Inside the Box Score:
Though undersized, Creighton held their own and arguably got the better of DePaul on the interior. Points in the paint were dead even 28-28. DePaul had more offensive rebounds (12 to 9) but Creighton had twice as many second chance points (10 to 5). And though the 6’9″ Paul Reed was every bit as dynamic as advertised with 22 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks, the rest of DePaul’s big men (6’11” Nick Ongenda, 6’7″ Darious Hall, and 6’7″ D.J. Williams) combined for 11 points, eight rebounds, nine fouls, one block, one steal and five turnovers.
Compare that to what Creighton got out of their quote-unquote undersized big men (Damien Jefferson, Denzel Mahoney and Christian Bishop): 39 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, three steals, two blocks, nine fouls and six turnovers. Kelvin Jones gave them two points, two rebounds and a steal in 12 minutes, too.
It was the latest example of a game where the Jays’ forwards used their athleticism, tenacity, scrappiness and shooting ability to neutralize opposing big men’s size. When they’re successful at it, opponents have to make a decision: is what they gain from their size advantage enough of an edge to make it worthwhile? Marquette pulled all of their bigs in Creighton’s win three weeks ago when they decided they were giving up more than they were getting. Xavier didn’t go that far, but went with a smaller lineup at times to combat the Jays’ attack. DePaul didn’t change a thing, and the Jays won going away.
Bad match-ups aren’t won by the bigger player by default. Skill and talent can win out over size. It’s a gamble, and it won’t work every night, but it’s worked far more often than not this year.
Individually, Marcus Zegarowski came up one point short of a double-double with nine points and 10 assists. But on a night where he struggled shooting the ball, making just 2-of-9 from the field and 2-of-5 from three, he was still the linchpin in the Jays’ offensive arsenal.
“I have been telling Marcus all year, you will have a game where you don’t shoot it well but you have double figure assists and you get everybody else involved, and we win because you beat them with your eyes on a night when your shots aren’t going in,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “I don’t think he’s totally back to full health, he just doesn’t have the energy and the pop that he’s used to. But he did a great job running the show, and did a great job defending Charlie Moore.”
Ty-Shon Alexander also struggled a bit, taking just four shots and making just one. But he drew six fouls and went 9-of-12 from the line, finding a way to score on a night where his knee was clearly bothering him.
“Ty-Shon obviously wasn’t himself,” McDermott said, “although he did hit a big three at a critical time. He knew he didn’t have it tonight so he let the game come to him, moved the basketball, and was outstanding defensively.”
Mitch Ballock did have it, and led the way with 19 points including five more three’s against a DePaul team that is probably sick of watching him rain in wild circus shots from all over the floor. And the pronunciation of his last name was a hot topic on the TV broadcast, as we learned we’ve all been saying it wrong for two-and-a-half years.
“It is Bal-LOCK,” he clarified in a postgame radio interview. “But ever since high school, people have pronounced it Bal-lick. All of us in the family just got used to it. Today before shoot around one of the CBS guys said, “Ballock, what’s up? Is that how you say it?” And I said technically it’s not but everybody’s been calling me that so I just go with it. I don’t even care, you can pronounce it however you want. Mitch, Mitchell, Bal-lick, Bal-LOCK, whatever.”
After 16 made three-pointers in Ballock’s last two games against them, DePaul probably has another name for him, and we likely can’t print it here.
Recap:
In what was arguably Creighton’s most complete game on both ends of the floor this season, the Bluejays led for all but 96 seconds and cruised to a 83-68 win in Chicago over DePaul. Their defensive game plan worked in forcing the Blue Demons into taking the shots CU wanted them to take, they held their own inside and on the glass against a bigger opponent, and they got rolling offensively during a second-half surge that iced the game.
The Blue Demons were short-handed with two key rotational players missing the game. 6’9″ starting forward Jaylen Butz missed the game because of the flu, leaving them to replace 11.2 points per game and without one of their big men. Reserve Devin Gage injured his hand in practice leading up to the game, and was also out. So 6’11” freshman Nick Ongenda, who’d played a grand total of 81 minutes in 18 games, got his first start. Midseason transfer D.J. Williams played 11 minutes in his Blue Demon debut. And the Jays took advantage by pushing the pace every chance they got.
“Mac really stressed the pace of play,” Mitch Ballock said. “They were playing two men down and we wanted to take advantage of that.”
DePaul head coach Dave Leitao credited the Jays, but also was critical of his team’s follow-up to a win over #5 Butler. “You have to act the same way through prosperity as you do through adversity. We haven’t learned that yet. Our execution and our energy wasn’t what it needed to be. I was asking for it essentially the whole game through, every dead ball, every timeout.”
The Jays got off to a slow start offensively, making just two of their first nine shots. But their defense succeeded in holding down the Blue Demons, who made just three of their first 10. Ahead 7-6 after an ugly five minutes of basketball, Denzel Mahoney checked in for the Jays and scored 10 points in a 3-1/2 minute flurry that saw them open up a 20-12 lead. He started with a three-pointer from the corner and ended it with another three, which forced DePaul’s defense to respect that shot — giving him space to drive, and spacing out the defense for everyone else, too. And after Mitch Ballock drained back-to-back threes, the second coming as the shot clock hit zero, CU led 34-25.
They didn’t make another field goal in the half, getting just three free throws over the final 4:26. DePaul closed the gap to 37-34 as the teams headed to the locker room. But the Jays seized control of the game for good at the beginning of the second half, as a series of halftime adjustments turned the tide.
“(Charlie) Moore got downhill too often in the first half,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “We talked to our bigs about that, and we talked to Marcus (Zegarowski) about it. We told them to be a little bit more aggressive. Our help guys did their job, too, because at times he did have a seam but it quickly closed.”
Mitch Ballock explained further. “We tried to force him left as much as we could; he’s going to get to the right a lot because he’s a special talent but we tried to get him left,” he said on the postgame radio show. “We also stressed that when we came off of ball screens on the perimeter, have high hands — being a smaller point guard, that makes it harder to get the ball over the top. If he has to use a float pass, that gives us more time to react.”
Offensively, they ran a series of set plays aimed at flattening out DePaul’s defense. “They started to jump some ball screens, so we thought we could slip Christian behind them and get easy baskets,” McDermott explained. “The guys executed that really well.”
Bishop scored six points in less than two minutes, getting behind the defense on three straight possessions for wide open looks. It paid immediate dividends, as DePaul’s increased attention on the post opened space behind the perimeter on the next possession for Zegarowski to drain a three. Moments later, they drew up a play to get Alexander his first three of the night. It gave CU a 10-point lead, and DePaul was never within single digits again.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t call that,” McDermott said. “The guys called it in the free-throw huddle. That tells you about our guys. Mitch and Marcus said, hey, Ty doesn’t have it going so let’s run a play quick for him and see if we can get him a shot. Rather than screaming out a play, especially in the second half, I just allow them to call one in the huddle. That’s what they called, and Ty hit the big shot. That speaks to how our guys aren’t thinking about themselves, they’re thinking about a guy that’s playing on a bad leg so let’s get him an easy one.”
After opening the half on a 27-13 run, Creighton’s largest lead of the night came as a result of their most ridiculous shot. With the shot clock winding down, Zegarowski dove on the floor after a loose ball and kicked it to Ballock, who launched the ball from 35 feet out. Using the glass, he banked home the long three to put Creighton up 73-51.
The Jays’ coaching staff also reiterated a point they thought they had driven home during preparation for the game: stay on the floor when you get into the paint, instead of challenging the seven-foot wingspans of DePaul’s big men. Doing the latter led to blocked and altered shots, and an array of missed layups that should have been converted against Georgetown. The former played a large role in the Jays’ blowing the doors off of the Blue Demons one week later. CU was 8-of-12 on shots inside the arc in the second half, finishing plays at the rim that they missed a week earlier at Georgetown.
“We reminded each other in huddles that when we stay on the floor we were getting whatever we wanted,” Ballock said. “That was the message after last Wednesday at Georgetown, too — they showed us film of us jump-stopping against them and getting what we wanted. When we challenged them at the rim, we lost the game, honestly. That was a big reason why. We were undisciplined. We strayed from our gameplan. Mac let us hear about it. Coach Huss let us hear about it. We have to follow the guys in charge because they know what they’re talking about. They watch a lot of film to put these gameplans together.”