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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Seton Hall 75, Creighton 65

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Seton Hall outrebounds Creighton 24-11 overall and ELEVEN-TO-ZERO on the offensive glass in the first half, and 46-27 for the game. There’s other stats, but that’s really all you need to understand this game.

Standout Performance:

Ronnie Harrell goes up strong in the paint. (Photo by Brad Williams / WBR)

Ronnie Harrell goes up strong in the paint. (Photo by Brad Williams / WBR)

With apologies to James Milliken, who had a season-high 21 points off the bench and for one of the rare times this year played like the guy who was the team’s best offensive weapon a year ago, the standout was Ronnie Harrell. No question. The redshirt freshman played 14 second-half minutes partly out of necessity — Geoff Groselle’s injury not only robbed them of one of their two bigs, it had a domino effect at the “4” when Toby Hegner had to play the “5” to give Zach Hanson a rest — and partly because he just played too damn well to take out. On a night when the team was lethargic and a step slow, Harrell was a ball of energy. He fought for and secured rebounds that none of his teammates could get. He took the ball to the rim and forced the action, then sank free throws when he was fouled. He played solid defense and came up with two steals while altering several other passes. And most importantly, his play appeared to be the spark plug the team needed; their best stretch of the night, such as it was, came midway through the second half when Harrell was making plays all over the court.

Recap & Analysis:

Saturday night, Creighton was faced with a game they needed to win very badly. Coming off a gut-punch loss, with a chance to put some distance between themselves and the team right behind them in the standings while getting whatever slim NCAA Tournament chances remained back on track, there was pressure to win unlike any this particular group of Bluejays has faced this year.

They answered the bell with one of their least-inspired performances of the year. They played passive, they played tight, and they had a conservative play-not-to-lose attitude that was diametrically opposed to the fast-pace, force-the-action aggression they’ve played with on their best nights. This manifested itself on offense by standing around instead of the constant motion they’re known for. Meanwhile on defense, they were a step slow — in reacting to screens, in boxing out, in being in position for rebounds. Adding to the frustration? Even when they were in position, they were out-worked by their opponent and still didn’t get the rebound. Most maddening of all? On the rare occasion where they were in position AND managed to get the rebound, they turned it over with a foolish pass or a careless mistake.

James Milliken drives to the hoop for two of his 21-points. (Photo by Brad Williams / WBR)

James Milliken drives to the hoop for two of his 21-points. (Photo by Brad Williams / WBR)

Seton Hall did the opposite. The Pirates were aggressive, determined, ready to fight, and armed with a gameplan to take the Bluejays out of what worked in their first meeting. By the time Creighton matched them on all four fronts, it was too late. The Hall schemed to sag off of Maurice Watson defensively, which took away easy passes by clogging up passing lanes to his teammates. The extra traffic in the paint that clogged up his driving lanes to the rim also had the by-product of making it tough for Geoff Groselle and Zach Hanson to get position on the block. As a result, Watson was often the only open shooter; they were content to let Watson shoot jump shots all night, in other words. And it worked. He took 16 shots, making just six, and missed all four of his three-point attempts.

Former Bluejay great Brody Deren said it on the postgame radio show, and he’s absolutely right: in close games and big moments, they play tight, they play not to lose, they’re unsure of how to get it done. Saturday night was a big moment from the opening tip, and they played the first 25 minutes of the game like they so often play the end of close games — with similar results.

And yet for most of the first half, the game was close. Seton Hall had a series of five-or-six point leads but was never able to pull away any further because the Jays made just enough plays to keep it from getting out of hand. Down 12-6, James Milliken hit back-to-back three pointers to cut the deficit to 14-12. Down 17-12, Maurice Watson hit back-to-back jumpers to make it 19-16. The last Bluejay gasp came when Toby Hegner hit a three-pointer with 6:13 to play that made it 23-21 Seton Hall; the Pirates closed the half on a 17-6 run that gave them a 40-27 lead at the break. The way they did it — with offensive rebounds and second-chance points — took the crowd entirely out of the game, demoralized the Bluejay players, and seemed to sap them of what little energy they had.

The run continued as the second half commenced, with Seton Hall making their first six shots and rattling off a 14-3 run in just over three minutes. It was 54-32, and suddenly the Jays were in very real danger of being boat-raced out of their own building in front of the biggest crowd of the year. CU called timeout to regroup, and switched to a triangle-and-two defense to try to get Seton Hall out of their rhythm. It did manage to stop the bleeding, but when you’re hemorrhaging that badly, “stop” is a relative term. And while it held Seton Hall in check long enough for someone — Ronnie Harrell in this case — to spark a run and cut the lead in half, the same problems that got them into the mess in the first place resurfaced and put an end to any thoughts of a miraculous comeback.

With 5:42 to go, they managed to get the deficit to just 10 at 67-57 after a three-point play from Watson. They had the crowd of almost 18,000 screaming as they prepared to go on defense, and were one stop away from making things VERY interesting. They made Seton Hall use almost the entire shot clock, denying every option they attempted to find, and forced a poor shot from Khadeen Carrington.

And he missed it! They got the stop they needed, and for one brief, fleeting moment, you wondered if this might actually be happening. Could they reverse-engineer the Georgetown game into one that ended in their favor? Wouldn’t that be the most delicious irony you could possibly imagine? Alas, it was not to be.

In a sea of Bluejays, it was not any of them that secured the rebound, but Isaiah Whitehead, the Pirates’ tremendous guard. He dribbled the shot clock down near zero, toying with their guards and making them think they might actually stop him, then calmly drained a three-pointer and yelled “BOOM!” as he ran by his team’s bench. It silenced the 18,000 fans in attendance, silenced any momentum the Jays had, and was the cold-blooded dagger in their comeback hopes.

The way they played was disappointing, as was the loss, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the bigger picture here — and I’m not talking about basketball. After suffering the loss and retreating to their locker room to decompress, the players emerged from the tunnel to meet with the families who had bid for their jerseys in the “Creighton vs Cancer” auction. They posed for pictures, signed autographs, and conversed with them, listening sincerely to the stories of the people whose names graced their warmup shirts — some of them cancer survivors who were there to tell their stories themselves, some of them people who’d lost a battle with cancer and had their stories told by loved ones. Every single player did so gracefully, even Geoff Groselle, who needed crutches to come back onto the court because of his ankle injury but did so because it was a commitment he wanted to honor and one he was proud to do. These are tremendous young men and terrific representatives of Creighton University and Omaha. The result of the game was terrible, but everything that happened afterward was so much more important.

Pink-Out-Aerial

They Said It:

“It was dead in the locker room before the game, there was no enthusiasm. I think our coaches had more enthusiasm than we did. That was a problem from the start. (Coach Mac) said in the locker room afterward that we had more intensity when we were down 20 than we did at the start.” -James Milliken on 1620AM Postgame

“They had a great scouting report from the first time we played. They sat on Geoff’s left hand and wouldn’t let him do anything on that side. They played off of Maurice and dared him to shoot threes. They made him create his own shots from out there instead of letting him go towards the basket. They used their length to stop him from driving in and collapsing their defense.” -James Milliken on 1620AM Postgame

“If you watch our practices, me, Isaiah, Cole, we’re all shooting the ball really well. We come in here before the game and get shots up and are shooting well. It’s really more of how intense we are with ball-handling and getting up tough shots, and then carrying it over to games. During my shooting slump, I was in the gym shooting, it just wasn’t working for me. So I had to change up my routine. I started taking more uncomfortable shots. Off the move, off the dribble, shooting tough threes, off-balance shots, so more game-like situations.” -James Milliken on 1620AM Postgame

“I think we found out how good Seton Hall was. I felt that when we went there and won it was a heckuva win because I knew how talented they were. We were able to take them out of some things rhythm wise that they wanted to do at their place, and they key was we kept them off the glass and kept them from scoring off our turnovers. Tonight we had a hard time with that. I thought their length and athletic ability bothered us. Whenever we got into rotations defensively and the shot went up, we got caught with one of our guards having to take out one of their bigs. We lost that battle almost every time. It seemed like the ball bounced that direction, where the mismatch in the block-out was.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“It’s unfortunate because I thought we had a great practice yesterday. I was surprised at the lack of pizzazz we had to start this game. Things didn’t go great early. But we have to be mature enough and strong enough to get through some tough times and not let it impact us. I didn’t think our body language was good. I thought we looked tired. Disappointing loss, but to a very good team. I’ve got all the respect in the world for Seton Hall. And Isaiah Whitehead in the second half, basically just toyed with us. As that shot clock wound down, he made big shot after big shot. Our guys kept fighting, I thought Ronnie gave us a great lift off the bench, it was good to see James come back and play more like we all know he’s capable of playing, but the performances beyond that, we didn’t get a lot tonight.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“I think Seton Hall was a little softer on Maurice, and plugged the lane up a little bit more. That’s why James had the shots he got, too. I think they looked at our shooting numbers and said you know what, let’s roll the dice. Maurice very rarely got to the rim tonight, fewer than any game we’ve played probably, because of how they defended him. The only way to combat that is to make shots. I thought we had opportunities to get it inside early and we missed Geoff, and maybe had an opportunity to get him going.

“At the start of the second half we couldn’t get any stops. The end of the first half and start of the second half, our defensive presence wasn’t as good as it’s been, and to get out-rebounded on your own floor by 19 rebounds — that’s a tough way to live.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Am I disappointed in the effort? Eh, I’ve gotta watch the film. I didn’t feel like we were flying around, and Seton Hall did a great job of controlling the pace and the tempo and never letting us get a rhythm like we wanted in transition offensively. When they’re not playing fast, and we aren’t getting rebounds to get that break started, it’s double trouble. We rely on our offensive transition to set the tone for the game. Because we weren’t able to get into that, we got really stagnant offensively at times. The ball didn’t move, we settled for some early jump shots rather than trying to get a piece of the paint first either via a pass to the post or with penetration. I’ve got to watch the film to determine that. I didn’t feel like it was a game where we competed at the level we’re capable of competing at, and that’s disheartening because this was such a great opportunity to play in front of your home fans in an environment like this.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“Did Georgetown have anything to do with this? I don’t think so. I sensed that it was lingering a little on Thursday, but I thought we got through that practice and got better. Yesterday our practice was outstanding. I even cut some drills short because I felt like they got it. They were executing the way I wanted them to execute, and doing it with energy and enthusiasm. So we cut it a little shorter than normal just because I thought we were ready. I was really surprised at the start, because it just didn’t appear that we were hooked up to the level we needed to be. I know it takes a lot of wind out of your sails when you give up offensive rebounds, you exert all that energy and focus, you get the stop, and then you have to do it again. It takes a lot out of you.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

“We switched to a triangle-and-two in the second half — we were playing man-to-man on two guys and sitting in a zone on the other three — and denying Whitehead a little more than the others. We were just trying to break their rhythm early, they were getting throw-backs, they were getting post touches, they were getting jump shots, and we just didn’t have an answer. At times, I thought their bigger guards just drove it to six or eight feet, rose up to shoot, and then everybody else chased the miss. That made it very difficult for us to defend.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame

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