Recap:
With 3:57 to play Wednesday night in Chicago, DePaul cut what had been a 13-point Creighton lead two minutes beforehand to just seven at 68-61. Given how the last four games had ended, being on the wrong end of a 6-0 run heading into the final four minutes to slice the lead in half? Well, that seemed like a case of deja vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would say.
Not on this night. Thank God, for the sake of the hearts and general health and well-being of everyone with a rooting interest in Bluejay basketball, NOT ON THIS NIGHT.
Ty-Shon Alexander scored baskets on each of the next two possessions to stretch the lead back to double-digits. One came on a drive to his left, the other on a drive to the right; Alexander added a third layup, and two free throws, in the final 90 seconds to ensure a Bluejay win. Eight of his 16 points in the game came in the final 3:23.
“We didn’t do anything differently in the huddle tonight with under four minutes left. We kept it even keel,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “We had a great week of preparation. That doesn’t happen unless you have high-character people in your locker room. Guys that don’t point fingers. Guys that will take some responsibility by looking in the mirror and trying to find a way to do things better. Together, we got better the last couple of days.”
In the early going, it looked like Wednesday night might wind up as a missed opportunity, not as a night where things got better. DePaul’s two starting big men, Femi Olujobi and Paul Reed, picked up two fouls each in the game’s first six minutes and were relegated to the bench — taking with them the Blue Demons’ biggest advantage — and without their bigs, they were ice cold from the floor. Yet Creighton was cold, too, starting the game 3-of-12 from the floor. They led 10-9 at the under-12 timeout with all 10 points coming from Davion Mintz and Martin Krampelj while the rest of the team was 0-for-8.
Failing to take advantage of Olujobi and Reed’s absence seemed regrettable. Then things got weird.
Over the next four minutes, Connor Cashaw scored six points for the Bluejays on three dribble-drives to the rim through traffic. The same Connor Cashaw who had scored 11 total points in Big East play. Flynn Cameron scored eight points for DePaul — on two 3-pointers and a dunk — after making three total 3’s all season in just 104 total minutes of playing time. Cameron added another three moments later to equal his entire season’s output prior to this game.
“The biggest thing we all stress is, stay together,” Cashaw said after the game. “We’re all leaders. That’s what we all need to be.”
With his team struggling to score, Cashaw had his biggest game in a Bluejay uniform, creating five layups for himself off the dribble for his highest scoring game since transferring to CU. It seemed like Cashaw wasn’t even on DePaul’s scouting report; one of Fox’s “Inside the Huddle” segments showed Blue Demon coach Dave Leitao asking his players this:
But even with Cashaw carving up DePaul’s defense, Creighton trailed 20-19 when Olujobi checked back in after the under-eight timeout.
Olujobi hit a jumper to give DePaul a 25-22 lead, then picked up his third foul. And with him glued to the bench at that point, Creighton flipped a switch. The Jays ended the half on a 19-5 run, scoring nearly half (19) of their 41 first-half points in the final five minutes. It began with an alley-oop to Krampelj:
Continued with an aggressive drive by Damien Jefferson, who converted a three-point play when Eli Cain tried to take a charge but was inside the restricted area when Jefferson collided with him:
Another drive by Cashaw followed, with Samson Froling drawing a double team and dishing it off to Cashaw behind the defense:
And then the Bluejay defense forced a shot clock violation to give them one more possession. Alexander drove the length of the court in two seconds, pulled up from 30 feet, and drained a buzzer beater:
The 19-5 run to end the half changed the complexion of the game, taking advantage of DePaul’s two post players being on the bench to build a double-digit cushion to fall back on. They needed it, as once Olujobi and Reed checked back in after halftime, DePaul used the Jays’ defensive focus on them to free up shooters — Max Strus hit a pair of threes in the first 45 seconds, and after Reed hit a jumper at the 18:18 mark, the Blue Demons had cut the Jays’ lead in half quickly.
Marcus Zegarowski hit a gigantic shot on the next possession to answer, making a three as the shot clock neared zero.
Then Mitch Ballock hit one too, and the Jays had successfully stifled DePaul’s attempt to turn the tide after the half.
With 10 minutes to play, the Blue Demons had once again chipped into the lead and cut it to three. But just as they had at the beginning of the half, Creighton answered, this time with back-to-back threes from Alexander and Zegarowski.
The lead ballooned to 13 when Alexander threw a no-look pass down the court to Christian Bishop, who scored uncontested at the rim:
Those two sequences, where DePaul made runs and Creighton answered, were where Creighton officially turned the page from their four game losing streak according to their coach.
“At no time did they point a finger at the coaching staff, or each other,” McDermott said. “They just showed up to practice wanting to know what we have to do to win the next game.”
“When you go through tough times, sometimes it’s hard to get out of it. You don’t sleep as well at night. It’s not as much fun to walk around campus. But these guys have wanted to come to practice, they’ve worked hard, they’ve asked intelligent questions in the film room. We moved the right direction tonight.”
By the time the final four minutes rolled around, they had confidence to finish because they’d withstood earlier runs by DePaul to rebuild the lead. And then they closed out the win. Creighton’s played pretty good basketball the last two weeks — that’s an unpopular opinion in more pessimistic corners of the Bluejay fanbase, but a bad basketball team, or an average team playing bad basketball, isn’t going to have leads in the final four minutes of four straight games to blow.
They’re close. The next checkpoint in their growth curve is going from “close” to “closing it out”, and they took steps in that direction Wednesday.
“I just think you have to be careful not to press the panic button,” McDermott said. “I’m incredibly proud that their character showed through (Wednesday), with their preparation the last two days. They played with enthusiasm. We executed a plan extremely well.”
Key Stats:
DePaul had nine offensive rebounds in the first half, and nine second-chance points. They ended the game with 10 offensive boards — that’s just one in the second half — and nine second chance points (zero after halftime).
Creighton went deeper into their bench than they have in some time:
They got points from everyone on that list except for Joseph. 16 from Alexander. 14 from Krampelj. 12 from Mintz. 11 from Zegarowski. 10 from Cashaw. 9 from Ballock. 3 from Jefferson. 2 each from Froling and Bishop.
And they got a rebound from everyone on that list except Joseph and Froling. It was a complete team effort, in the literal sense of the phrase.