Recap & Analysis:
For the second time in two weeks, Creighton built a double-digit lead against Marquette in the second half, only to blow it and lose to a Golden Eagles squad they had on the ropes and should have beaten. The first time, the loss caused coaches and fans to question the team’s effort and focus, as they allowed Marquette to score 12 points on the second half’s first five possessions and erase the lead in a flash, and then to score on their final five possessions of the game to clinch the win.
In the rematch, Creighton played a great first half on the road and built a 10-point lead as Khyri Thomas scored 19 points. He was sensational, scoring from everywhere and on any type of shot — he had three dunks, three 3-pointers, and two jumpers. He played his usual brand of #Khyrifense, alternating between Andrew Rousey and Markus Howard and coming up with two steals.
“I was having to guard both Howard and Rowsey; if one got going I switched to him, and then if the other got rolling I switched back. I can’t stop them both at the same time,” Thomas said afterward. “They’re such good players and even though we had a good gameplan they’re so hard to stop.”
He carried them to a double-digit advantage despite one of Marcus Foster’s worst halves of the year (1-6 from three-point range in the first half, seven points). Thomas, in particular, played an integral role in the final minutes of the first half as the Jays created separation.
CU trailed 27-14 with 5:10 to go when Toby Hegner tied it with a three-pointer in transition. Davion Mintz followed with a three on the next possession, and Thomas hit one a minute later to push the lead to 33-31. Then Foster knocked the ball loose along the perimeter, and after a wild scrum on the floor to pick up the loose ball, threw it ahead to Thomas for a dunk:
Mintz drove the length of the floor and scored at the rim, Thomas hit another three, and then Foster came up with a steal that he fed to Thomas in transition for yet another dunk:
Up by 10, they frustratingly allowed Marquette the score the final five points of the half to take momentum with them to the locker room. Sam Hauser got open on the perimeter when Foster and Thomas miscommunicated on a ball screen to leave him open, and he drained a three. Then Rowsey dribbled around both Foster and Jacob Epperson, starting from about 25 feet out, and neither of them could stop his dribble; he scored on a layup as the horn sounded.
In the second half, Creighton quickly rebuilt a double-digit lead with a three from Mitch Ballock and an alley-oop dunk from Mintz to Foster:
But then the defensive miscues began piling up. Hauser dribbled 20 feet completely unabated to the rim and scored a layup. Thomas got caught helping double the post, and left Rowsey wide open in the corner; he couldn’t close out fast enough and Rowsey nailed a three. Next, Howard took Mintz off the dribble and stuck a 15-foot jumper. Then Hegner got stuck in a ball screen that left Matt Heldt rolling wide open towards the rim; Rowsey flipped a one-handed pass through two defenders for an emphatic dunk. And finally, Foster gave up a little too much space while guarding Howard one-on-one, and he nailed a long three. All totaled, Marquette hit five straight shots to get the Bradley Center crowd engaged, but more importantly, once their shooters found success they were unstoppable.
Howard, Rowsey, and Hauser are three of the best shooters in the Big East, if not the entirety of D1 hoops, and when they’re feeling it there’s not much a defense can do to slow them down. Your best bet is to ensure, for all 40 minutes, that you’re in their face anytime they catch it. That you communicate clearly on ball screens and switches to make sure mistakes don’t lead to wide-open shots. And you have to defend further out from the basket than you ever thought possible. If you neglect to do those things, even for a short stretch, they’ll get hot — and you’ll get burned.
That five-possession stretch where the Bluejays blew one defensive assignment after another was all it took on Saturday for Howard and Rowsey to find their rhythm, and though the Jays cleaned up those miscues the rest of the half, it was too late. Howard hit a three with 11:04 left to cut the lead to one, in between two defenders who sandwiched him — Ballock closed out and made it a tough look, and Thomas put pressure on him from behind. No matter. Howard hit another one 90 seconds later on a possession where he dribbled halfway around the perimeter with Thomas’ hands in his face the entire time, and the shot he launched was partially blocked. Didn’t matter. It barely drew iron and dropped through the net.
“We had some communication errors on a few of those threes, although to be fair to our guys, it’s a little hard to jump-switch someone 30 feet away from the basket,” Greg McDermott commented on his postgame radio show. “It’s hard because you’re putting yourself in a tough situation that far out, where you can get driven by on the dribble. I’m sure the last thing our guys thought was that Rowsey was going to shoot it from there, and he did. Twice. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to them. You can only control what you can control.”
Somehow, the Bluejays survived the onslaught. They even managed to retake the lead on a couple of occasions. Foster hit a pair of free throws around the six minute mark to put his team back up 64-63; Ballock made a three a couple of minutes later for a 69-68 Bluejay lead.
But then Rowsey hit three consecutive three-pointers, all of them from well beyond NBA range, to blow the game open. The first came from the “Al McGuire Court” logo, closer to the sideline than the actual three-point line. The second came with his feet touching the “M” logo at center court, which is frankly insane. The third was the only reasonable shot of the bunch, but was still a full step behind the NBA line, and was contested. I mean, look at where he pulled up for these shots from. You’d get laughed out of a YMCA pick-up game for launching bombs like this, and here’s Rowsey taking them one after another in a major conference game on national TV.
Now I know how other teams used to feel about Ethan Wragge. Good Lord.
AND YET, Creighton still survived with a chance. Seven straight points from Foster, the last coming on a regular, not possessed, normal person three-pointer with 27 seconds left, cut the deficit to just three at 81-78.
Fortune even shined on them, as Sam Hauser — a 90% free throw shooter — missed the front end of a one-and-one to give them back the ball with the shot clock off and a chance to tie. Foster rebounded the miss, got it out to Thomas in transition, and when his dribble along the baseline was stopped, he kicked it out to Foster on the perimeter. There were 17 seconds left, neither team had a timeout, and CU had lots of options on the table. Drive to the rim for a two, foul, and then go for the tie or the win on the final possession based on how many free throws Marquette hits. Or opt to hold the ball and launch a three at the end to try for the tie.
Instead? Foster inexplicably took a heavily contested three with 16.2 seconds left, Hauser blocked it, and the game was over.
“We didn’t have any timeouts left, but we practice that situation all the time,” McDermott said. “We wanted to get the ball into the middle of the floor, get it moving, and find a good shot. 15 seconds is an eternity in that situation.
“You have to understand and learn from these mistakes. If we learn from it, and we’re more connected defensively Thursday than we were today, if we have a better feel for what we need to do offensively when the game’s in the balance and there’s 15 seconds left — where does the ball need to go, what do we need to do — then this is not a total loss. If we brush it off as ‘they hit some 30-footers, they got lucky, and they beat us’, that’s not a mature team acts. That was my message.”
With the loss, Creighton finished in a tie for third place in the Big East at 10-8, and will have the #4 seed in this week’s Big East Tournament. Their path to the championship is the same as it was a year ago — Providence in the quarterfinals, (likely) Xavier in the semis, and then potentially Villanova lurking if they make it to Saturday. Of the three potential quarterfinal matchups, the Friars are a better option than Seton Hall or Butler, but will still be a very tough opponent.
“I’m not concerned about losing momentum with this loss,” McDermott said. “We came here and competed. Offensively we did some good things. Defensively we had some unbelievable possessions where they had to go deep into the shot clock before taking a shot. They’re not a team that likes to do that, so from that standpoint we made strides.”
Key Stats:
Entering the game, two key areas were drilled in practice: rebounds and turnovers. Marquette was going to make 10 or more threes — they almost always do — but the Jays did a poor job on the defensive glass and in committing unforced errors in the first meeting, which was really the difference in the game. CU succeeded in both areas in the rematch, as they had 13 assists and just four turnovers while giving up only six offensive boards all afternoon.
Unfortunately, while everyone knew Marquette would hit threes, what happened Saturday — particularly in the second half — was absurd. They were 10-12 from three-point range after halftime, had an effective field goal percentage north of 80% until the final minute, and were launching shots from 30 feet out. That’s who Marquette is, and it’s what they do, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
Standout Performance:
Khyri Thomas had a terrific first half, scoring 19 points on 8-10 shooting (and 3-4 from three-point range), and had 24 for the game. Marcus Foster had just seven at halftime, but had a good second half (9-14 shooting overall, 2-5 from three for 22 points after halftime). Those two, as they usually do, carried the Bluejays.
And they needed to on Saturday. Although Ronnie Harrell dressed for the game and warmed up beforehand, he was held out as a precautionary measure. Tyler Clement played four ineffective minutes in the first half, committing two fouls, and didn’t see the court again. And Jacob Epperson, who played 12 minutes in the first half, re-aggravated the same knee he had surgery on in December, and was unavailable in the second half.
That left Creighton with a rotation of six players after halftime; Ballock played every second, Foster and Thomas played 19 minutes each, Hegner played 17, and Mintz played 16.
Harrell will almost certainly return Thursday in the Big East Tournament. So it was the apparent injury to Epperson that’s most concerning. Greg McDermott said on his postgame show that the same issues, on the same knee, that was operated on in December are now bothering him again. Jays fans everywhere are hoping it’s nothing major, because losing Epperson after everything they’ve been through would be devastating news heading into March.
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