Bluejay Beat Podcast:
When you think of the biggest comebacks in the modern era of Creighton hoops, the mere mention of each game brings back vivid memories. The 19-point comeback against Wichita State in 2006? Anthony Tolliver’s buzzer beater. The 18-point comeback against Oklahoma in 2014? Freshman Toby Hegner crashing into the TV announcers table and getting beer spilled on him, then sparking a 24-4 run with a huge three. Devin Brooks’ wild “was it a pass or was it a shot?” with 49 seconds left in a tie game, corralled by Zach Hanson on the opposite side of the rim from Brooks and laid in for the game-winning basket. The 17-point comeback at San Diego State in 2011? Ethan Wragge making three massive baskets in the final four minutes, the last of which was a drive to the basket (!) for a banked-in layup in traffic (!!) to ice the game. Jahenns Manigat diving on the floor to secure his own missed free throw in the final 10 seconds. Everything in the final five minutes, really.
A 16-point comeback at Seton Hall on January 27, 2021 can now be added to that list, and it’s arguably more improbable than any of the others because the giant deficit was overcome in the final minutes of the game — in 2006, Wichita State blasted out to a 25-6 lead to start the game and Creighton’s comeback started before halftime; the big run to spark the 2014 comeback versus Oklahoma started 90 seconds into the second half; the San Diego State game was back to within four points before halftime thanks to a late surge and the entire second half was a tight affair. This one?
The Pirates led by 16 with 11:30 to play. The Jays had a 2% chance of victory.
The Pirates still led by double-digits as late as the 6:12 mark; the Jays’ win probability remained minuscule at 3.2%. And based on Twitter, some people turned it off, convinced the game was over.
Spoiler alert: it was not.
Mitch Ballock hit a go-ahead three-pointer with 37.8 seconds left to give CU an 84-81 lead. The Bluejays then forced the Pirates into three misses on potential game-tying three-pointers. And they stole victory from the jaws of defeat, keeping them alive in the race for a repeat Big East regular season title and perhaps jump-starting them for the second half of the conference slate.
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Mitch Ballock entered the game 0-for-13 on three-pointers in three previous games against Seton Hall at the Prudential Center; he drained a three on their very first possession of the game, foreshadowing what was to come.
The Jays’ offense came out on fire, making six of their first seven shots overall and eight of their first nine 3-pointers. Among them was this three-quarter-court pass that Ballock zipped to a streaking Damien Jefferson for a layup.
And then Ballock hit one from the logo, signaling it was going to be one of THOSE nights.
They jumped out to a 22-14 lead; they answered a 9-0 Seton Hall run to take the lead 23-22 with back-to-back threes from Alex O’Connell and Mitch Ballock to go back ahead 28-23.
And with 9:10 to go in the half, the Jays probably felt pretty good about how things were going. Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard called for timeout at that moment, and the game turned. The Pirates started winning all the 50/50 battles, and began scoring virtually at will.
“At the beginning of the game, it felt like the guys thought they were going to outscore them. We made some shots early, and the more we made shots, the more we settled and that can’t be who we are,” Coach Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show.
Freshman Ryan Kalkbrenner picked up his second foul with 7:48 left in the half and headed to the bench. Christian Bishop joined him a minute later with his second foul. And with Jacob Epperson in their place, playing his heart out but showing signs of rust, Seton Hall took advantage by driving to the rim almost every single possession.
Team-wide, their “defense” could scarcely even be called defense. Seton Hall was 8-of-12 on layups and 9-12 from the free throw line in the first half, and thanks to a 31-13 run over the final nine minutes of the half, led by as many as 13 points. Greg McDermott was so exasperated with his group’s defensive effort, he burned three timeouts in the final five minutes of the half — completely out of character, and something he rarely does. That’s how out of sorts the Jays were.
“The team that was out there in the first half? I have no idea who those guys were,” McDermott said. “That is not how we play. We’re much better than that defensively.”
And so he challenged them in the locker room to show that they were. It did not change very much. The Pirates lead grew to 15 early in the second half, with Creighton missing nine straight shots at one point.
Ahead 68-52 after a layup by reserve Bryce Aiken with 11:32 to go, McDermott threw a proverbial Hail Mary.
“When we went to the zone, it was kind of a last-ditch effort to get back in the game,” McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “You saw more zone from us tonight than we’ve seen in practice the last two weeks. It’s not something we do a lot of. But we worked on it early in the season and we’ve spent enough time on it that the guys know what the slides are and what to do.”
This particular zone was courtesy of defensive coordinator Paul Lusk, and it featured some unconventional wrinkles. The weak-side guard — Mitch Ballock, for the most part — at the top of the zone sagged back toward the foul line to cover the feed to the high post. They ran traps out of it, and forced Seton Hall into a timeout on one. It flustered the Pirates, who were unprepared for a zone look from the Bluejays and weren’t sure how to handle it.
“I just felt like their offense was in too good of a rhythm the entire night,” McDermott continued. “With eight or nine minutes left they had 70 points. So I just felt like, let’s go to this zone and if it doesn’t work, we’re getting our doors blown off anyway. And if it works, maybe we can create a little doubt in their minds and we can sneak back into it.”
The Pirates went without a field goal for the first five minutes against CU’s zone. And though the Bluejays didn’t immediately cut into the lead, the zone stopped the bleeding defensively and allowed them to tread water while they searched for their offensive bearings.
Trailing 70-57 with eight minutes left, Damien Jefferson hit a pair of free throws to make it 70-59. It was the start of a 13-possession run where Creighton scored on 11 of them, cranking up the heat on a Pirates team that had no answer once the tables had been turned.
โI was on the bench and I was like, โguys, weโre here,โ โ Ballock said. โYou have 7ยฝ minutes left in the game and weโre in a good position. We have an offense that can execute and make shots. Youโve just got to make the plays.โ
Ballock checked back in shortly thereafter, and went from being a vocal leader to leading by example. He went 5-of-6 from the floor the rest of the way, including this three with 5:22 to go that trimmed the deficit to 72-66:
And this one that trimmed the lead to 79-74:
After a defensive stop, Denzel Mahoney banked in a three with 2:08 to go that cut the deficit to 79-77. You could see Seton Hall tense up, and Creighton find another gear — what had been a 16-point game, all but over according to statisticians, was very much a game.
And on the next possession, Marcus Zegarowski drew a foul and headed to the line with a chance to tie it. He made the first, but in shades of the Kansas game from November, missed the second. It remained a one-point Seton Hall lead, 79-78. But the look in Zegarowski’s eyes told you that lead was not long for this world.
20 seconds later, after a defensive stop, Zegarowski came down the floor and without hesitation drained a 25-foot three-pointer to put CU ahead 81-79. A 10-0 run for the Jays had erased Seton Hall’s lead entirely.
Equally as impressive as the shot? Rather than celebrate, Zegarowski ran back on defense and got his teammates in position to stop Seton Hall — FS1’s cameras caught him directing his teammates into place, and reminding them of their assignments.
The Pirates would tie it out of a timeout, 81-81, on a layup by Takal Molson. But then Ballock delivered the game-winner.
With 38 seconds left and Zegarowski handling the ball, he faked a ball screen — then ran to an open space, caught the ball, and sank his seventh 3-pointer of the game. Watch Ballock after the shot, too; like Zegarowski before him, instead of celebrating, he ran back on defense and helped get his teammates in position. With the Pirates out of timeouts, that proved critical. They had three tries at three-pointers to tie it. All were heavily contested. All missed badly. And the Jays somehow, someway, stole a win.
“I told the guys after we lost a couple of games that we probably shouldn’t have, that now we have to go win one we’re not supposed to,” McDermott said. “Their response to me was, ‘Coach, we expect to win them all.’ And you want that response, but tonight was one where we didn’t play our best for a long period of time, we snuck back into it, and we stole it.”
Not just a theft, but a comeback for the ages. Down by 16 with 12 minutes left, they won 85-81.
Key Stats:
Seton Hall ended the first half on a 31-13 run. Creighton ended the game on a 33-13 run. With those nearly-identical runs more or less canceling each other out, the Jays finding a way to win the rest of the game by two was the difference.
Seton Hall’s Bryce Aiken, who had scored a grand total of 23 points in just eight games all season, scored 21. But he spent the final five minutes of the game on the bench. According to Willard, he’s still on a minutes restriction after battling two sprained ankles this season. As good as he looked in the 18 minutes he did play, you wonder what the outcome of the game might have been had Aiken been able to be on the floor during the decisive stretch.
The Pirates had 53 points the entire game on January 6 in Omaha, shooting 3-of-18 from three-point range. In the first half alone in this one, they scored 54 and made 7-of-12 on threes. They had a ridiculous 1.543 points per possession, by far the worst half by the Jays defensively all year.
In the second half, the Pirates scored half as many points (27) and half as many points per possession (0.794). It was one of the Jays’ best defensive halves all year.
But the story in this one was Marcus Zegarowski finally, in the 16th game of the season, looking like the preseason Big East Player of the Year. In 38 minutes, he had 18 points, three rebounds, three assists and two steals, nailed a cold-blooded three for the lead, and assisted on the game-winner. As usual, he deflected praise, instead crediting his team’s resolve for the victory.
“We had the mentality of keep plugging, keep playing hard,โ Zegarowski said. โIn times like that, usually teams grow apart. But I think tonight we got closer. Thatโs the reason why we won.โ
And of course, Mitch Ballock. 29 points, 11-of-17 from the floor, seven 3-pointers, four assists. Five of his made baskets came in the final seven minutes, including the game-winner.
“We needed a special game from someone tonight to jump start us,” McDermott said of his senior guard. “That’s what you have to have happen to beat a team like Seton Hall — a good team that’s playing well. Those wins are hard to come by unless somebody does something special. That was Mitch tonight.”
