Inside the Box Score:
Coming into Saturday’s game, we wondered in the Primer if Xavier’s rebounding and ability to draw fouls in the paint would prove too much for CU to overcome, or if Creighton’s pace, quickness and ability to score from three-point range could turn this into a game Xavier couldn’t keep up in. In the end, CU dictated the flow of the game, and that’s a big reason why they won.
“That’s a credit to our guys and their work ethic,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “They executed our defensive plan very well. They gave us time for our offense to kick into gear.”
Despite Xavier’s size advantage, Creighton won the battle of the boards 41-37. Creighton was whistled for 14 fouls (though they should have been whistled for 44 if it was up to the Cintas Center crowd, who were — God bless ’em — in full ‘our team never fouls and the other team fouls on every possession’ mode Saturday), keeping Xavier off the line. The Musketeers attempted just six free throws, and more importantly, Christian Bishop and Kelvin Jones stayed out of foul trouble so they could remain on the floor to battle X’s bigs.
And while Creighton couldn’t get the pace as fast as they’d prefer, they were able to score in transition and hit enough threes to win.
It’s the Jays’ defense that deserves praise after this one, though. WBR’s Matt DeMarinis pointed out on Twitter afterward that since getting blown out by San Diego State on November 28th, Creighton ranks 3rd in the Big East in FG percentage defense (39.7%) and 2nd in 3FG percentage defense (25.6%). That’s a span of 10 games against Division 1 foes, or one-third of a full season. Seven of those 10 are currently ranked among the top 70 teams in America in offensive efficiency according to KenPom’s data, meaning that CU has done this against good offensive teams.
They’ve also held all but five teams this season to under 1.0 point per possession (Michigan, Louisiana Tech, San Diego State, Texas Tech and Butler are the only opponents to score above that threshold). This isn’t a small sample size anymore — 16 games against D1 opposition is just over half of a full season. And with this big of a sample, cynics can no longer say with a straight face that they’re the result of opponents missing shots they’d normally make, or because opponents have had an off night against them. When it happens this often, something else is going on.
Bringing in assistant Paul Lusk and making him the “defensive coordinator” has proved to be a very smart hire for Greg McDermott. The Jays now have a defensive identity. They take away their opponent’s best scoring options and get them to settle for secondary options, then use their improved athleticism and much-improved defensive fundamentals to minimize the damage those secondary options can inflict.
On Saturday, that was especially evident in the first half. Xavier’s advantage was going to be their big men scoring in the paint. But Xavier has hit just 30.5% of their threes on the season. So Creighton packed the paint, cut off passing and driving lanes, and forced them into taking jump shots — X’s 26 three-point attempts were their third most in any game this season. And Xavier made just five (19%).
CU’s defense isn’t stifling, and isn’t elite, but it keeps them in games when their offense isn’t firing.
“Defensively, we’ve played pretty well in all four league games,” McDermott noted. “While we didn’t shoot it against Butler and Villanova, I felt like our defense gave us a chance to win both games. Mistakes are magnified when you lose a grind-it-out game. A game like Marquette, we had just as many mistakes but they weren’t magnified because we had the big lead. And today there were mistakes, but our defense kept us in the game that first 15 minutes when we had good, clean looks and we didn’t make them.”
Recap:
Saturday is the type of game Creighton loses in past years. They began the game 5-for-23 from the field. They made just one of their first nine 3-pointers. Recent Bluejay teams would have been too far behind by the time they found an offensive rhythm for it to matter. But their defensive plan kept Xavier from exploiting their size advantage, and got the Musketeers to settle for jumpers and three-pointers. The execution of that plan kept the game close.
“Especially early, we did a good job keeping it out of (Tyrique) Jones’ hands so we didn’t have to deal with him,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “The defensive plan was executed well. But the plan isn’t any good if you don’t have some fight and some teeth behind it. Today we did.”
The game was tied 15-15 after 16 minutes of play, largely because of their defense. And then Creighton got hot, making all seven shots they attempted the rest of the half, while Xavier remained stymied by CU’s defense — and the Jays built a lead.
After four ties and seven lead changes in the first 16 minutes en route to that 15-15 tie, Damien Jefferson hit a 10-foot jumper to put CU ahead for good, 17-15. A defensive stop, and a three-pointer from Marcus Zegarowski, made it 20-15 CU. Xavier actually took a shot from close range on their next trip, with Paul Scruggs getting into the paint, but Kelvin Jones blocked it. And Mitch Ballock hit a three on the other end to push the lead to 23-15. Ballock scored 10 of Creighton’s final 12 points in the half, with two coming on this jumper:
And he created the two he didn’t score in that burst with this dribble drive, pass-over-his-shoulder move to Ty-Shon Alexander, who promptly nailed a jump shot:
Ballock’s burst gave Creighton a 32-27 lead at the half. He wasn’t done — he got them started in the second with a three-pointer in the first minute.
Threes from Alexander, set up by a ball screen from Christian Bishop:
and Marcus Zegarowski, on a step-back to create space, followed.
And when Bishop scored at the rim with 16:26 to go, CU had built a double-digit lead at 43-32. It forced Xavier into a timeout to regroup, as their halftime adjustments had been blown up before the first media timeout could arrive.
Xavier did regroup, on both ends of the floor. They began getting the ball inside and scoring. They pushed out on shooters to cut down on CU’s open looks from the perimeter. The resulting 11-4 Musketeer run was fueled exclusively by paint touches, with Naji Marshall providing the spark. He found Tyrique Jones under the rim for this basket:
and later converted a three-point play on this battle underneath.
Holding a 47-43 lead, Zegarowski missed a three-pointer. Marshall cleared the board, and got it out to Zach Freemantle in transition for what looked to be an easy layup. But Mitch Ballock met him at the rim and came up with a clean block reminiscent of the one he had two years ago against Nebraska.
This one resulted in a four-point swing, as Denzel Mahoney answered with a bucket for the Jays to turn what might have been a 47-45 edge into a 49-43 lead. They couldn’t pull away, though, as Marshall scored five straight for Xavier. Creighton came out of a timeout with counter-adjustments — they ran Bishop off of high ball screens on two straight possessions, slipping him to the basket for easy layups. That forced Xavier to defend more or less straight up, and then the Jays closed. Ahead 51-48, they sealed the win with a 14-5 run that featured six consecutive made baskets.
“When we just stick with our offense and stick with our movement,” Ballock said on the postgame radio show, “eventually, if you trust the process, our offense is designed to get paint touches, get kickouts and get guys open.”
Ballock made several clutch shots to build the Jays’ initial lead, and then his fellow junior guard took over where he’d left off. Ty-Shon Alexander scored 11 of his 18 points in the game’s decisive minutes, including back-to-back jumpers that pushed the lead back into double-digits at 58-48.
It was an emphatic answer to a completely fair question some Jays fans were asking in the wake of blowing a late lead against Villanova, especially in light of the litany of losses that looked eerily similar to that one a year ago.
Could this team close out a tight game to bring home a win against a conference opponent familiar with their tendencies and personnel?
Four days after failing to do so against the Wildcats, they slammed the door on a Xavier team that had clawed to within a single possession at 51-48 and then dead-bolted the door with a big run — on the road, in front of a hostile, sold out crowd, in one of the toughest venues in the country. In doing so, they ended a brutal opening stretch to conference play with a 2-2 record, and gave themselves a chance to do some real damage with a lighter stretch of games upcoming. Georgetown, Providence, DePaul and a rematch with Xavier at home are the next four, and CU could well be favored in all four.
It was also the 500th career win for Greg McDermott. His players doused him with water upon entering the locker room after the game, celebrating a remarkable accomplishment:
“I tried to tell my staff that I only brought one suit (on this two-game road trip),” McDermott said through laughter in his postgame radio interview, “so be kind!” Getting introspective for a moment, he then continued:
“When something like this happens, it gives you pause to reflect a little bit. I’ve been blessed to coach a lot of great players and a lot of great people. I’ve had a lot of terrific assistant coaches and staff members. You have to have that to stay in this business as long as I have. It takes a village for this to happen. I’ve been blessed, and to do it today on the road with this group of guys that have been a treasure to coach makes it special — especially against a program that we respect as much as Xavier. This is a hard building to play in. And it was at a time when we really needed a win. To have that all culminate on a day like today is pretty cool.”
Former players who weren’t part of that joyous locker room celebration shared their congrats on social media:
Mitch Ballock poked a little fun at his coach:
And a Wayne State fan shared rare footage of McDermott’s first-ever game on the sidelines. Note that his mannerisms and demeanor are *exactly the same* even as so many other, ahem, things have changed.
