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Morning After: Creighton Takes a Step Forward, Takes Care of Business Against Nicholls, 96-76

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[Box Score]

Tuesday night, Creighton took care of business against Nicholls, building a lead of as many as 29 against an opponent they were favored to beat by 18.5, and winning by 20 while getting minutes for everyone on the roster. There were things to like, including finding their outside shooting stroke and the offense looking like a Creighton Offense for the first time with this iteration of the roster. There were things to worry about, such as the defense giving up 76 points to a bad offensive team and showing little resistance at the rim. And there were things to love, like Liam McChesney scoring his first points since 2023 on an emphatic putback dunk.

Nik Graves got the Jays off to a good start offensively, hitting back-to-back threes in the first 90 seconds of the game. And after two buckets by Owen Freeman and one from Jasen Green, Creighton was well on their way to a blowout win, leading 12-3 before the first media timeout.

Their defensive struggles let Nicholls hang around, though. And so despite a pair of threes from Fedor Zugic — including one from the corner where he pump-faked his defender into the air, got him to fly past, and then reset for a wide-open look — the Jays led just 23-21 with 11:28 to go in the half. At that point, Nicholls had made 6-of-9 from two-point range and 3-of-6 from three.

“We get beat off the dribble, we get caught standing too close to guys and not being in a position to help,” Greg McDermott said in explaining some of their defensive woes. “And at times I had some lineups out there that just weren’t great defensively. We have a little bit of trouble still at that five spot where we can’t get that ball stopped when it needs to, and we’ve got to continue to work and grow in that regard.”

But once Creighton’s interior defense stiffened, their lead began to swell. After starting 6-of-9 inside over the first 8-1/2 minutes, Nicholls went 3-of-8 the rest of the half and made just one more three-pointer. Meanwhile, the Jays’ offense never slowed down.

Blake Harper drew a foul while attempting a three, and hit all three free throws to make it 29-22. Seconds later, he snuck up on a Nicholls’ player who got lackadaisical with the ball in the backcourt, picked his pocket, and raced in for a layup:

Then Freeman blocked a shot on one end, raced down the floor, and was rewarded with a dump-off pass in the lane from Graves for a dunk.

On the next possession, Josh Dix rebounded a missed shot by Zugic and slammed it home in one motion. Jasen Green followed with a three, and the Jays had their first double-digit lead of the night at 38-28. It was the closest Nicholls would be the rest of the night, as Creighton methodically built their lead to as many as 29.

They continued turning defense into offense, with Austin Swartz viciously blocking a shot at one end and Graves sinking a three on the other end. Then Graves returned the favor, finding Swartz in the corner for a three of his own a couple of possessions later. Swartz hit another three off the dribble to close the half, giving them a 52-35 lead.

And then they did exactly what they needed to in the second half by putting their foot down and blowing the game wide-open instead of letting Nicholls creep back in. Isaac Traudt’s fingerprints were all over this decisive stretch — first he made a nice bounce pass in the lane to Green for an easy layup, and then hit back-to-back threes.

And after five points by Green and a triple by Ty Davis, the Bluejays took their largest lead of the game at 74-45 courtesy of a 22-10 blitz to begin the half.

And while the final 12 minutes were mostly just an exercise in running out the clock while keeping everyone healthy, fans who stuck around until the end were rewarded with the coolest moment of the season so far when walk-on Liam McChesney put an exclamation point on the win with a putback dunk.

The seventh-year junior last scored on March 2, 2023 for Illinois State in Arch Madness. After that bucket for the Redbirds, his life took a detour — he transferred to play for Alan Huss at High Point, was diagnosed with a heart issue, and sat out two full seasons after open-heart surgery. He never suited up for the Panthers, following Huss to Omaha this summer hoping for a moment like this.

And what a moment. It would have been just as good of a story if he’d scored on a layup, but doing it like this left everyone in the building — including his teammates — shaking their heads in thankful amazement after a putback dunk that looked like he’d exploded out of a cannon.

“As I told the guys, you put so much pressure on yourself. You’re into the role that you’re playing on the team. ‘Am I doing what am I supposed to do? Am I playing as much as I want, am I getting the shots that I want?’ You know, you get into your own head and you can get a little selfish sometimes,” McDermott said at the close of his postgame radio interview. “So I wanted to take a step back and think about the journey that Liam’s been on. You think things are hard for you because I’m on your tail to try to get you better defensively, or to be more physical on block-outs? I mean think about what Liam’s been through. How many of us would be able to complete that journey? To be committed to it to the point where you get back on the basketball floor and you get a dunk like that tonight? That was cool to see.

I’m glad we got the win. I’m glad we made some shots. Are we going to get better defensively? Absolutely. But what I’m going to take away from this game is that basket for him. It’s the culmination of two-and-a-half very difficult years for him with all the health issues he’s been through to get back on the floor, and I know the guys are really proud of him as well.”

“We’re so excited for Liam. People don’t see what happens behind closed doors. He has worked so hard,” Austin Swartz said on the postgame radio show. “There’s not a lot of people that can go through what he went through and still play at a high-major program, still come in and make an impact. I know you guys don’t see it on a night-to-night basis in the game, but in practice he makes everybody so much better. He’s always talking, he’s always present in practice, and I’m glad he got his number called tonight and that he was able to have this moment.”

“Oh, man, it’s awesome,” Zugic added. “As Coach said, he went through some really hard things. As his first neighbor here, we’re door to door, I just hang out with him a lot and see what he’s going through. It’s hard for him, and he fought his way back here, so a lot of respect for him because 95% people will give up, but he’s still here, and he shows up every day, so that’s awesome. We have a lot of respect for him.”

Inside the Box:

Offensively, Creighton had a balanced attack with five players in double-figures. Owen Freeman, Josh Dix and Green all scored 14 points, while Graves and Swartz each had 11. Their 17 made threes were a season-high, and they had 23 assists on 35 made baskets.

The first half, especially, was red-hot as they shot 10-of-17 from three and 9-of-11 inside the arc.

Graves was 3-of-4 from three en route to his 11 points, and added six rebounds and seven assists against just two turnovers. It was undoubtedly his best game as a Bluejay, and if this is the emergence of Graves as a difference maker at point guard, we’ll look back at the closing minutes of the win over Oregon as the turning point. Clinging to a 60-59 lead with six minutes left, he hit a 12-foot jumper and drew a foul that he turned into a three-point play. He later hit a three to seal the win. And in this one, he played with a level of confidence he had yet to show since transferring from Charlotte.

“Hopefully this is the start of something,” Graves said. “I’m working real hard in the gym, late late nights and early early mornings. I never lost my confidence. This is my fourth year of college basketball, and I know how it goes, you know? You miss shots, you make shots. Obviously I don’t like my shooting percentage, it looks real real bad but uh…I guess the only way to go is up.”

Graves added that he’s been watching a ton of film in addition to all of his extra work in the gym, trying to deprogram himself of what was asked of him at Charlotte.

“I’ve realized I don’t have to do as much here. I had the ball in my hands basically at all times at Charlotte. Here I have to be able to trust my teammates,” Graves said. “We came together as a team, had a team meeting and really talked a lot of things out. I think that opened a lot of eyes, not just for myself, but all of us. We came out of that meeting more motivated than ever.”

Austin Swartz talked about that team meeting last week in a postgame interview with John Bishop following the win over Oregon. He said that the closed-door, players-only meeting at the hotel after the loss to Iowa State brought the team closer together. Graves elaborated on that meeting.

“I think literally everyone spoke. Anything we needed to get off our chest, we got it off — good, bad, things we think people can improve on, or that the team can improve on. We just sat in a hotel room all together and just gave each other a big reality check. We all have a such a strong brotherhood, and so when there’s conflicts on the court, off the court, whatever it is, we know it’s coming from a place of love. At the end of the day, we’re a goal oriented team. We all want the same goal.”

There’s been some criticism of Graves on social media and from the fanbase in general through his early-season struggles, similar to what Steven Ashworth went through as he became acclimated to Creighton’s system. McDermott made clear that he’s not among the critics.

“The criticism isn’t coming from me, and I don’t pay any attention to it,” McDermott said on the postgame radio show. “He’s got a tough job to do. Not only is he coming in as a new point guard and learning a new system and how to run a new team, he’s coming into a situation where there’s eight other new guys. It’s not like he’s walking in to Steven Ashworth’s situation where you had Baylor (Scheierman) and Trey (Alexander) and (Ryan) Kalkbrenner, where you just need time to fit in. Nik’s been put in a very difficult position and handled it pretty doggone well, so the criticism in my mind is not warranted.”

Dix had five assists to go along with his 14 points, playing 33 minutes and sliding over to point guard when Graves was out. McDermott said he’s confident in Dix there, and that will continue to be Plan A. Freeman had 14 points on 7-of-8 shooting inside the arc, though his defense still looked rusty at times. Their defense as a whole continues to be an area of concern.

“It’s not just the guy on the ball, the off the ball responsibilities are different and they’re different than the places that our guys played before. They’re still trying to figure it out, get in the right spot, and understand what they’re supposed to do,” McDermott said as part of a long rant about defense on the postgame show. “Our anticipation skills aren’t great. We’re thinking about it, and by the time you think about it, you’re already a half second late, and you can’t catch up. I’m hoping that over time some of those things will become habits, and we don’t have to think about them, we just react and we put the fire out. We went aggressive with some ball screens early. I didn’t like it necessarily — I thought the switching was good at times, but at times we got exposed there as well. As I told the team, I’ve got to find the six or seven guys that are going to commit to defense on a daily basis. Because that’s the only way we’re going to beat the teams from here on out.”

Finally, CU got 35 bench points in this one, with 28 from the trio of Fedor Zugic (8), Isaac Traudt (9) and Austin Swartz (11). That’s all the more important after the latest Bluejay injury: Hudson Greer is out indefinitely with a foot injury. McDermott said after an X-ray came back clean they ran an MRI, which came back negative but had some areas the doctors were concerned about.

“He’s got a problem with his foot, and the scans are showing that he probably needs a little time to let things settle down,” McDermott said. “How much time, that’s yet to be determined, but obviously unfortunate. He was going to play a big role, as we knew when we decided to pull that red shirt off.”

“Those three guys (Zugic, Traudt and Swartz) are the beneficiary of Hudson not being there,” he added. “I thought they all did some some good things and I’m glad it happened tonight and they all had some success. I think it helps them going in to this next week with Nebraska on Sunday and K-State next week. I hope it gives them a little confidence and they have an understanding of where things are going to come from offensively — and what my expectations are defensively. It was good to see those guys have some impact on winning tonight.”

Press Conference:

Highlights:

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