Recap:
Creighton led by 17 points at halftime Saturday against #21 Xavier after one of their best halves of basketball this season. The lead evaporated in just seven minutes of the second half after one of the biggest — and certainly quickest — collapses in program history.
Xavier’s Jack Nunge hit a pair of threes in the first 68 seconds, and missed a third moments later that rimmed out. Teammate Paul Scruggs didn’t miss, though, and after 2-1/2 minutes seconds the lead had already been halved. After a bucket at the rim by Zach Fremantle to make it 36-30, Greg McDermott called timeout to try and plug a leaking dam that had a rush of floodwater crashing into it.
The Jays couldn’t regain their composure despite the stoppage, and after eight more unanswered points gave Xavier the lead, McDermott called another timeout. It, too, did no good. CU got on the board with a pair of free throws, but then Xavier scored another 10 unanswered points before the Jays finally made their first basket of the second half, taking a 48-38 lead with 9:15 left. Combined with two media timeouts, there were four stoppages for the Jays to try and regroup, and none bore fruit.
“I needed 30 timeouts, not (two),” Greg McDermott said half-jokingly on the postgame radio show. Gallows humor was the only rational response after a loss like this.
Trey Alexander’s layup with 8:56 left finally ended the 29-2 Xavier run. At that point, Xavier had made more shots (14) than Creighton attempted (12) in the second half — and to add insult to injury, Xavier had rebounded three of their seven missed shots. Meanwhile, the Jays’ first 16 possessions ended with seven turnovers, two made free throws and eight missed shots.
“Sometimes, when we have a defensive breakdown, human nature is to think ‘I’m going to go fix this.’ And that’s the last thing you should think,” McDermott said. “You should think even more ball movement, more spacing, more pace, instead of putting your head down and trying to force a play to save the day.”
Indeed, as Xavier kept bringing the heat offensively, Creighton’s response was often to play iso ball on the other end — young players trying to be the hero and single-handedly end a run.
“We let our defense dictate our offense,” Alex O’Connell said. “We see another team score and our body language changes. It’s a lesson we have to learn from. The team in the first half was a completely different team in the second half.”
McDermott said that he loved the team’s preparation in the days leading up to the game, and believed their game plan was a good one. But once Nunge hit a pair of threes to open the second half, it blew a hole in that plan.
“He’s a 28% shooter, so we sorta rolled the dice with him,” McDermott noted. “Once he hit a couple it changed our whole defensive approach. Now we couldn’t keep Kalkbrenner at the rim. And then they attacked us on the post when he got rotated away from the rim.”
It’s body blow of a loss, and you worry about it carrying over into a tough two-game road trip — Tuesday at #20 Connecticut and Friday at Seton Hall. They’ll be underdogs in both, and if they indeed lose both, will bring a four-game losing streak back home with them.
“Our ceiling is what you saw in the first half, but unfortunately our floor is what you saw in the second half,” McDermott said. “Experienced teams, the gap between the floor and the ceiling isn’t as big. With us, it’s huge. We have to narrow that gap.”
There’s a temptation to lose sight of the bigger picture. But remember the 2018-19 team? They lost four straight games in February where they had a lead in the final four minutes. They were saddled with the reputation that they couldn’t close, that they were mentally weak, that they were missing the “it” factor needed to win tough games in the Big East. A year later when that same group of players were a year older, they won the Big East regular season title. Two years later, that same core group went to the Sweet 16.
The final story of this group has not even begun to be written.
Key Stats:
Xavier’s 17-point comeback is the largest in arena history by a Bluejay opponent, beating out the 16-point comeback Marquette executed on February 17, 2018. It’s the first time since at least 2004 that the Jays have blown a lead of at least 17 points; that’s as far back as anyone inside or outside CU’s athletic department could bare to look back.
In the first half of two games against Xavier this year, Creighton has outscored the Musketeers 70-48. In the second half of those games? Xavier 106, Creighton 67.
Greg McDermott alluded on his postgame show to the fact that Creighton’s first half was one of their best of the year. Statistically, it certainly was. The Jays scored 1.091 points per possession, made 10-of-19 from two-point range (52.6%), 5-of-10 on threes (50.0%), and had seven assists with just six turnovers. Defensively, they were out of this world. They held Xavier to 0.576 points per possession, and just 7-of-28 on two’s (25.0%) and 1-of-7 on threes (14.3%). If the second half had gone differently, that would have been the story. Alas, it didn’t, and it isn’t.
Because to start the second, Creighton scored two points on their first 16 possessions with seven turnovers. They were 0-for-8 from the floor. By the time they settled down it was too late. Xavier made 9-of-12 from three-point range after halftime, scored 18 points in the paint, and scored 55 points — the second-most in a second half for an opponent in McDermott’s 12 years as head coach.
