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Men's Basketball

Morning After: Xavier 74, Creighton 73

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[Box Score]

Key Stats:

Creighton missed 12 free-throws, and potentially several more given all the front-end of 1-and-1’s that they missed. That’s the game. You don’t need me to tell you this, but a team can’t do that against an NCAA-Tournament squad like Xavier and win. That they still almost did is rather astonishing, actually.

Standout Performance:

Playing 38 minutes in his final home game, Austin Chatman scored 18 points on 5-9 shooting, going 2-4 from the three-point line and 6-7 from the free-throw line. He also had five assists and two rebounds, and managed to stay out of foul trouble on a day when pretty much everyone else, for both teams, was in foul trouble. It was a great game for the senior until the final minute, when he first committed a foul at half court that led to the game-winning free throws, then missed the game-winner at the buzzer. What a tough way to go out, but given his struggles in January and early February, it was good to see him go down swinging and scoring like people thought he would all year.

Devin Brooks goes in for a steal. (Photo by Adam Streur / WBR)

Devin Brooks goes in for a steal. (Photo by Adam Streur / WBR)

Recap & Analysis:

Of course it ended this way.

Down one with the ball, Austin Chatman — the face of this Creighton team, for better or worse — took a pass from Toby Hegner, launched a good, open shot to win the game, and it bounced harmlessly off the rim as the buzzer sounded. Seven times in Big East play, the Jays led in the final minute, and all seven times, they lost the game. Why would Saturday be any different?

Chatman’s would-be-game-winner was preceded by what looked to be a set of breaks and solid late-game execution (for once) for the Jays. Down 71-66 with 47 seconds left, James Milliken drained a three-pointer, Xavier’s Dee Davis made just one of two free throws on the ensuing foul, and then Avery Dingman drove the baseline, drew a foul, and made both free throws. 72-71, Xavier. On the inbounds pass, Dingman tied up Davis in the corner, and with the possession arrow pointing to Creighton, it gave them the ball back with 20.4 seconds left.

This being Creighton in 2014-15, they promptly struggled to get the ball inbounded, then heaved a desperation half-court pass that was intercepted by Remy Abell near the scorer’s table. But! Abell appeared to be confused about where he’d landed after the interception, or felt the pressure of the defense and the moment, or was flustered by the turn of events (who wasn’t?), and proceeded to pass it to a teammate…who was on the other side of the half-court stripe. Back court violation, Creighton ball.

These are the kinds of things that haven’t gone CU’s way in the final minute of a close game all year, and suddenly they were coming in waves in the home finale.

Creighton took about half of the clock down before finding Toby Hegner for a nearly-wide-open three from the top of the key. It misfired, but Devin Brooks — a guard amidst several taller players, most of them in Xavier blue — rose up to tip it in. It was 73-72 Creighton, and there was pandemonium in the CenturyLink Center.

Short-lived pandemonium, as it turned out. Seconds later — one second later by the game clock, maybe four seconds later in actual time — Chatman was whistled for a foul on the ballhandler, Dee Davis, as he crossed half court. There was contact, but the kind of contact teams in the Big East have gotten away with all year long, particularly at the end of games. No one knows that better than Creighton, and yet here they were. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; The officiating crew of Brian O’Connell, Jeffrey Anderson, and Wally Rutecki called 52 fouls in this game, which works out to one foul for every 46 seconds of game play. Those fouls were evenly distributed, 26 for each team, so don’t think this is a rant blaming a loss on the officials. It’s not. It’s a rant stating that none of us came to the arena to watch Creighton take 32 free throws and Xavier 28 — if you combine free throw attempts with field goal attempts, nearly 40% of the shots each team took were from the free throw line in this game. That’s absurd. Despite both teams shooting better than 50% from the field, this game had no rhythm, it had no offensive flow, and it took nearly 2-1/2 hours to complete. Yuck.

Davis, of course, made both free throws to set up the final sequence where Chatman’s would-be-game-winner came up short. It’s quite a capstone on Creighton’s season, isn’t it? Even in a game where they finally got a few breaks and bounces in the final minute, they still managed to make one critical mistake and be in position for one unlucky break to go against them.

And so they finish the regular season at 13-18 and 4-14 in the Big East, tied for last place with Marquette but saddled with the 10th seed in the conference tournament by virtue of tiebreakers. Optimistic fans insist it’s a blip on the radar, pessimistic fans insist it’s proof of impending doom for Creighton hoops over the next few years, and after a season like this, it’s hard to know which side is more correct. But as close as they’ve been in these close losses, seven now, who’s to say they won’t take the slate-clearing opportunity of the Big East Tournament to make a run? Not me.

Zach Hanson (center) consoles an inconsolable Avery Dingman and Austin Chatman after another heartbreaking loss.

Zach Hanson (center) consoles an inconsolable Avery Dingman and Austin Chatman after another heartbreaking loss. (Photo by Adam Streur / WBR)

Quotables:

“It was kind of an ugly game with 52 fouls called, and there wasn’t a lot of flow to the game. We weren’t able to get into transition as much as we would have liked, so we kind of had to play a game that doesn’t fit us that well. It was a muddy, ugly wrestling match. At one point, with about eight minutes left, we had all three of our guys — maybe four with Toby included — with four fouls, so our entire front line. I’m proud that we found a way to hang in the game when it became that physical of a game, but I’m obviously also very disappointed for the guys. We continue to make enough plays to put us in position to win and we continue to believe in each other, so it’s just really troubling that this has happened this many times this season, where we’ve come up just an eyelash short.” -Coach Greg McDermott

(On the final shot) “I thought it was going in, honestly. Toby had confidence in me and he made the right read. They trapped Devin up top — they had three people on him for some reason — so he swung it to Toby at the top of the key. Then Toby found me in the right corner. I let it go and…it came up a little short.” -Austin Chatman

“It looked exactly like the same shot Austin hit in the last game. It looked good to me, from where I was.” -James Milliken

“I think we learned a lot, individually, about ourselves and as a team collectively through this year. That’s why we’re going into New York with a little confidence and a little swagger. We’ve had a lot of tests this year so we feel like we can make a push when we get there.” -Austin Chatman

“I think in the first half they did a good job of sagging off of the weak side and not letting us get that lob over the top to the inside. Going into the second half we made a couple of adjustments, spaced the floor a little bit more, and when we got that switch, we got it inside and let them go to work.” -Austin Chatman

“A lot of teams that lose games like this would not even want to practice. But our seniors give us the motivation to practice everyday, and we see them compete everyday in practice. Austin plays 35 or 40 minutes a game, and he’s competing in practice as though he’s playing five minutes a game. He’s an amazing leader, and so are the rest of the seniors. They give us a lot to learn from.” -James Milliken

“We had a couple options on that final shot. They took Austin away on the initial curl, and the second option was Devin going with his left hand. We had Austin going with his right hand, we had James spacing the court, and then we had the two trailers. Devin made a good read. They triple-teamed him, he got it out of there and the first defender ran at Toby while one of the other defenders stayed with James, so Austin got a clean look.” -Coach Greg McDermott

“Xavier did a good job of having Stainbrook catch it off the block a couple of steps, where it was kind of in that gray area of whether you go and commit to the trap or not. And he made some nice plays off the dribble where he kind of backed you in and flipped it over his shoulder. And then obviously the foul trouble hurt us, without question. Our big guys didn’t feel like they could be as aggressive in trying to keep the ball out of the post. At their place, we did an unbelievable job of making sure he couldn’t catch it, and when he did we were there with the double-team. And you have to pick your poison a little bit because if you run with that double-team, you leave a bunch of other guys standing on the perimeter where they’ll probably get rhythm three-point shots. Stainbrook was really efficient today. We went through almost 20 fouls on him today. He’s a good player.” -Coach Greg McDermott

And Now, Here’s What You Had to Say:

 

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