebounds, they shove people out the way. They just stepped up today and we didn’t react. And these were the consequences.”
They treaded water the rest of the way and actually outscored St. John’s in the second half but the damage was done: the Red Storm led 43-27 by the time Creighton stopped the bleeding. Merely treading water isn’t enough at that point.
It’s the second time in three games that CU has suffered through a prolonged scoring drought and had no answer for stopping it. Against Seton Hall, they missed ten shots in a row and turned it over four times during a 16-2 Pirate run. In this one, they missed seven of eight shots and turned it over four times during a 25-4 Red Storm run.
As if the offensive woes weren’t enough, their defensive plan also blew up. They’ve gotten by without a true ‘5’ in most games, but this was one where they could really have used a healthy version of Owen Freeman. Instead, they opted to double-team Zuby Ejiofor — and it cost them.
“We felt like we needed to keep Jasen (Green) on the floor and, you know, going one-on-one with Zuby Ejiofor was not gonna keep him on the floor,” McDermott explained. “So we had to go with some double-teams, we had to provide some help at times to keep it out of there, and by doing that you’re gonna give up some stuff. We gave up some threes on the backside of those double-teams, and every time we did they made us pay for it.”
Ejiofor came in averaging almost 17 points per game, and scored just nine points before Creighton pulled its main rotational players and 12 points total. But he made them pay for double-teaming him in other ways, dishing out six assists. The primary beneficiaries? Lefteris Liotopoulos (5-of-8 from three) and Dylan Darling (2-of-4 from three). Liotopoulos had been 9-of-27 for the season coming into the game; Darling had been 9-of-28.
“Lefty and Darling really were the difference in the game,” McDermott added. “Those two guys coming in and making seven out of twelve threes flipped the game on its head.”
Inside the Box:
Coming into the game, Creighton knew they needed to limit turnovers and second-chance points for St. John’s. The Jays were destroyed in both categories. St. John’s out-rebounded CU 39-26, held a 10-0 lead in second-chance points, and outscored CU 12-4 in points off turnovers. Combined with allowing St. John’s to shoot 50.8% from the field and make 12-of-23 three-pointers, the result was a game the Jays trailed by as many as 26 points.
“They have unbelievable positional length, and when they’re switching screens, you know any time you see a seam you better take it fast because it’s going to go away,” McDermott said. “They do such a good job of fixing things with their length and athletic ability. I think we were a little stuck in the mud, but I think a lot of it had to do with St. John’s.”
There weren’t many bright spots in this one. The Jays had just two players score in double figures, with Isaac Traudt leading the way with 14 and Blake Harper scoring 12. Both had big caveats, though. 11 of Traudt’s 14 points came in the first half, and three of his four made 3’s came in the first seven minutes of the game. And all 12 of Harper’s points came in the final six minutes. In between, CU struggled to score.
Meanwhile, St. John’s made 12-of-23 from three after entering the game shooting 35.3% from deep for the season.
“When St. John’s shoots the basketball like that, they are a tough team to beat,” McDermott said. “They’re so physical inside around the rim, that that takes up a lot of your scouting report. I thought that Lefty and Darling coming off the bench, they were the difference in the game. They make seven out of 12 3-point shots and when you’re trying to plug the lane a little bit to provide a little help on Hopkins and Zuby, that’s a killer when that happens.”
The last two years after one-point losses, St. John’s coach Rick Pitino was a soundbite machine in the press conference afterward. He was after this one, too, but after a win he was happier, of course. And he heaped praise on his counterpart on the Creighton bench.
“He’s not only one of the great coaches in our game, but he’s one of the great people in the game,” Pitino said. “Some of these young guys think that they invented the game. Here’s a guy that really, really knows the game. His offense is beautiful to watch. He makes great adjustments. But he’s also a humble, great guy who you root for all the time, and I’m going to hate to see him go, if he is going. I wish he could stay in the game two or three more years, because the game needs people like him: humble, hard-working guys that flat out know the game.”
Finally, Creighton has lost at home by 15 or more just twice in the last decade. Both times the opponent was St. John’s; in addition to Saturday, they lost to the Red Storm 83-67 on Jan. 30, 2019. The last time they suffered a more lopsided defeat at home was Jan. 31, 2015 when Georgetown beat them 67-40. And the only other time in the McDermott Era that they lost by 15 or more at home was on Feb. 11, 2012 to Wichita State, 89-68.
Four times in 16 years. By my count, it happened twice in Dana Altman’s tenure, so that’s six times in three decades.