Men's Basketball

Morning After: Creighton Goes Toe to Toe with #17 UConn in an Old-School Big East Brawl, Triumphs 59-55

[Box Score]

Bluejay Beat Podcast Feat. Marcus Zegarowski:

Recap:

Four days after blowing a 17-point halftime lead at home and losing by 10 to 21st ranked Xavier, Creighton once again built a double-digit halftime lead over a ranked foe — and once again saw that lead disappear in the second half. While the Xavier loss threatened to change the course of their season, losing to UConn in a similar fashion could have derailed it entirely.

Ryan Hawkins was determined not to let that happen. In perhaps his finest game (so far) as a Bluejay, Hawkins had 23 points and 11 rebounds while playing inspired defense. Yet his biggest contribution might have been in the locker room at halftime. Talking to his teammates, he shared a simple message: maintain your energy and focus until the final horn, because that’s the only thing in your control.

“We made it a staple in the locker room that we were not letting (last week) happen again — we were taking the pride upon ourselves to make sure that same result didn’t happen,” Hawkins said. “I felt like we did a good job against a really experienced and a really good UConn team down the stretch of the game.”

After CU led by as many as 12 points early in the second half, UConn chipped away and tied it at 37 just seven minutes in. They even briefly took the lead, 41-39, with 10 minutes to play. And in the midst of a 19-7 run to open the half for UConn, the Jays lost their best defensive player when Ryan Kalkbrenner went down with an ankle injury.

Kalkbrenner had frustrated Adama Sanogo to that point, holding the super sophomore to just four points on 2-of-7 shooting with four rebounds. His loss was a big one.

That just made what came next even more impressive. After Isaiah Whaley’s three-pointer tied the game at 46 with 7:15 to play, Creighton’s defense shut the Huskies down. For the rest of the game, a span of 13 possessions, Creighton’s defense forced four turnovers and the Huskies scored just nine points on 2-of-11 shooting. Six of the nine points came in the final 41 seconds when UConn was making their last stand.

Sliding Arthur Kaluma to the ‘5’ spot in Kalkbrenner’s place was a tough assignment for a young player who’d never played the post in college. Sensing a mismatch, UConn immediately attacked him and Sanogo got a couple of easy buckets.

“But Art kept fighting,” McDermott said. “I told him, you wall up and make him score over the top of you. And when he misses, I don’t care if you get the rebound, just make sure that Sanogo doesn’t.”

They mixed things up by occasionally bringing a double-team in the paint with Hawkins, with the goal of not allowing Sanogo to get easy catches. McDermott said the staff, out of necessity, took their chances with Whaley shooting from the perimeter when they brought those double-teams.

“He did hit a couple. He scored 12 points on three-pointers,” McDermott noted. “But I think what we were able to gain by giving him those did us more good than the four 3-pointers did for them. We were able to plug the lane, and keep our rebounders around the basket.”

What Creighton gained was limiting Sanogo to just three shot attempts after Kalkbrenner exited the game. And while Whaley finished with a career-high 20 points and six rebounds on 8-of-13 shooting, the rest of the roster combined to go just 12-of-54.

And in the final minutes of the game, Creighton’s undersized lineup forced UConn coach Dan Hurley to take Sanogo out of the game when he would have otherwise been on the floor — not only was CU’s defense effective at stopping him from scoring, their movement proved too tough for the big man to defend on the other end.

Offensively, nothing came easy against the Huskies, but CU made enough plays to win. Hawkins fought for position and scored at the rim with 8:39 left to break a 41-41 tie — though UConn would tie it twice more, Creighton never trailed again. Hawkins broke the next tie, too, with a three-pointer moments later.

Then with 6:43 to go and the teams tied 46-46, Alex O’Connell stole the ball and raced downcourt for a dunk to give CU the lead for good.

Hawkins and Trey Alexander then carried the Jays across the finish line. Alexander’s dribble-drive with 4:25 left put Creighton ahead 52-48, and he made 5-of-6 from the free-throw line in the final minute to seal the win. O’Connell then provided the exclamation point when he slipped behind the defense on an inbounds play for a breakaway dunk with 14 seconds left.

By responding to UConn’s comeback with toughness and resiliency in an old-school Big East wrestling match, they gutted out a 59-55 win. It was quite an emphatic response to Saturday’s meltdown.

“I think every fan base wants to hit the panic button when you lose a game or two,” McDermott said. “But this is a hard, hard league.”

“What we experienced Saturday was tough,” he continued. “But it happens in basketball. And it’s hard to come back from. We’ve tried to remain extremely positive with this group and continue teaching whether we win or lose, and we’re going to continue to do that because hopefully we have some more big wins left in us. We’re probably going to get beat a few times too, though, so we have to be able to get over that. No one is going to feel sorry for the Bluejays.”

Kalkbrenner’s injury, though it seemed bad at the time, is not believed to be serious. McDermott noted afterward that he doesn’t think it’s as bad as the sprained ankle he suffered the day before the road game at Villanova — and he played the next day on it, albeit at something less than 100%.

“He was walking, albeit gingerly, but he was walking after the game,” McDermott said. “We have a couple of days here where he can get some treatment, and stay off of it. We’re not on campus so he doesn’t have to walk to class. I’m relatively confident that he’ll be ready by Friday.”

Key Stats:

Ryan Hawkins led the Jays with 23 points and 11 rebounds, and made gigantic shots all night long. From his hustle play to clean up a missed layup by teammate Arthur Kaluma, making the putback AND drawing the foul:

To his buzzer-beater to end the first half, the ball bouncing high off the back of the rim and somehow dropping through the net:

To his bank-shot from straightaway as the shot clock horn sounded:

“Let’s be honest, when Hawk is playing well we play well. That’s the reality,” McDermott said of his senior. “You look at the games where we’ve had big wins, whether it be BYU or Villanova or this one, he had big games those nights. We need him to stretch the floor and make some shots for us to succeed. He hadn’t been finishing those little flip shots in the lane recently, and he’s so good at those. Tonight he got a couple of them to go down.”

Hawkins and Trey Alexander combined to score 21 of Creighton’s 27 second-half points. UConn coach Dan Hurley said of the duo, “If they don’t crush us in one-on-one situations in the second half, we could have survived. They were the difference in the game.”

Alexander scored 11 second-half points, all of them huge, but it was his ball-handling that may have been the secret weapon in Creighton winning this game. With point guard Ryan Nembhard gassed after spending the previous two days out of commission with a non-COVID illness, he spent much of the second half as the primary ball-handler.

“R2 has been in bed sick for two days, but couldn’t really come out of the game. So we just decided to have Trey bring the ball up some to give him a break. And Trey did a terrific job against their pressure.”

Indeed, while facing full-court traps and pressure in the backcourt and physical harassing defense once he got across the timeline, Alexander had zero turnovers in 13 second-half minutes. McDermott was so excited at his freshman’s performance that he could barely conceal it on the sidelines following Alexander’s last made free throw.

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