Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Inside the Box Score:
Superficially, there were a lot of similarities between Sunday’s 77-66 win over Xavier and the Jays’ 77-65 win two weeks ago in Cincinnati. The scores are nearly identical, after all. The reality is a bit different.
In the first meeting, CU controlled the pace, outrebounded Xavier 41-37, stayed even on the offensive glass, and defended well without fouling — which kept the Musketeers off the foul line. On Sunday, none of that happened. Xavier dominated the glass 45-28, and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds that they turned into 18 second chance points. CU struggled to defend Xavier’s big men without fouling, as Christian Bishop, Damien Jefferson, and Kelvin Jones all played through foul trouble. And yet the results were nearly the same.
Recap:
Mismatches can work both ways. Xavier’s four-forward lineup, featuring 6’9″ Tyrique Jones, 6’8″ Jason Carter, 6’7″ Naji Marshall and 6’9″ Zach Freemantle, gave them an edge on the glass and in the paint. But they were ultimately no match for the Jays’ speed and ability to score in transition, and after falling behind by ten at the under-12 timeout, Xavier (at least for a while) abandoned that lineup. In a battle of strength versus strength, Creighton’s backcourt — just as they did in Cincinnati two weeks prior — got the better of Xavier’s frontcourt.
The Jays jumped out to a 10-1 lead five minutes into the game and held the Musketeers without a field goal for nearly six. Given Xavier’s difficulties scoring, it was fair to wonder if the outcome was basically decided at that point. It sounds ridiculous but coming back from a double-digit hole is tough to do when you can’t make a jump shot. And though Xavier made a handful of surges to get the game as close as six points, the outcome was never seriously in doubt after that initial burst.
Three straight 3’s, one each from Damien Jefferson:
Denzel Mahoney:
and Ty-Shon Alexander:
actually caused Travis Steele to abandon the big lineup and voluntarily give up their size advantage because it was turning out to be not so advantageous.
โI think our guys did an excellent job of running, especially when they had three bigs out there,โ Alexander said. โWe knew at a certain point in the game that they were going to get tired and we just had to keep running, keep running, no matter what.โ
That’s not to say the Jays didn’t fight inside, because they did. With under nine minutes to go in the first half, Kelvin Jones got two offensive rebounds on the same possession. Both times, he kicked it out to the perimeter; on the first, Jefferson drove it back towards the rim and had his shot blocked. On the second, Mitch Ballock launched a three from the logo. With 8:24 to go and 8 seconds on the shot clock, the player who wears #24 in honor of Kobe Bryant drained a Kobe-esque three-pointer.
“I told Mitch a few weeks ago to stop turning down shots. And he’s taken it too far (laughing),” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “He’s taken it to heart. But not one time will I blink when he lets one of those go. We need him to be aggressive. What it does for our offense when they have to respect that range, eight feet, even ten feet behind the line, it opens up driving lanes for everyone else. A really key part of the game.”
A couple of possessions later, Ballock himself took advantage of the driving lanes that had now opened — he dribbled straight into the teeth of the defense, got them to collapse, and kicked it out to the perimeter. Three passes later, Xavier’s defense was run ragged and the Jays had another three.
Later in the half, they took advantage of Naji Marshall being slow to get up after a made basket. They inbounded the ball immediately, and a scant two seconds later Alexander launched a three. Four seconds later, it splashed in, while Marshall was just then reaching halfcourt.
They led 39-31 at the half, and thanks to FS1’s “All Access” microphones and cameras we got to see the coaches’ adjustments in real time. Steele and Xavier focused on recognizing who was a shooter and who was a driver, getting on the floor after 50/50 balls, and exerting their size advantage on offense. McDermott and Creighton focused on sticking to their plan, and running every chance they could.
Xavier did exactly what they wanted to do, for about 90 seconds. They got two quick buckets out of the break, both on layups at the rim. But they’d get no closer, as Ballock answered with a three in front of the bench:
Then Bishop scored on a layup, Alexander hit a pair of free throws, and Bishop scored again on a layup. The 9-2 burst gave Creighton a double-digit lead again, and seemed to take the wind out of Xavier’s sails. They soon led by as many as 17 points, with this blocked shot by Bishop triggering a fastbreak where Ballock hit a three:
And this steal by Ballock leading to a layup at the other end and their largest lead of the afternoon, 65-48.
Xavier switched to a zone defense and promptly ripped off an 11-0 run in under three minutes, slicing the lead to just six by pounding the ball directly into the heart of Creighton’s defense and attacking the rim. Mahoney eventually softened the zone by returning the favor — he drove directly into the Xavier defense and drew a foul, and hit both free throws; he got into the paint and stuck a jumper. And when their defense finally forced Xavier into a jump shot, it missed, and the Jays ran. Seconds after a three misfired by Bryce Moore, Ballock drained one from the corner on the other end. Just like that it was 72-61 Jays.
Game over.
“It’s hard to win in this league, and it’s hard to beat a good team twice,” McDermott said. “And this is the first time we’ve beaten Xavier twice.”
It’s even harder when the team finds out during shoot around that the player most of them grew up idolizing, Kobe Bryant, had died along with eight others in a tragic helicopter crash. McDermott noted it’s one of those events you’ll remember where you were when you heard about it.
“It was very hard to get up for this game, knowing Kobe and his daughter had died,” Ty-Shon Alexander said on a postgame radio interview. “We were all shocked about it. And as soon as the news came out we were all in the back room checking our phones. Everybody was down. He was an idol for everyone of us. But Mac did a great job of talking to us. Kobe would want us to go out there and play hard, compete, and especially to win.”
McDermott elaborated.
“I know how I felt, and these guys, this generation grew up idolizing Kobe. I knew it was heavy on their minds. And we just decided to address it rather than let it be the elephant in the room. So we talked about it. I asked, ‘what did you like about Kobe?’ And he was one of the greatest winners, and greatest competitors of all time. If you’re struggling with how to deal with this, play the way he played. This guy would leave it on the floor and look at the scoreboard at the end to see who won. But he’d leave it all on the floor. That’s the approach the guys went into the game with.
I told them, you’re going to have to deal with the emotion of it. It’s going to become more real when the game’s over and you get home, you see highlights, you see people honoring him on social media. It’ll become real and you’ll figure out a way to deal with it. But right now, he wouldn’t want you to deal with it in a negative way. Go out and respect the game the way he did.”
Pink-Out Once Again a Success
Though we’re obviously biased, Creighton’s Pink-Out is still the gold standard for Coaches Versus Cancer events across the college basketball landscape. It’s a special game to everyone in attendance, because everyone has been touched by cancer in some form. And according to Greg McDermott, it becomes more special to his players the longer they’re in the program.
“I think what happens is, after they’re a freshman and they do it for the first time, and they meet the family and they hear the story — they realize what’s represented by what was on the back of their shooting shirt today. It’s really really important to someone who’s going through the fight or unfortunately for some people who lost the fight. That’s really powerful in a young person’s life. You fast forward to their sophomore, junior, senior year and they know what’s coming. They get to hear another story. And they understand fully, when I’m sitting on that bench and I’m wearing that shirt, it means so much to a bunch of people.”
Then he relayed a story that tugs at the heart of even the most cynical observer.
“I got a call from Mitch Ballock this morning wanting to know where he could donate. If you want to know why our team is 16-5 instead of 11-11, and talking about what could have been if Jake didn’t get hurt and Davion didn’t get hurt — it’s that type of connection. That type of care. These guys truly care about each other. They truly care about Creighton. That’s one example of the guys I get to coach every day. It’s pretty darn cool.”
The Best of FS1’s “All Access”
For Sunday’s telecast, FOX had unparalleled access — microphones and cameras on both coaches for the entire game, including timeouts, at halftime, and postgame. The split screen during live action showing the coaches was sensory overload at times, but it yielded a lot of really interesting moments. Here’s our favorites.
During a timeout early in the first half, Mitch Ballock grabbed the dry-erase board and drew up a play. It was a theme we saw over and over again throughout the game, as Ballock was the dominant voice in the Jays’ huddles.
Later in the half, we got to be a fly on the wall as Greg McDermott talked to referee Pat Driscoll. “If my mother wasn’t listening, I’d say this a little differently. She saved you.”
McDermott didn’t give away the farm just because he was mic’d up, however. As WBR’s Matt DeMarinis pointed out, during timeouts McDermott would show assistant Alan Huss two plays on a card out of the camera shot. Huss was not mic’d, and he relayed the plays to the team.
On a three-pointer by Marcus Zegarowski, we got to hear Travis Steele yell “Close out short! Close out short!” only to see his player do that on the deadly Zegarowski. His almost deadpan response? “Not on him.”
As the cameras went into the locker rooms with the teams at halftime, we first saw Steele address the Musketeers:
And then McDermott addressing the Bluejays:
In the second half, Ballock was once again the dominant voice in a timeout huddle, this time taking ownership of a defensive breakdown and holding himself accountable in front of the team. It’s a fascinating glimpse at exactly how Ballock leads.
Midway through the half, Zegarowski got the ball to Ballock in transition for a three. His coaches’ reaction? “Layup.”
Later, Denzel Mahoney committed a turnover inbounding the ball when the ball slipped out of his hands. Noticing that he was hanging his head on the next defensive possession, McDermott continually yelled his name and told him to keep his head up. And then we saw this exchange, where he joked with him to “please wipe this sweat off your hands so it doesn’t happen next time!”:
After the win, FOX took us inside the locker room for McDermott’s victory speech and a celebratory dance by freshman Jalen Windham:
