Six minutes into Creighton’s Big East quarterfinal matchup with Providence, the two teams were both struggling offensively. The Jays missed their first four shots, and both teams missed seven of their first 10 shots. That’s a combined 6-of-20 over five minutes of ugly basketball, resulting in an 8-6 CU lead. Then the game turned.
Trey Alexander was fouled by Devin Carter on a three-point attempt, and while Carter protested a bit, his coach protested a lot — and loudly. Kim English was whistled for a technical, giving Creighton five free throws. Steven Ashworth made two, Alexander made three, and suddenly it was a 13-6 Jays lead.
“I thought Devin got a clean block and great play,” English said. “In a game of this magnitude, I lost my way a little bit, or a lot of bit. But they’ve had to hold me back a few times this season throughout. And these guys — Bryce Hopkins was grabbing, pulling on my trousers telling me to calm down. And I did, and I thought our guys responded really well.”
It looked like the Jays were going to seize control, using the Friars’ lack of composure as their fuel. Instead the opposite happened. English’s technical foul served as a flashing neon sign to his team about the level of intensity they would need to win the game, and they responded with a 23-7 run spanning nearly nine minutes where they blew the game open. Ironically, Carter started it with three free throws of his own after drawing a foul on a three-pointer; a pair of threes 40 seconds apart by Corey Floyd Jr. gave the Friars nine quick points.
CU was still ahead 20-19 with 8:24 to go, with Baylor Scheierman hitting enough shots to keep pace with a Friars team who was gaining steam. But then Carter took over, scoring eight straight points in just over two minutes in a display of why he earned Big East Player of the Year honors the day before.
Though they cut the lead to three at 33-30 by halftime, PC scored eight of the first 10 points to begin the second half. Carter’s three at the 15:07 mark opened up their first double-digit lead of the night, and the Friars took their biggest lead of the night moments later after five straight from Josh Oduro.
“Especially during that stretch in the second half, we lost the battle defensively,” McDermott said. “The point of the screen is so important to our defense, and to Providence’s, because we were both playing the drop coverage. Whoever can win that point of the screen, whether it’s the defensive player when we’re on defense or the offensive player when we’ve got the ball in our hand, that really dictates the kind of shot you get oftentimes. And there was a stretch there when they made the run where we really lost that battle on both ends of the floor.”
But then Kalkbrenner had seen enough. With the Jays trailing 59-48, he blocked a shot on one end, then grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed layup in transition and turned it into two points.
He blocked another shot on the next defensive possession, and though they failed to cash in with points, he’d lit a spark. After a jumper by Alexander, Kalkbrenner knocked the ball loose in the paint and came up with a steal. Running in transition, he was rewarded with a layup off of a nifty pass by Ashworth to make it 61-55.
Moments later, he blocked ANOTHER shot, and when Ashworth knocked down a three in transition it was suddenly a three point game at 61-58.
“We were able to get him involved offensively, and a couple of times he got offensive rebounds and put backs as well,” Scheierman said of that sequence. “And defensively he had a couple blocked shots. In the ball screen coverage we play, he was able to veer switch on and make Carter’s life difficult and we were able to switch it back. So he played a big part in it.”
The Jays would improbably take the lead, 64-63, after Kalkbrenner cleared a missed shot and started a transition break that ended with Alexander making a jumper. In the 18-6 run spanning six minutes, Kalkbrenner had nine points, six rebounds, three blocks and a steal, flipping an 11-point deficit into a one-point lead in the process. If CU had held on to win the game, it would be looked back at as one of the great individual stretches by a Bluejay in conference tourney history.
Alas.
After Alexander and Providence’s Jayden Pierre traded buckets twice, CU led 68-67. Then Pierre made a three, capping a stretch where he scored seven straight. Kalkbrenner missed the front end of a one-and-one — the Jays first free throw miss of the game after making 20 in a row — Ashworth had a three-pointer touch every part of the rim before rolling out, and Alexander missed two free throws. It was a three-possession stretch that had all the hallmarks of a team who expended a ton of energy to scrap and claw themselves back into a game, and had nothing in the tank to finish it once they got there.
The 78-73 loss leaves them short of their stated goal of playing for (and winning) a Big East Tournament title. A look at BracketMatrix on Friday morning shows the Jays exactly where they were before the game — firmly ensconced on the three-line, with not a single one of the bracketologists they track slotting them lower than that. But even if Providence had a whole helluva lot more on the line (and played like it), with the Friars still out of the tourney according to most prognosticators, the loss still stings.
“We don’t end up with the pressure on us that Providence had going into the game where it’s win or go home,” McDermott said. “But we wanted to win a championship. We’ve been to the championship game four times and this group really wanted to kick that door down, and I thought we had the group to do it. We weren’t our best tonight; Providence certainly had a lot to do with that. The good news is we get a little rest, we go home, we can work on ourselves for a few days and hopefully be sharp for whoever we play next week.”
Inside the Box:
Creighton was 6-of-26 from three-point range, including a ghastly 3-of-16 in the first half. Their 23.1% shooting percentage from three is tied for their third worst of the season, oddly enough with a pair of games where they shot an identical 6-of-26 (at UConn and at St. John’s). The only games where they were worse? Colorado State on Thanksgiving, and Villanova at home. To their credit, they recognized it and adjusted, and only 44.8% of their total shots wound up coming from three-point range — a percentage that doesn’t even rank among the top 15 for most threes this season. They’ve had 19 games where they attempted more threes as a percentage of their total shots, to be exact.
“There were certainly some possessions where we got deep into the possession, and we had to take a very difficult shot because of their defense,” McDermott said of his team’s shooting struggles. “But there were also a number of possessions where we had pretty good looks and we didn’t lock it down. It’s no secret that’s a big part of our offense. And 6-of-26 isn’t going to get it done for us most nights.”
Providence was a similarly bad 6-of-23 from three-point range, canceling out Creighton’s terribleness, more or less. And CU’s defense held Josh Oduro to 17 points on 20 shots, Devin Carter to 22 points on 16 shots and Jayden Pierre to 15 points on 16 shots. You’ll live with that type of volume shooting, where guys pile up big scoring numbers inefficiently.
Carter played all 40 minutes, as did Kalkbrenner and Scheierman for the Jays. The energy and stamina of the Jays’ stars was not lost on Providence.
“This was a must-win game. We want to keep our tournament dreams alive…that was just the mindset. Just everybody have great energy and discipline and see where it takes us. I looked over at Baylor and Kalkbrenner and I knew they haven’t came out the game. So I was like, I could do the same thing as well. It was motivation, seeing them pushing through it and trying to outlast the opponent.”
Though the number of extra possession points weren’t catastrophic, they were enough to tip the scales in a tight game: Providence turned 11 Bluejay turnovers into nine points, and nine offensive rebounds into six second-chance points. Their 15-9 edge in those two categories was more or less the difference in the game.
“I didn’t like the 11 turnovers. We forced five and they forced 11, and those extra six possessions add up — some of them were breakout points, too. A six-point edge doesn’t jump off the page but it’s pretty big in a 5-point game. We have to clean some of that up. They’re not turnovers that are born out of selfishness. They’re turnovers about trying to make the right play, trying to get their teammate the ball in the spot where they can be successful. And I thought we made a few foolish decisions at times that we have to clean up.”
Individually, Baylor Scheierman (16 points and 13 rebounds) and Ryan Kalkbrenner (19 points, 12 rebounds, 5 blocks). They’re the first pair of Bluejays to post double-doubles in the same conference tournament game since March 5, 2010 when Kenny Lawson Jr. and Justin Carter both did it vs. Bradley. Kalkbrenner’s line makes him only the fourth Big East player with at least 19/10/5 in a conference tourney game, joining Patrick Ewing, Ryan Humphrey and Hasheem Thabeet.
After games like this, there’s a temptation to lament the Jays’ lack of success in games where three-pointers aren’t falling and wish the roster looked more like it did a year ago. The thing is, that feeling is rooted in emotion and not in fact.
Creighton’s average effective field percentage is 57.5% this season (fifth best in D1). In games where their eFG% has been less than 45% (roughly the median, as the average D1 offense is 50.5%), they’re 1-5 — the only win in such a game was against St. John’s at home.
Last season, with Ryan Nembhard and Arthur Kaluma in the fold, their eFG% was a similar 54.2%. But in games where they were under 45% — where the eye test might lead you to believe their ability to get to the rim off the dribble changed outcomes of games — that just isn’t the case. In those games a year ago, they were 2-6.
