Key Stats: Providence sets the tone with 7 first-half offensive rebounds, and a 19-9 edge on the glass in the first 20 minutes. Creighton goes just 4-19 from three-point range.
Favorite Moment: Late in the first half, Creighton trailed 29-23 when Devin Brooks found Jahenns Manigat for a three-pointer; after Bryce Cotton missed a jumper, Brooks snared a tough rebound, pushed the tempo, and found Manigat for a fastbreak layup to cut the deficit to 29-28. For 25 seconds anyway, Creighton looked like the Creighton team we all know and love. Since it happened so rarely on Saturday, I guess that qualifies as my favorite moment. Ugh.
500-ish Word Recap: Tuesday night against Butler, Creighton played about as good a basketball game as they could play — shooting-wise, defensively, on the boards, everything. Saturday, they played about as badly as they could play, and when that happens against a good team on the road, a 13-point loss is pretty much what happens.
The Friars took the battle to the Jays from the opening tip, both on the scoreboard and on the glass. They dominated CU on the offensive boards, and often used their second chances not to get easy baskets but to slow the tempo and keep the Jays from running in transition — I’ll need to go back and re-watch the game to count, but it seemed like all eleven times they grabbed an offensive rebound, they re-set the offense and took another 20-25 seconds off the clock. That caused two things. One, the Jays couldn’t run the floor and try to wear out the Friars, who played just seven players; and Two, by slowing down the tempo, it didn’t allow Creighton to get into a rhythm on offense.
Providence jumped out to an early 9-3 lead, including five points from Bryce Cotton, and never trailed although the Jays stayed close throughout. Creighton shot the ball well enough to compete in the first half (12-23, 56%), though not well enough to overcome getting manhandled on the boards. They even managed to get within one point at the 3:13 mark when Jahenns Manigat scored in transition. That would be as close as they’d get, though, as the Friars went on an 8-2 run to close the half.
PC opened the second half on a 18-5 run, and the 26-7 run that spanned the last three minutes of the first half and the first six minutes of the second half was the difference in the game. Creighton had cut the deficit to one point prior to the run; by the time it was over, they trailed 55-35.
In the final stats, it looks like Creighton closed the gap on rebounds in the second half (and indeed, the Jays outrebounded PC 18-14 in the second half, including a 6-4 edge on offensive boards), but that’s deceiving: at the seven-minute mark, they were losing the battle of the boards 29-17. And though it ended 15-8 in favor of Providence, at the under-12 timeout in the second half, PC had outscored Creighton on second-chance points 15-zip. Make no mistake, when it mattered in this game, they got out-muscled, out-hustled and flat-out beaten.
Creighton will likely fall out of the rankings after this loss, but for those ready to panic after this loss, keep some perspective: unlike road (or any) losses in the Valley, which were almost universally an excuse for national writers to downgrade their opinion of the Jays, this one won’t be too damaging in the big picture. Providence was a dark-horse candidate to contend for the Big East title before injuries and suspensions mounted. They’re wounded, but they’re still a team capable of making a run — following the win, PC is up to the mid-40s in the official RPI, putting them squarely on the bubble for an NCAA Tournament berth. Holding serve at home and going 5-4 on the road, which is what most Creighton fans hoped for coming into the season — and what most prognosticators figured would be the record that would win the league — is still the goal.
Of course, the problem is figuring out where Villanova will lose four games, but Creighton gets a chance to do something about that themselves on Monday night.
Quotables:
“We didn’t do our job. We missed a ton of box-outs. We watched it on film, and the coaches told us if we box out, we’ll have a chance to get rebounds, and if we don’t, they’ll get offensive rebounds. We didn’t box out, and that’s exactly what happened. I bet when we go back and watch this game, three-fourths of their offensive rebounds were a result of missed box outs.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame
“It’s tough when it’s a game with limited possessions, where the opponent is grinding down the shot clock. And then every offensive rebound we gave up, they’d run the shot clock down again. It’s hard to get any flow going when they do that.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame
“There was a couple of times where we defended well for 32 or 33 seconds, and then we gave up a cheap foul at the end of it to give them the ball back, or an offensive rebound, and then they’d take a minute or more off the clock. We had a tough time getting our running game going because we weren’t able to get defensive rebounds, and with the seniors that we have, that’s unacceptable. That’s on us.” -Jahenns Manigat on 1620AM Postgame
“We need to play the way that Creighton basketball has played the last couple of years. We weren’t really ourselves tonight. You could look at a number of excuses for why that happened, but really truly you just have to look yourself in the mirror and say that you’re going to be better. We can’t let Providence beat us twice, in the sense that we can’t fly into Philadelphia with this game in our minds, instead of focusing on Villanova. We’ve got a great challenge ahead of us, so we need to flip the page as quickly as we can.” -Jahenns Manigat on 1620AM Postgame
“I didn’t think our focus and our preparation was quite where I wanted it to be. It certainly showed at the start of the game. When we kind of weathered the storm towards the end of the half, we made the decision that if we could keep them within five or six, we’d keep Doug and Ethan on the bench. When they made the free throws to go up six, I’d have taken that to go into the second half with those guys fresh and not in foul trouble.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“They scored on eight of their first nine possessions to start the game, and they scored on eight of nine possessions to start the second half. That’s not us. That’s not how we’ve been locked in at the start of halves and the start of games. We didn’t shoot it good, and on a night when we don’t shoot it well we have to hope we’re there defensively so that they can’t shoot it well, and neither of those things happened.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
And Now, Here’s What You Had to Say:
@RickInOmaha @Ed_Paluch @FriarFrenzy @brianhurley35 Creighton is going to win A LOT of games in the Big East this year
— Craig Leighton (@Craigl78) January 19, 2014
Looking at the box from PC-Creighton, Friars had 15 2nd chance pts off 11 offensive boards, and 12 pts off just 7 Creighton TOs. Efficient.
— Jason Guerette (@JPGuerette) January 19, 2014
Tough one in Providence, Jays will bounce back. Here is some ’91 CWS history to lighten up things #creighton pic.twitter.com/QJoHTu27xU
— D.Nash (@Dmnash55) January 19, 2014
Top three point shooting team in the country coming in, Creighton shot just 1-10 from deep in the 2nd half, 4-19 for the game. #pcbb
— Kevin Farrahar (@Kevin_Farrahar) January 19, 2014
Dad is watching an Elton John concert special while arguing (loudly) about Creighton with east coast relatives. That kind of night.
— Matthew DeMarinis (@mjdemarinis) January 19, 2014
@BannersParkway yeah, all teams have off days. I can imagine that if Creighton doesn’t hit the long range stuff the wheels start to come off
— Christopher (@THEREALTyner) January 19, 2014
Um, what?! RT @BrendanPrunty: Oh, ok. Wait – WHAT?! RT @EyeOnCBB: Providence 81, Creighton 68. Final.
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) January 19, 2014
That’s my fear for Creighton in the NCAA’s: Talented, but have a night when the 3’s don’t fall and they could lose to a double digit seed
— Joe McCann (@JoeMcCann3) January 19, 2014
Providence upsets Creighton. Ed Cooley and the Friars are not short on pride. Really good win versus a really good team.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) January 19, 2014