Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Recap & Analysis:
In dropping their second straight game, Creighton turned in their clunkiest performance of the season. They began the game by making just one of their first 12 shots, missing 11 in a row. They couldn’t hit from anywhere, going 1-3 on layups, 0-3 on midrange jumpers, and 0-6 on threes, putting them in a tough spot — there’s no adjustment to make when literally nothing is working. Compounding matters, while their offense was a brick factory their defense surrendered nine made field goals on Providence’s first 14 attempts.
Without even watching the game you’d have a good idea of how that went for the Jays, and you’d be right — the Friars led 23-6 at the under-12 timeout.
“The first eight minutes, they punked us out,” Damien Jefferson said in the postgame press conference. “Whenever a team comes in your house and punks you out for the first eight minutes of the game, it’s going to be hard to get back into the game.”
“I don’t know if they wanted it more,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “I do know we had some blown assignments early in the game that didn’t fall in line with our preparation. When that happens and you let somebody get started, like Watson did tonight…”
His thoughts trailed off before finishing that sentence, and who could blame him? Watson scored on three of Providence’s first four trips down the court, with little resistance. And as the Friars built that stunning 17-point lead just eight minutes into the game, Watson’s fingerprints were all over it. He had nine points and three rebounds already, while drawing two fouls apiece on both Christian Bishop and Ryan Kalkbrenner to send the Jays’ two primary big men to the bench for the remainder of the half.
And yes, Creighton did fight back. A small lineup featuring Denzel Mahoney, Antwann Jones and Damien Jefferson in the frontcourt held their own. By virtue of an 18-7 run, featuring 10 points from Jefferson, CU clawed to within 30-26 at the 3:25 mark of the half. As part of that run he hit a three:
And jumped a passing lane to intercept the ball, then drove the length of the floor for the finish:
Zegarowski then hit a three, and joined the 1,000 point club with this drive to the rim where his hamstring looked no worse for wear:
They’d turned that 17-point deficit into something manageable, trailing 39-34 as they headed to the locker room. But Providence outscored them 13-5 over the first five minutes of the second half, as another slow start sealed the Jays’ fate. Creighton outscored them the rest of the way, and arguably outplayed Providence for 30 of the game’s 40 minutes. But that’s not good enough, and not excusable. The sheer atrociousness of those other 10 minutes earned them the loss. Whether it was a lack of focus, or simply not matching the level of desire and effort that Providence showed, the Jays were badly outplayed at the beginning of both halves.
All totaled, Providence scored on nine of their first 11 possessions to begin the game, and seven of their first eight in the second half. And that was the game, honestly. CU was chasing their tail the remainder of both halves and never caught it.
They just about got there, though. Trailing 56-45 with 9:36 to go, Jefferson once again single-handedly made it a game. He scored seven straight, including this basket where he stepped in between not one, not two but THREE defenders for a layup:
And this circus shot in the paint:
In the game’s final minutes, Creighton inexplicably had three separate opportunities to tie the game and perhaps to win. They got to within two at 65-63 with 2:29 left, but blew a defensive assignment and let Watson throw down a dunk.
They got to within two again after a jumper by Ballock, 67-65, but with 28 seconds left David Duke hit a contested three off the glass.
And after Zegarowski banked in this three with five seconds left, it was once again a two-point game, 72-70.
But they fouled Duke, he made both free throws, and that was the final score — 74-70.
Key Stats:
“We had three or four guys that really had a rough night shooting,” McDermott noted. “Between them they probably shot 25 or 26 shots and made three of them. That’s very difficult to overcome. On nights like that, your margin for error on everything else is really, really small.”
Indeed, Mitch Ballock (1-for-4), Denzel Mahoney (1-for-10), Antwann Jones (1-for-6) and Alex O’Connell (0-for-5) combined to take nearly half of Creighton’s shots in the game, and made three.
“Our shot quality on Saturday was considerably better than Butler’s,” McDermott said. “And as a coach, that’s what you’re after — get the best shots you can, and force them defensively into the toughest shots you can. Some of the ones around the basket for Watson tonight were way too easy. When Mitch Ballock or Alex O’Connell or Denzel Mahoney are open, those are great shots for us. They’re shots we’re going to have to make because that’s how we built this team.”
That’s pretty hard to overcome, even if they’d played relatively well defensively.
But on Nate Watson, in particular, they did not. He scored a career-high 29 points on a variety of moves — lob passes over the top of shorter defenders, powerful dribble-drives through Creighton’s centers, and two back-breaking dunks in the final minutes to keep CU at arms length. WBR’s Matt DeMarinis noted these facts and figures about his night:
If there was a bright side in a loss like this, it was the return of Marcus Zegarowski after missing two games with a hamstring injury. He scored 17 points with three assists, one turnover and four rebounds.
“I played Marcus way more than I wanted to,” McDermott said, “mostly because Shereef, as everybody saw, is not healthy. He’s having a hard time moving off of his injured foot. But a couple of times where I tried to get Marcus a break, he waved me off. He said he was feeling pretty good. So we’ll just keeping getting him some treatment.”
While Zegarowski looked to be on the mend, Mitchell looked like he’s had a setback. He played just five ineffective minutes and it’s fair to wonder if he can go at all this weekend.
And then there was Damien Jefferson. On a night when no one else could do much of anything offensively, he scored 26 points on 9-of-13 shooting and 7-of-12 from the line in 36 minutes.
“Damien was outstanding,” McDermott gushed. “If you’re going to take one of your better defenders and throw them at Mitch, and another one and throw them on Marcus, there’s going to be a matchup somewhere else that we like, where we feel like we can attack the basket.”