At the 6:36 mark of the first half, Creighton had retaken a one-point lead in a game where both teams traded runs back-and-forth. The Jays had built a 23-16 advantage earlier in the half only to see it erased by a quick 7-0 Oklahoma State run, but thanks to Trey Alexander the Cowboys never went back in front. First, he nailed a long three-pointer that was the result of an offensive rebound by Steven Ashworth. Then he drove to the rim, drew a foul and hit a pair of free throws.
It was 28-27 Creighton at that point, just over 13 minutes in, and then their defense held the Cowboys scoreless for over five minutes. In the meantime, the Jays scored 17 unanswered points, blowing open the game with a giant run keyed by Ryan Kalkbrenner. He made a short jumper where the Cowboy defense let him use four dribbles to back his way to the rim without sending a help defender to stop him, and then on the next possession, they adjusted by sending help as soon as he caught the ball — only to see Kalkbrenner kick the ball out to Isaac Traudt on the wing for a wide-open three. It had to be frustrating for OSU coach Mike Boynton, who called timeout to regroup his defense.
Whatever adjustment they thought they were making, CU threw a wrench into the gears by sticking Kalkbrenner at the top of the circle to set a screen for Ashworth on the next possession, who flipped it to a wide-open Kalkbrenner for a three.
Moments later, Kalkbrenner drew an offensive foul on a rebound, and made two free throws. 10-0 Bluejay run, with all the points either scored or assisted by their big man. In less than three minutes, he’d scored one-on-one in the post, passed out of a double team to a wide-open teammate for a three, hit a three of his own, and made a pair of free throws. Good night and good luck.
Then his teammates got involved. Ashworth hit a three, Baylor Scheierman scored four straight on a short jumper and a pair of free throws, and with 1:39 to go in the half a 17-0 Bluejay run had turned their 28-27 lead into a 45-27 blowout.
The Cowboys were never closer than 12 the rest of the way, but CU also never managed to put them away, which frustrated Greg McDermott.
“I would have rather taken it from 18 points to 30 and relaxed and rested some guys a little bit,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “We turned it over three times in the first six possessions of the second half, and that’s something we addressed in the locker room after the game. We need to get shots on goal early in a half like that when you’re trying to create separation, because a couple of those turnovers led to runouts. We’ve got to be better than that at putting teams away.”
They seemed to be playing on cruise control, committing the three early turnovers McDermott mentioned plus missing a pair of lackadaisical threes. All three turnovers resulted in points for Oklahoma State, and by the first media timeout of the half the lead had been cut to 12 at 52-40. But while they didn’t put the Cowboys away, they also had an answer for every mini-run and kept them at arms-length. Coming out of the timeout, Ashworth hit a three, and a couple of possessions later Alexander made a step-back jumper followed by another. The lead was back to 17 at 59-42, and that pattern repeated the rest of the game — OSU would cut the deficit a bit, and CU would answer. The Jays were never ahead by more than the 18 they led by at the half, but never by fewer than 12.
If it felt like the Jays were mostly stuck in the mud, that’s because they were. Over the first 12 minutes of the half, they were 6-of-19 from the field and 4-of-14 inside the arc. Thankfully, their defense was up to the challenge.
“I thought we did a really good job defensively,” McDermott said. “I thought when Trey was on Thompson, you know, he really kept him in check which was which was good to see. Defensively as a whole except for maybe the last three or four minutes of the game we did a really good job. I thought our physicality was better, I thought we were connected, I thought our communication was really good. The things we worked on in practice carried over to the game.”
Inside the Box:
Ryan Kalkbrenner had his second double-double of a season that is just seven games old, with 16 points and 12 rebounds. In the process, he passed two Creighton greats in Wally Anderzunas and Bob Gibson on the program’s career scoring list.
“That’s pretty cool,” Greg McDermott said. “Ryan has been really important to us on both ends of the floor since he arrived on campus. It’s fun to see his development and the different things that he can do to help our team win.”
With that said, the night could have — and arguably should have — been even better. Kalkbrenner made just 6-of-15 from the floor and was 5-of-12 on two-pointers. He had three turnovers. Some of the misses were because he was late to react on catches; some were just easy shots at the rim that didn’t go down. Either way, if he shoots at his normally high percentage, the Jays likely win by 20 or more.
But his personal 10-0 run was the catalyst for the game-changing sequence in the first half. And the attention that the Cowboys paid to him opened up space for Creighton’s guards.
One of the beneficiaries was Steven Ashworth, who carried the Jays in the early minutes while his teammates settled in. He scored 11 of Creighton’s first 18 points, making his first five shots which included three 3-pointers and an and-one. Add in another three in the second half, and Ashworth finished with 17 points, five assists, and only one turnover in 37 minutes.
“This arena is huge, you know? It’s definitely a shooter’s gym here,” Ashworth said on the postgame radio show. He noted the sea of bright orange seats — which were mostly empty at game time — could be disorienting for some players. But he played at the Smith Spectrum during his time at Utah State, which also has orange seats. He was used to that kind of backdrop. And it showed. “It’s a fun arena to play in. The atmosphere was great. I came in to tonight just being so grateful to God that we get to play college basketball and we get to have fans cheering us on. It’s incredible.”
It was the most aggressive Ashworth has played in a Creighton uniform, and he seemed more comfortable taking shots within their offense — and more confident in taking the types of gutsy shots he took at Utah State, too.
“This week the coaches were great about reminding me to play with the swagger and the fearlessness that brought me here,” Ashworth said. “At times in the second half, the defense wasn’t letting me cut, and so I was able to be a decoy — they weren’t going to help off the ball screen. That meant Trey could get downhill, Baylor could flash open.”
McDermott said that because of Oklahoma State’s physicality, it took the Jays a bit to adjust. The Cowboys pressed out on both Alexander and Scheierman to try and take away their jump shot. The downside to that? It opened up room for Ashworth.
“Obviously, we have a lot of confidence in his ability to score the basketball,” McDermott said. “He was really good tonight, not just scoring the basketball, but five assists, one turnover versus that pressure is pretty impressive, and I thought his defense was good tonight. He executed his assignment really well. He did a really good job. He really fought ball screens and got back in front. He was physical at the point of attack on every single play. He’s taken our feedback to heart and it was good to see it all come together for him tonight.”
Speaking of Alexander, he scored 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting, with seven rebounds, three assists and two steals. He also drew seven fouls on Cowboy defenders — nearly half of the 15 total fouls whistled on OSU.
“I think that we had a good matchup down there with Ryan Kalkbrenner,” Alexander said in a postgame interview on ESPN2. “We wanted to let him get going early because if they have to crash in, then we have the dominoes falling and we’re able to get easy looks. We just played off of Kalk tonight and I was able to get to my spots down the stretch and just play in the mid-range.”
But it was actually Scheierman who led the team in scoring with 21, making 8-of-16 from the floor with three 3-pointers. He now has at least three 3’s in all seven games this year, and leads the Jays in scoring at 18.6 points per game.
A look at the shot chart shows what the Jays were able to do: just 16 of OSU’s 62 shots came from outside the arc, a big drop for a team that had taken nearly 45% of their total shots from three-point range coming in. And they held the Cowboys to 18-of-46 on two-pointers (39.1%). They had been 53.3% on those shots coming into the game. Just an outstanding defensive effort.
“You know, you don’t come on Oklahoma State’s court and out-rebound them very often, so I thought there was a physicality to what we were doing there,” McDermott said. “And I thought we were more active off the ball defensively, which is something that we wanted to see.”
All in all, Creighton’s top four players combined for 74 of their 79 points and all but three of their shots attempts — Fred King had two points and Isaac Traudt had three off the bench. No one else even attempted a shot.
The 79-65 win was Creighton’s largest non-conference margin of victory in a road game since a 77-62 win at Nebraska on Dec. 7, 2016. And Oklahoma State had lost just one non-conference home game by 14 points or more since 1978, an 80-61 loss to Wichita State in 2019.