Recap:
With three minutes to play in Thursday’s Big East Tournament quarterfinal, Creighton’s 13-point lead had dwindled to just two at 63-61. Marquette, desperate to get back into the game, had gone to a small lineup with four guards in an attempt to spread CU’s defense out. And it was working.
Defensively, it was working too. Clinging to that 63-61 lead, the Jays committed a shot clock violation, giving the ball back to Marquette with a chance to tie or take the lead.
They did neither.
Creighton’s defense stiffened, forcing a missed layup. Ryan Hawkins — who else — cleared the board and then drained a cold-blooded three-pointer on the other hand to give them some breathing room.
“That was a moment where I found myself wide open and I was like, ‘I gotta have this ball,’ Hawkins joked in an interview on Big East Shootaround with John Fanta. “That was one of those where you’re so wide open that your instincts take over. I don’t even remember shooting it, to be honest. I started salivating at the mouth thinking, ‘Oh, this one’s gotta go in!’”
And then after Marquette’s Greg Elliott scored on a layup, Arthur Kaluma answered with the biggest basket of his career (so far). Taking the ball on the wing, he used a pump fake to get around his defender, dribbled between two Marquette players to get the rim, and then finished with an underhanded flip shot where he used the rim to protect it from being blocked.
Before the dust could settle, and with a sold-out Madison Square Garden buzzing, Trey Alexander guarded Marquette’s Darryl Morsell tightly on his way to the rim — and as he prepared to shoot, Alexander poked the ball away. Then he flung the ball half the length of the floor to a streaking Alex O’Connell for the dagger — an alley-oop layup that made it 70-63 Bluejays with 1:01 to play.
Alexander sealed it with two free throws and a jumper, and Creighton had emphatically answered both their critics who believed they had more to prove to earn an NCAA Tournament bid, and a Marquette squad who was determined to come back and steal the win after trailing for all but 50 seconds. Instead, the Jays ended the game on an 11-2 run after Marquette had cut the lead to 63-61 — from that point forward, CU gave up just one more basket. They made their final four shots, and scored the game’s final eight points.
“It was a last-ditch effort on their part to go small, and spread us out. It took us a few possessions, I think, to adjust to that,” Greg McDermott said in a postgame interview on 1620AM. “We switched a lot of ball screens, and our guards did a decent job of keeping guys in front of them. And, you know, Ryan Kalkbrenner can sit down and guard people like Justin Lewis. Even if you get behind him and have half a step on him, you’re still thinking ‘Is he coming up behind me to block this shot?’ There’s not many 7-footers in the country where you have the flexibility and the versatility to do that. While they were able to get back into the game with that lineup, we were able to hold them off because Ryan did a really good job of adjusting.”
It was quite the finish to a game Creighton led for 36 minutes. All afternoon, Fox’s broadcast crew talked a lot about Shaka Smart’s aggressive defense, seemingly ignoring the fact that Creighton is actually the team who ranks #1 in the Big East in adjusted defensive efficiency, not Marquette. That underrated Bluejay defense held Marquette to 0.74 points per possession in the first half, keeping them in the game until their offense could establish itself.
Leading 29-26 at halftime, Creighton took the game over in the first eight minutes of the second half. They made five of their first six shots, starting with two baskets at the rim by Ryan Kalkbrenner, a three from Hawkins and this dunk from Kaluma to push the lead out to 38-31. Describing it merely as “this dunk” does a disservice to what Kaluma did to both the rim and to Kur Kuath; he shook the former and put the latter on a poster.
But a live ball turnover from O’Connell was compounded when it resulted in the third foul for Kaluma on the other end 20 seconds later. It sent Kaluma to the bench, and with it, took CU’s most consistent scorer to that point out of the game. Hawkins responded with a three from the logo, and a layup that gave Creighton a 46-34 lead:
Marquette made their first push at the 10-minute mark, scoring seven straight to cut a 13-point CU lead to six at 51-45. As they would do the rest of the game, Creighton responded. Kalkbrenner scored back-to-back baskets in the paint, O’Connell followed suit, and the lead was back to 57-45. The Golden Eagles’ Darryl Morsell hit a three, and it, too was answered — 15 seconds later by Hawkins on this three.
The Golden Eagles made one last push, and then the Jays’ freshmen clinched the win. They advance to the Big East semifinals tomorrow night.
“This team just continues to amaze me. I’m so proud of ‘em and how they’ve stuck together and keep believing,” McDermott said on 1620AM. “Today we had foul trouble and they just kept on going. They don’t get too shook when things get tough. Marquette is an explosive offensive team and until they went to that small lineup, we were really able to keep them in check.”
The win means Creighton will not be sweating on Selection Sunday; they’re a lock to hear their name called now. And they get a rematch with #1 seed Providence in Friday’s first semifinal.
“Our guys are really excited to play on semifinal Friday in the Big East Tournament. It’s a special deal. Tomorrow will be a heavy mental day. I’m leaning towards not using our practice time at the Garden. I just think keeping them off their feet is more beneficial than sitting in a bus for 45 minutes there and back just to practice for an hour.
And we know what we need to do against Providence. We didn’t play all that well at their place, and that will be fresh in their minds. Obviously they had a lot on the line and it was an incredible environment, and it will be an incredible environment again Friday because I think most of Providence is here in New York.”
Inside the Box:
Here’s one of the craziest stats of the season, courtesy of WBR’s Matt DeMarinis. Creighton basically had a two true outcome second half, turning the ball over 29.4% of the time. But they still averaged an insane 1.32 points per possession.
Marquette only got four stops on possessions that ended in a shot. And because of that, Creighton had more offensive rebounds (5) than Marquette had defensive rebounds (4).
As you knew they would, Creighton rode their starters — Alex O’Connell played 37 minutes, Trey Alexander played 39, Ryan Kalkbrenner played 34, and Ryan Hawkins never left the floor. But there’s not much of a bench left on a roster decimated by injury.
Hawkins led the way with 18 points, shooting 7-of-12 overall and 4-of-7 from three point range. He added six rebounds and three steals. And left Marquette coach Shaka Smart impressed.
“Creighton’s a good team. They made a lot of good plays,” Smart said. “Made some back-breaking shots when we cut the lead down. Gotta give them a lot of credit. And Hawkins, he’s a guy, he’s as good as there is at making you pay, when you’re not where you need to be.”
And Kalkbrenner was once again tough for Marquette to guard, scoring 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting with nine rebounds. In three games against the Golden Eagles this year, Kalkbrenner had 55 points on 21-of-27 shooting (77.7%) with 28 rebounds and nine blocks.
“I thought Kalkbrenner, in a strange way, he’s 7’1″ but he’s just kind of quicker to the ball on some of those plays,” Smart said. “They shot one, like, off the bottom of the backboard. He was just quicker, got it, was able to either score or draw a foul. He’s played really, really well against us.”
And how’s this for a stat: Creighton is now 19-3 all-time in conference tournament games against a team they swept in the regular season. It’s hard to beat a team three times, you say? Not if you’re Creighton.