Creighton had led for most of the night, but with 6:22 to play Xavier trailed by just two at 69-67. 23 seconds later, they were knocked to the mat with a haymaker — two consecutive 3-pointers by Jamiya Neal, extending the lead to 75-67.
The first came off of a flare screen, where Ryan Kalkbrenner came out to the perimeter to create space. Steven Ashworth flipped a pass over the big man to a wide open Neal, who buried the three. Bang.
Then after Kalkbrenner altered a shot at the rim, Ashworth cleared the board and started a fastbreak. He found Fedor Zugic for a decent look at a three, but he turned it down because Neal had a better one, making a perfect bounce pass to the corner. Bang bang.
“He hit two big shots at critical times,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “On the second, Fedor recognized that he hit the one and made the extra pass in transition even though Fedor had an open shot. That’s awesome to see.”
After Xavier coach Sean Miller burned his last timeout, the Musketeers responded with four quick points to cut the lead to 75-71. The second basket came after Ashworth committed a live-ball turnover, leading to a fastbreak layup.
Then the Jays knocked them out, this time with Isaac Traudt hitting a pair of three-pointers 33 seconds apart. Unlike after Neal’s threes, the Musketeers couldn’t get up from this one — a 10-point Bluejay lead at 81-71 was too much.
“Those are two big shots. You know, the first one was kind of on a broken play, but somebody got a flare and got him loose,” McDermott said. “Then we came back with a set play and we executed to perfection. Jamiya drove it, Kalk set a great screen and Isaac did the rest. So, uh, he’s playing a lot of confidence.”
“I feel like the tides really turned when Jamiya hit those two threes. Those were huge,” Traudt said. “Those were the two shots that gave us a ton of confidence that we were gonna go win this game.”
As for his own back-to-back threes, Traudt credited his teammates for finding him. But he also noted he thinks he’s doing a better job of hunting shots, instead of being the catch-and-shoot type of player he’s mostly been through 1-1/2 seasons as a Bluejay.
“I’m trying to run off actions, trying to find open spots, and kind of hunt for shots,” Traudt explained. Then matter-of-factly he added, “Because, you know, shooting is what I do best, so I need to be able to help the team in that aspect.”
The Jays missed eight of their first nine attempts from the perimeter, and were just 3-of-15 from three in the first half. They built a lead of as many as 10 points in spite of it, thanks largely to dominating in the paint. Kalkbrenner scored 13 first-half points on 6-of-8 shooting inside the arc.
“I think Mac feels like we’ve always got an advantage down low,” Kalkbrenner said on the postgame radio show. “Tonight it was working so we kept going back to it. I mean, I just got in a rhythm there, we didn’t do anything special — it was just post-up plays. I don’t have a complicated answer for you on how we did it.”
Neal added nine first-half points, two of them coming on a Dunk of the Year candidate. Taking off from outside the paint, Neal cocked the ball back and threw it down with his right hand over Xavier’s Ryan Conwell.
The TV angle doesn’t do it justice, though it’s plenty impressive. These baseline views courtesy of Creighton’s video crew show the flight much better.
That dunk came mid-way through a 20-7 Creighton run, turning one of Xavier’s only leads of the game (23-20 with 10:23 left in the first half) into a 40-30 CU lead eight minutes later. But the most impressive part of the run? Kalkbrenner headed to the bench with two fouls at the 4:40 mark, with CU ahead 31-28. Fred King turned in huge minutes, logging a putback dunk and a blocked shot while playing solid defense.
“I was gonna go back with Kalk if we had to, but we kind of held on to the lead so we rolled with it,” McDermott said. Then he joked, “But he can’t be getting in foul trouble…that’s too hard on me. First time in five years and I didn’t like it much.”
Leading 40-35 at the break, Kalkbrenner made his presence felt upon returning to the floor by scoring seven of their first 11 points, including his second three-pointer of the game.
But five minutes into the half, he picked up a third foul. This time, Xavier cut the lead from eight to three in short order, including a three off a second chance opportunity. On the next possession, Neal picked up his third foul, too. McDermott could sense the game slipping away, and with Neal headed to the bench he felt he had to roll the dice by putting his big man back in with 13:48 left.
Kalkbrenner said his approach didn’t change much despite having three fouls, though he said if there was a shot that he thought was barely blockable, he might not go for it.
“But for the most part, it doesn’t really change because I don’t foul much anyway,” Kalkbrenner said. “So in my head, I’m thinking I’m not going to pick up another one. It only changes a little bit.”
Then he joked about a moment where he did just that, pulling up from attempting a blocked shot to avoid a foul. “Mac was like, ‘Why didn’t you go get it?’ I’m like ‘I got three fouls, Mac. What do you want me to do? Foul out?’”
Xavier coach Sean Miller got in on the fun, too. According to a tweet from Rob Anderson, when Kalkbrenner got up from the scorers’ table to check back in, Miller smiled and yelled to him “No more threes!” Kalkbrenner smiled back and responded, “No more fouls then!”
Clinging to a 51-49 lead, Kalkbrenner gave them some breathing room by banking in a layup from two feet out. Then after Xavier’s Zach Freemantle buried a three to cut the lead to just one, Fedor Zugic answered with a three from the top of the circle — Kalkbrenner caught the ball in the post, drew a double-team, and kicked it out to Zugic.
Xavier again cut the lead to just two, 58-56, only for Zugic to once again turn them away. This time he blocked a shot in transition, starting a fastbreak the other way that ended with a three from Ashworth. Underrated moment from that shot: Zugic was so confident Ashworth’s shot was going in, he started to run back on defense before it got to the rim.
The Musketeers would soon tie the game at 61, but they would not take the lead as Kalkbrenner answered with a layup. The teams would trade baskets, and then leading 69-67 Neal and Traudt put the game on ice. Their four 3-pointers were part of a stretch of seven-straight made 3’s by the Jays, and a half where they made 8-of-10.
“This is a heck of a win for us, and we’ll see in the middle of March how good a win it is,” McDermott said. “I knew we were gonna need a good offensive performance tonight, because I thought Xavier was gonna be difficult to stop and they were.”
After opening Big East play with an 81-57 loss at Georgetown six weeks ago, Creighton has only lost one time since. “You know, when we did that radio show at Washington DC, to think we’re gonna go 8-1 after that? I don’t know that anybody saw it coming,” McDermott said. “So this team has made a lot of progress and I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
As for the coach on the other bench, Sean Miller said his team has played the other top teams in the league twice already — and he’s not sure that Creighton isn’t the best of them. “Of all the teams that we play and that I coach against, I don’t know if anybody’s better in terms of running offense than Greg McDermott is, and Creighton,” Miller added.
Inside the Box:
Creighton’s bench scored 19 points, including 12 more from Isaac Traudt. He’s scored in double figures in four of the last five games after doing it just three times over the first 16. Over those five games, he’s made 10-of-18 from three point range.
It’s more absurd than that, though: going all the way back to the UNLV game on Dec. 7 where he made his last two attempts, Traudt is 12-of-12 from three in the second half of games at CHI Health Center Omaha.
Traudt also drew the defensive assignment of guarding Dailyn Swain, and helped hold him to 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting.
“He’s really athletic. He’s pretty tall, too. He’s probably a good 6’7″, you know,” Traudt said. “He’s also really strong, too. Like, he was bumping me pretty hard. You know, I’d like to think I’m somewhat strong and he was moving me pretty good. So he’s a really tough matchup. He’s a really good player.”
Jamiya Neal had 16 points, six assists, six rebounds and two blocks in a stat-stuffing night. But neglecting to talk about his defense would be a mistake.
“Jamiya’s doing good things defensively, too,” McDermott said. “We decided yesterday at practice, it was kind of a late switch, to put Jamiya on (Dayvion) McKnight and let Steven chase (Ryan) Conwell around because I was a little worried about McKnight getting downhill and getting into the paint. We thought Jamiya could negate that, which he did. He just continues to get better.”
And then there was Ryan Kalkbrenner, who continues to pile up records as his Bluejay career winds down. He scored 29 points in this one, making 12-of-17 from the floor. He passed Bob Harstad and Rodney Buford to move into sole possession of 2nd place on Creighton’s all-time scoring list. He registered his 225th career block in Big East league games, breaking a tie with Alonzo Mourning for fourth-most in league history. Only Patrick Ewing (247), Hasheem Thabeet (243) and Etan Thomas (232) have more. He’s also now top 50 in NCAA history with 363 total blocks.
Oh, and by playing in his 108th win as a Bluejay, he also became the winningest player in program history.
“It’s been so much fun to be a part of,” McDermott said. “His ears are wide open. He wants to learn. He wants to get better. He wants to grow. He’s continued to add things to his game. What he does defensively for us is incredible. And then what he does in the locker room? Our culture is what it is because he’s allowed us to hold on to it…it’s been an absolute honor to coach him. I’ve been blessed to coach some really good players. I had the opportunity to coach Doug and watch what he accomplished in his career. Now I’ve watched Ryan have a historic career as well. Oftentimes in coaching you don’t ever get to experience one of those, let alone two.”
Miller gushed about him too, saying he’s tired of game-planning for and playing against him. He ompared Kalkbrenner’s defense to the impact a great point guard has on a team’s offense. “He is quite a player, four-time, probably, Big East Defensive Player of the Year. He’s just so smart. It’s not just his blocks, it’s him patrolling the lane, and sometimes he switches. His mobility is just incredible.”
Over the last eight games, Kalkbrenner has averaged:
- 19.8 points
- 9.5 rebounds
- 3.4 blocks
- 2.0 assists
- 65.4% 2FG
- 46.7% 3FG
- 74.4% FT
He’s the only major conference player since 2005-06 to have any eight-game stretch with those numbers.