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Morning After: Creighton Erases 11-Point Deficit in Final 1:55, Wins Double-Overtime Thriller 85-81

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[Box Score]

On March 18, 2008, Creighton trailed Rhode Island 45-30 at the half in a first round NIT game after shooting just 11-33 overall and 4-14 from three-point range. With three minutes left they still trailed by 12, as their shooting continued to be ice cold. Then the Jays ended the game on a 16-3 run, fueled by one huge shot after another from the likes of Booker Woodfox and P’Allen Stinnett. The buzzer-beating game-winner came courtesy of Cavel Witter.

That 74-73 win is perhaps the closest parallel in the modern era of Creighton hoops to Thursday’s improbable comeback Thursday night at the Garden, where the Jays trailed by as many as 17 points and erased an 11-point deficit in the final two minutes to force overtime. That 2008 win was the last time (before Thursday) where Creighton won after trailing by 15 or more at halftime; it had never happened in Greg McDermott’s 15 seasons at Creighton. The epic comeback at San Diego State in 2011 was also from 17 down, though that rally began before halftime and they slowly chipped away until taking the lead late. The only comeback in the McDermott Era where they trailed by more than 17 points at any stage of the game? Against Oklahoma in 2014, where they trailed by 18 early in the second half before a 24-4 run erased a 42-24 deficit.

For that matter, Dana Altman’s teams only had two comebacks from more points than this one — a January 2006 win over Wichita State where they trailed by 19 (25-6) before rallying to win, and a November 2001 win over #17 Western Kentucky where they trailed by 18 before winning 95-91 in double overtime.

In other words, in 30 years of Creighton hoops, we’ve seen this big of a rally only four times before.

***

So how did they pull it off?

Greg McDermott’s halftime adjustment to employ a soft press — something they rarely do — forced DePaul to play at a faster pace and forced his own team to play with more energy and aggression. Fedor Zugic and Ty Davis made huge plays, certainly. But mostly, the Big East’s best player (arguably) put the team on his back and carried them across the finish line.

“We’ve talked all year about the importance of one play and you never know when it’s going to matter,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “Fred King runs and seals and we get a layup in transition because he did his job. Mason Miller hit a big three. Little defensive plays here and there, grabbing a rebound, all that stuff matters. We weren’t at our best tonight, especially in the first half, and DePaul had a lot to do with that. I just felt like we had to change the pace of the game with some frontcourt pressure. And we were able to force some turnovers and turn them into baskets.”

In their comeback effort, the Jays made two big pushes — and DePaul answered both times. With 11:40 to play, they cut the lead to six at 46-40 on a three from Steven Ashworth. But five quick points from the Blue Demons made it a double-digit deficit again.

Three minutes later, another push. This time, Isaac Traudt buried a three, Kalkbrenner followed with a dunk, and it was 54-51. But DePaul promptly ripped off an 8-0 run to go back up by 11, 62-51, with three-pointers by Isaiah Rivera and Troy D’Amico and a layup from David Thomas.

Still trailing by that score with 1:55 to play, it looked like Creighton had squandered their chance. KenPom’s win probability graph gave DePaul 98.8% odds of winning at that point.

Zugic had other ideas.

He drilled back-to-back threes 19 seconds apart to cut the deficit to 62-57 and breathe life into the Jays. The first came courtesy of Ashworth, who drove into the lane, set his feet and kicked it to the corner where Zugic stood wide open. The second followed a missed free throw from DePaul; Zugic fired up a 30-foot shot and drained it. Then the Jays employed a full-court trap on the inbounds pass, and Kalkbrenner and Jackson McAndrew pinned DePaul’s David Thomas against the sideline. McAndrew forced a jump ball, and the Jays took possession back.

After Ashworth missed a three, Zugic secured the offensive rebound. Kalkbrenner followed with a tough shot in traffic, and it was suddenly 62-59. DePaul failed to score on their next trip, McAndrew snared the rebound, and when the offense bogged down Greg McDermott called timeout rather than risk not getting a good shot. He drew up a play to get Ashworth a game-tying three. And he delivered, burying a three with 21.3 seconds to play.

Needing a defensive stop to force overtime, they got it when their four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year Ryan Kalkbrenner came out to the perimeter to swat away Troy D’Amico’s potential game-winning three.

“He’s made me a pretty good coach the last five years,” McDermott said. “We talked about a lot of things at the end of last season when he was contemplating the draft. One of them was to be able to guard in space on switches, which is something the NBA looks for. He’s gotten so much better at that…what a huge block on the three-point shot late in the game where he was able to help and get back and make a play.”

Zugic wasn’t done. He started the scoring in OT with an aggressive baseline drive for a dunk, giving CU their first lead of the game. His emphatic fist pump in front of the Creighton bench was every Bluejay fan in that moment — and a lot of casual fans at MSG in general, who had showed up late expecting the start of Villanova/UConn and were instead treated to a double-overtime thriller.

But seconds later, disaster struck as Ashworth fouled out. With 4:30 to go in OT, the Jays turned to freshman Ty Davis. He’d played sporadically over the course of the season, but entering in overtime of a Big East Tournament game — with no safety net behind him if things went off the rails — is something else entirely.

At least at first, he acquitted himself quite well. And after two buckets by Kalkbrenner and one by McAndrew, plus a drive from Davis where he put the ball on the deck and got to the rim, the Jays had opened up an eight-point lead at 72-64. It was now a 21-2 Bluejay run spanning the final 1:55 of regulation and the first 3:27 of overtime, erasing an 11 point deficit and turning it into an eight-point lead.

“Honestly, it’s just trusting that work that I’ve put in,” Davis said of his mindset after Ashworth had fouled out. “I knew my teammates have my back, so I could just go out there and run the show. It’s just…it means the world as a freshman, obviously, being able to step up and make those winning plays. At the beginning of the second overtime I kind of just looked around the arena. I was like wow, this is this is so surreal. This is a blessing.”

Then Fox’s Gus Johnson jinxed him. As Davis fought off ball pressure near half-court, he said how impressed he was by the freshman’s ability to not turn it over against DePaul’s aggressive press. Almost before he could finish the sentence, the Blue Demons’ CJ Gunn poked the ball out and came up with a steal. Five quick points — a dunk and a three-pointer by Layden Blocker — made it 72-69. Four more points from Blocker, including a floater over Kalkbrenner with 1.8 left, tied it at 73 and forced a second overtime. Remarkably, Blocker scored all 11 of DePaul’s points in the first overtime after having nine in regulation.

Zugic started the scoring again in the second OT, driving inside and scoring in the paint. DePaul’s Isaiah Rivera answered with a three moments later to give them a 76-75 lead.

And when Jamiya Neal stole the ball on the next defensive possession, only to miss a dunk for the lead — when a layup would have sufficed — it was another moment in a night full of them where it felt like the game had slipped away. But their defense held, and then they took the lead for good on the next possession when Kalkbrenner made a one-handed jumper in the paint over three defenders. After another defensive stop he did it again, catching the ball on the block, dribbling toward the rim, and scoring over two defenders.

Then the moment that seemingly sealed the win: Kalkbrenner angrily swatted a shot out of bounds, McAndrew stole the inbounds pass, and Davis led the fastbreak where he fed Neal for a dunk.

DePaul didn’t go away. They scored on each of their next two trips down the floor, forcing the Jays to continue to make plays to win. And just as they drew it up, the guy making those plays was Ty Davis. First, he secured an offensive rebound in traffic after Kalkbrenner missed a shot inside, drew a foul, and calmly sank two free throws. Then after Layden Blocker banked in a three to cut the lead to 83-81 — giving him 16 points in the two overtimes — Davis hit two more free throws.

“My dad always taught me, just take a deep breath, get up there, take your time,” Davis recalled thinking before his free throws. “Like my mom and my dad always preached to me, you know, just trust your work and trust in God and that’s what I did.”

“He’s new to it in college, but he’s not new to it in basketball, and he’s played in big games, he’s played in big moments, played for state championships, won state championships in Alabama, and so he knows what big moments are like,” Ashworth added. “And you saw it at the free throw line, and on his big layup to kind of relieve some of the pressure. All of those moments were just pure joy and euphoria for all of us to see a guy that’s worked so hard all season deliver.”

Inside the Box:

Creighton had 21 points at halftime, making just 3-of-14 from outside the arc and 5-of-13 from inside. They compounded the offensive struggles by allowing it to change their defensive engagement, and DePaul went 5-of-7 from three and 15-of-31 overall, with seven offensive rebounds and six steals. Most damning: despite their shooting woes, they failed to get post touches for Ryan Kalkbrenner. He attempted just five shots and scored six points.

They clearly emphasized that at halftime. In the first five minutes of the second half, Kalkbrenner attempted as many shots (five) as he had in the entire first half. He scored 10 points before the first media timeout.

He’d end up with 18 in the second half on 8-of-11 shooting, and would add eight more in the two overtimes. His overall line was monstrous: 32 points, nine rebounds, five blocks, two assists and seven drawn fouls in 47 minutes.

But as brilliant as he was, the Jays don’t win this one without Fedor Zugic and Ty Davis off the bench.

Zugic’s previous career-high at Creighton was nine points (against DePaul two weeks ago, and against Seton Hall in late January). He had 13 in this one, but it was when he got them that was most important: Zugic scored six points in the last 115 seconds of regulation, and ten of his 13 between that span and the two overtimes — including their first buckets of both extra periods.

“It’s icing on the cake, and I’m just glad I got to experience March for the first time in my life,” Zugic said. “My dad called me before the game because, you know, in Europe it’s 3:00 in the morning. He said, should I stay up and watch the game? I’m, like, I don’t know. You can, but… then he texted me after the game. He said, I’m so glad I stayed up (laughing).”

As for Ty Davis, the freshman was thrust into an impossible situation after Ashworth fouled out. He’d played 179 total minutes as a collegian spread across 24 games, with 25 of them coming when he started in place of Ashworth against San Diego State back in November. He’d scored 17 total points all year. He had seven in this game alone.

And though Fox’s graphics team did him a disservice by showing he was a 45.5% free throw shooter as he stepped to the line in overtime, the bigger context was that he was 5-of-11 — the smallest of small sample sizes. He equaled that number on six attempts in this one, including four in the final minute of the second overtime, as pressure-packed of a situation as there is.

“He’s stayed ready. He and Jackson (McAndrew) work every single day after practice, and a lot of times Ty’s working without knowing if there’s a pot of gold under that rainbow,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “He was ready tonight and stepped up, hit some huge free throws and did a good job defensively as well.”

He echoed those thoughts in his press conference, too.

“I joke, you know, he would never make a free-throw when I’d go to watch him play in high school and AAU. He would miss free-throws all the time. I think he missed a couple in the state championship game,” McDermott said. “I was hoping he wasn’t thinking about that because I probably was a little bit, but he’s worked really hard at everything. He’s about all the right stuff. He was ready when we called his number.”

Press Conferences:

Highlights:

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