Key Stats:
Of the four keys to a win that we outlined in the pregame Primer:
- Get a big shooting performance
- Once again limit Xavier’s ability to score from outside
- Crash the boards, especially the offensive glass
- Keep Xavier from rolling up a significant edge in points from the line
…Creighton succeeded on half of them. They shot 50.8% for the game (31-61) and were 12-30 (40%) from three-point range. That’s a checkmark. They allowed Xavier to make 13-24 from outside (54.2%), which was not only significantly better than the 1-21 they shot in Omaha, it was one better than the Jays themselves made. That’s a nope. They were dead-even on the glass, 30-30, and out-rebounded Xavier 5-3 on offensive boards. That’s a checkmark. As for the free throw line, Xavier got there 33 times and made 27 of them, but Creighton got there a nearly equal 30 times. Checkmark? Nah. Problem was, the Jays made just 19.
That’s right, on a day when the Jays did enough to steal an improbable win in a lot of areas, they missed ELEVEN free throws. Ugh.
Standout Performance:
James Milliken continued to play his best basketball of the year, scoring a team-high 22 points, grabbing four rebounds, and dishing out seven assists while playing all 40 minutes. His points came in key moments, too: he scored the first five points of the game, and made a pair of three-pointers late during the Jays’ furious late-game rally. For whatever reason, Milliken has saved his best for the final month each of the last two years, and if the Jays are to make a run in the Big East Tourney, they’ll need him to continue his hot shooting.
Recap & Analysis:
With Isaiah Zierden a late scratch because of a shoulder injury, Creighton went with a starting lineup combination they had never used before: James Milliken, Khyri Thomas and Maurice Watson at the guards, Geoff Groselle in the middle, and Cole Huff at the forward. It was the first of several experiments in the final regular season game that mostly worked.
They also employed a full-court press, with freshman Ronnie Harrell at the top, which is something they’ve done occasionally this year and had success with on Saturday, forcing nine second-half turnovers. And they played Malik Albert at the shooting guard alongside Maurice Watson, instead of subbing in for him, which is one of the rare times that’s happened all year and the first time in Big East play. Removed from having to run the offense, Albert was able to create shots for himself, and use his freakish vertical leap to make plays at the rim.
Creighton jumped out to a 14-5 lead at the first media timeout after making three-pointers on four straight possessions, the first from Milliken and the next three from Cole Huff. They’d lead most of the first half, even after Xavier heated up offensively, because they had one of their better offensive days of the conference season. CU shot 50% (16-32) overall and nearly 50% from outside (7-15), keeping pace with a Xavier offensive attack that their defense struggled to slow down. This is where Zierden’s absence was felt the most, as the Bluejay guard who held Trevon Bluiett to four points and two assists in Omaha was replaced defensively by Milliken and Albert, who let him score 17 points with five assists. That also changed the way they defended Myles Davis, and he scored 24 points with seven assists after putting up zeroes in both categories in the first meeting.
With their defense unable to stop Xavier, once their own shots stopped falling, the Musketeers took control of the game.
Xavier scored the final six points of the half to take a 44-41 lead into the locker rooms, and then scored the first 11 points of the second half — thanks in large part to a pair of threes from Trevon Bluiett and another from Myles Davis — to make it 55-41. Creighton made several valiant efforts to get back into the game, but Xavier always had an answer, and with 5:13 to go it looked like the blowout many expected was now coming to pass.
On January 26, Creighton led by 11 with 2:32 to play at Georgetown, and lost after the Hoyas ended the game on a 15-3 run. With just over five minutes to play on Saturday, Xavier led 82-64 — an eighteen point lead — and very nearly lost after the Bluejays used a 29-13 run to slice the deficit to just two with 18 seconds left. This was *almost* the karmic opposite of that epic meltdown in Washington, D.C., one or two plays away from countering one of the biggest late-game collapses in program history with one of the biggest late-game comebacks.
It began with two free throws from Watson, followed by a steal by Cole Huff on their press. Harrell made one of two from the line, and then a defensive stop led to a Milliken shot in transition; it missed, but Huff followed and scored on a putback. Another defensive stop, followed by a three from Milliken, cut the lead to 82-72 with 3:59 to go. Groselle was fouled away from the play, and sank a pair of free throws to complete the rare five-point possession, and now it was 82-74 thanks to the 10-0 run.
James Farr stopped the bleeding for Xavier with a pair of free throws on the other end, but Milliken answered with a three, and another turnover caused by the press led to a layup from Groselle. Still, Xavier was able to push the lead back out to 10 after a dagger of a three from Myles Davis with 2:09 to play, and after the Jays missed a shot on their next trip, it looked like XU had weathered the storm.
Ah, but there was another storm front coming. Two free throws by Groselle and a three-pointer from Huff, sandwiched around Myles Davis making only 1-2 from the line, cut the deficit to 90-84. Two free throws from Harrell, and another 1-2 trip to the line for a Xavier player, this time Trevon Bluiett, made it 91-86. Then Harrell came up with a steal on the press, saved it behind his back to Malik Albert for a layup, and with 1:13 to go it was 91-88.
Four straight points at the line from the Musketeers, pushing the lead back out to seven at 95-88, would have probably been enough to deflate most teams on most days. But not Creighton on this day. Toby Hegner drilled a three with 30 seconds left to cut the lead to 95-91, and then ANOTHER steal on the press, this time credited to Albert, led to an easy layup and a two point deficit with 18 seconds left. Not since the heydey of the Altman Era had a press turned the fortunes of a game around so quickly for a CU team. Alas, it was too little too late, and time ran out on the Jays’ comeback efforts as Xavier iced the game away at the line.
What a strange game. For 18 minutes in the first half, Creighton shot as well as they have all year, defended poorly, and led the fifth-ranked team in the country on the road. Xavier used a 6-0 run over the final two minutes to take the lead, then over the first 15 minutes of the second half did everything they could to run the Bluejays out of the building. And then the Jays refused to go down without a fight, getting up off the mat time after time after time over the game’s final minutes, absorbing one haymaker after another from Xavier and not only refusing to stay down, but rallying to knock them back on their heels time after time.
If the Jays bring that type of fight to NYC, it’s going to be one helluva interesting weekend.
They Said It:
“We were not going to quit, we were not going to get blown out on national television. That’s not who we are. We beat these guys once. It’s the end of our season. We knew we had to leave it all out there, and that’s what we did. We didn’t show any quit and we just kept fighting. We were one or two plays away from pulling another upset.” -Cole Huff on 1620AM Postgame
“That was one hell of a fight we put up today. We didn’t really find out until right before the game that Z wasn’t going to play, as he just had a really hard time getting his arm up to shoulder level. I talked to him right before we came out on the floor, and told him that we’re OK with whatever decision he makes. We understand he’s playing in a lot of pain. The guys in his place did a great job. I thought Tazz and Ronnie and Malik, all three came off the bench and gave us good minutes in different ways. Outside of the first five or six minutes of the second half, we played a heckuva basketball game. It’s hard to keep them from getting one of those spurts, especially in this building. We avoided it for the most part until the start of the second half.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“The attitude in the huddle when we got down by 16 was, I think we felt like some of our defenses could get them to shoot it quick enough that we could back in it if we just took it one possession at a time. And to our guys credit, they did that. They stayed with the plan. We threw a couple of different presses at Xavier, and a few different defenses, and I thought guys flew around and made some good plays. Toby Hegner came in after not playing very good basketball for a while and really gave us an injection of energy. His play in the post and keeping the ball out of the post was terrific.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Just because you don’t press in games doesn’t mean you don’t work on it. With the lineup that we’ve been playing the most, with a conventional big guy and with Maurice at his size, sometimes it’s not the best that we put our longer team on the floor with Ronnie, Malik and Tazz. But we did today and they did a good job. The guys fought, we didn’t quit, we forced some turnovers, we made it a one-possession game, and the bottom line is that in the second half they made most of their free throws and we missed a fair amount of ours. That’s unfortunate.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Cole gave us some great minutes today. Great minutes. I’m afraid of what his knee is going to look like tomorrow, that’s my fear obviously, and he’ll have to take most of the week off leading up to New York.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“At times on this trip we played really, really good basketball, but we haven’t been able to put it all together. Today we walked the ball up on some made shots and went with the press in the first half to try and shorten the game, because of our shorter bench. I didn’t want a game in the 80’s, and lo and behold, we got one in the 90’s (laughs). That’s not exactly what the plan was, but Xavier’s a top-five team for a reason. They’re very talented. There aren’t many holes in their lineup, they don’t have any glaring weaknesses that you can cheat to so you can take other things away.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Having Maurice and Malik on the floor at the same time gave us the ability to attack. That’s what we were looking to do with that lineup. As we said in the pregame, Malik has practiced better, and because he’s practiced better he’s playing more. And his minutes have been more and more productive. That lineup gave us some good things. But it was also a product of, number one, Z’s out, and number two, Tazz and Cole were in foul trouble. So we had some lineups out there that we haven’t seen much of. That’s why I’m proud as a coach, just disappointed that we lost but proud of our effort.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“Isaiah is always in the right spot defensively, and we missed that in this game. He would have been the guy that guarded Bluiett, and he did an unbelievable job against him at our place. Isaiah brings a steadiness to our team that not many can bring. I’m not sure we’ll have him back. He might be done for the year. So it was good that we could come out and compete and play against a good team without him, because hopefully that will give us some confidence if we have to do so moving forward.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
You Said It:
https://twitter.com/dannyobyrne/status/706233750049263616
https://twitter.com/mue11er/status/706228196669153280
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https://twitter.com/ryanholmgren/status/706234571038265344
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https://twitter.com/dannyobyrne/status/706235277421838336
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https://twitter.com/joejohns402/status/706237162102984704
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