Conference tournaments throw a unique level of pressure at teams across the country every year. From Wednesday through Saturday in New York City every second weekend in March, that pressure is perhaps unlike any other one-and-done setting in the country, including the NCAA Tournament.
Creighton felt that to an ever-increasing degree from the opening tip in Thursday night’s Big East Tournament quarterfinal matchup against a 10th-seeded DePaul squad that they swept during the regular season. The 2nd-seeded Bluejays missed 10 of their first 11 shots to start the game to get them in an 11-3 hole. They trailed by as much as 17 in each half and still found themselves behind 62-51 with just under two minutes remaining in the game before scoring on each of their last four possessions of regulation, including a deep 3-pointer by Steven Ashworth to tie the game in the final 25 seconds that ultimately forced overtime. They couldn’t hold onto a lead in the first bonus period, so they built another one in the second extra session on their way to an 85-81 win to advance to “Semifinal Friday” at Madison Square Garden for the fourth time in the last five years.
“Ton of credit to DePaul,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “Coach Holtmann has done an unbelievable job of instilling his culture in a short period of time with a bunch of guys that weren’t on the team last year. That’s very difficult to do. Especially when the wins weren’t necessarily stacking up early in the conference season, to finish the way that they finished and to play as well as they have here in New York, I mean, let’s be honest, we were really fortunate to win that game.”
“They outplayed us for virtually all the game, and a lot of credit goes to them. I had some guys step up. Obviously, Ryan was huge down the stretch. Ty Davis went into a difficult situation and ran the team and made his free-throws, and then Fedor gave us a huge, huge lift off the bench.”
Ryan Kalkbrenner came up big again for the Jays (Juszyk / WBR)
Senior center Ryan Kalkbrenner finished with 32 points, nine rebounds, and five blocked shots in 47 minutes, becoming the first player to hit those thresholds in a conference tournament game since Kevin Durant in 2006. Kalkbrenner was 14-of-21 from the field, including 2-of-4 from 3-point range. He also played the final 1:48 of regulation and the two full five-minute overtime sessions with four fouls and still made it to the end of the game without being disqualified for the 165th consecutive time in his 165-game college career.
He did so even while ratcheting up his aggressiveness with the game on the line and his fellow senior leader, Steven Ashworth, watching from the bench for the game’s final 9 minutes and 30 seconds after picking up his fifth foul on the first defensive possession of the first overtime.
“I think I’ve been around long enough to kind of know how to play aggressive without fouling,” Kalkbrenner said. “I mean, especially when [Ashworth] went out, I knew I had to play aggressive and kind of lead the team. I couldn’t do that tentative just because I had four fouls. I don’t think I let it change my mindset much. Just had to go out there and play.”
Creighton needed every bit of what the big guy gave them in this one, especially during regulation. Early on, DePaul’s undersized personnel discouraged CU’s guards and wings from feeding the star center by sending double teams at him on the block anytime he was even in position to catch it within 10 feet of the basket.
The Blue Demons limited Creighton’s offense to 11 points on its first 23 possessions of the game. All but six of those trips ended in either a turnover or a missed shot for the Bluejays. Meanwhile, DePaul’s offense was gaining more confidence with each passing minute that they were able to maintain and eventually expand the lead over the tournament’s No. 2 seeded squad.
The Blue Demons knocked down their final three 3-point attempts of the opening half to turn what had been a meat grinder of a game through the first 10 minutes into a 36-21 advantage by halftime to set off the alarm sirens in Creighton’s locker room at the break.
DePaul shot 48.4% overall in the first 20 minutes. That included a 5-for-7 clip from 3-point range as a team thanks to the late barrage. At the half, Isaiah Rivera had a game-high nine points, CJ Gunn had eight, and David Thomas had seven. On the flipside, no one on Creighton’s team had more than six points in the opening half as they shot 29.6% from the field, 21.4% from three, and even missed on two of their four free throw attempts.
The start of the second half wasn’t quite the beginning of Creighton’s epic comeback story, but they were at least over the fact that DePaul was trying to make them win the game on the back of anyone except Ryan Kalkbrenner. The unanimous First Team All-Big East selection scored 10 of CU’s first 12 points out of the locker room, including back-to-back 3-pointers in the span of 41 seconds to cap off a 10-2 run after DePaul had opened up a 40-23 lead with 17:29 to go.
DePaul refused to let the game flip on dime, though. Each time the Bluejays made a run that seemed to mark the turning of the tide, the Blue Demons would stretch the back out again. Steven Ashworth’s first 3-pointer of the game trimmed the deficit to six at 46-40 with 11:52 left. Three minutes later, DePaul was back up by 12. Creighton then hit them with a 9-0 run to cut it to 54-51 with 5:38 remaining, but Rivera hit a tough three from the corner with Ashworth’s hand in his face, then Troy D’Amico knocked one down as well two minutes before a bucket off the dribble by David Thomas made it 62-51 with 2:12 to go.
The upset-minded Blue Demons almost put the game on ice for all intents and purposes when Creighton guard Fedor Zugic nearly turned it over trailing by 11 with just under two minutes left to play. Zugic wouldn’t be denied, though. He wrestled back control of the ball, swung, relocated to the corner in front of his bench, got it back, and then drilled a three to get the Jays within eight with 1:55 still on the game clock.
Zugic buried another three off of a ball screen 20 seconds later to pull his team within five at 62-57. Kalkbrenner followed with an offensive rebound and layup off a missed three by Ashworth. That set the stage for Creighton’s sharpshooting point guard.
The Jays got a stop on the ensuing trip defensively, but had trouble creating an open look on their potential game-tying possession. McDermott called a timeout with 23.9 seconds left in regulation. When the Jays came out to inbound the ball, DePaul was aligned in a zone. Ashworth recognized it, cut to the Jeep logo several feet behind the 3-point arc, caught the pass from Jamiya Neal, then pivoted and let it rip for the game-tying splash with 21.3 seconds left.
That shot sent the arena into a frenzy despite the fact that he was 1-for-9 from beyond the arc prior to hoisting the one that eventually tied the game. For Ashworth, it didn’t matter how many he had made or missed prior to that. The moment required what it required, and he took the shot as if he had just gone 9-for-9 from long range to that point.
Steven Ashworth made his mark on the game before fouling out (Juszyk / WBR)
“I’ve prepared way too much to have any fear in taking any shot, no matter the moment,” Ashworth said. “I believe that that’s why I’m a part of this team, is because of my ability to be fearless and have confidence in myself and try to make plays. Some nights I make them and some nights I don’t, but at the same time you have to play that way or else you won’t be as capable as you want to be.”
The Jays still had one more stop to get in order to earn the extra five minutes (or more) that they were going to need to advance to Friday night. Who better to make it happen the only other player in league history besides Patrick Ewing to be named Big East Defensive Player of the Year four times — Ryan Kalkbrenner.
After a timeout by DePaul head coach Chris Holtmann, Kalkbrenner sat down in a stance at the top of the key on an island all by himself, sizing up 6-foot-1 guard David Thomas as the final 21.3 seconds ticked and ticked and ticked away.
D’Amico ran up to the top of the key, bluffed a screen, and popped out to the right wing. Jasen Green took Thomas and Kalkbrenner shifted out to the wing as D’Amico caught the swing pass. He rose up to try and win it, but Kalkbrenner closed in time and swatted it away as it left D’Amico’s hands.
“We were going to switch over the top on everything to try to take away threes,” McDermott said. “Ryan this year has guarded in space so much better than he ever has in his career. That’s just another example of him staying in a stance, providing a little help, getting there, getting a hand up and making a huge play at a critical time.”
Isaiah Rivera tracked it down, but all he could get off before the buzzer was an 18-footer from 22 feet away and off we went to overtime.
The first overtime period was basically every bullet Creighton had left in the chamber against whatever DePaul’s Layden Blocker could pull off in return. Zugic started the extra session with a rip through to his right to get a step on Rivera before punching home a dunk on his head.
Freshman forward Jackson McAndrew responded to a couple Blocker free throws with a multiple effort play on the offensive glass after his owned missed three to give the Jays a 66-64 lead. Kalkbrenner added a pair of free throws and a bucket inside, then freshman point guard Ty Davis — who was thrust into duty when Ashworth fouled out to send Blocker to the free throw line after Zugic’s dunk — blew by Thomas for a layup.
That capped off Creighton’s 21-2 run that turned a 62-51 deficit with 2:00 to go in regulation into a 72-64 lead with 90 seconds remaining in overtime. The Jays were on the doorstep. Blocker had other ideas, mainly a dunk, a three, two more free throws, and then lastly a tough runner in the lane over Kalkbrenner that got a friendly roll to tie the game at 73-73 with just under two seconds left on the game clock.
Creighton tried to set up a last-second shot out of a timeout, but Blocker picked off the Hail Mary inbounds pass and missed a half-court heave at the buzzer to send the game to a second overtime.
In the second extra session, the Bluejays led 81-78 with some clutch baskets by Kalkbrenner and a ferocious two-handed dunk by Neal that was answered by Blocker with his own. That set up CU with the ball with under 30 seconds to go to try and salt it away, but Kalkbrenner left a drive to the rim short off the glass.
As the ball skipped off the front of the rim, Ty Davis flew down the lane and rip out of the air with two hands. DePaul had no choice but to foul him and send him to the free throw line with 25 seconds left.
Ty Davis had a career night leading the Jays in Overtime (Williams / WBR)
“Being the point guard, I’m supposed to be getting back [on defense] in that situation,” Davis said. “I was already down there, and I just told myself if I’m gonna go, I gotta get it. I saw that he rolled it off the front of the rim and I just went up there and got it.”
That was only half of the battle, though. Next came the free throws with the game on the line. A year ago, Davis ended his high school career by missing a clutch free throw in overtime of a state championship game loss. This time, on the biggest stage he has ever played on, Davis left no doubt that history wasn’t going to repeat itself. He went 2-for-2 with 25 seconds left, then knocked down two more to seal the win in the final seconds and send Creighton off to the semifinals of the Big East Tournament.
“My dad had just talked about it,” Davis said. “We talked about how this pressure was a lot worse than the state championship was last year. He said that if I wasn’t mentally tough, I wouldn’t be able to step up and make those today. I missed one in overtime last year, and then they ended up going down and scoring to take the lead and win the state championship. But I got in the gym and just grinded all year, working on my free throws. Mitch Ballock helped me a lot on my free throw game. I just stepped up there and trusted all the work that I put in.”
Davis finished his Big East Tournament debut with seven points, one rebound, and one assist, all of which came in overtime after Ashworth fouled out. Fedor Zugic ended up as Creighton’s second-leading scorer on the evening, producing 10 of his 13 points over the final two minutes of regulation and overtime.
Jamiya Neal played all 50 minutes without once coming out of the game. He finished with nine points, eight rebounds, five assists, and three steals. Ashworth had 10 points, five assists, and three steals. All of it except for an assist and a steal came in the second half as Creighton rallied from the 17-point deficit.
McAndrew was just 2-for-12 from the floor, including 1-for-8 from 3-point range, but he found a way to make winning plays, including the effort on the offensive glass to get the Jays a bucket and the steal that led to Neal’s dunk in transition. Both plays came in overtime with points at a premium and every possession being precious.
Somehow, someway, the Jays didn’t stay down no matter how many clean shots DePaul landed throughout the majority of the game. McDermott and his players have said it many times throughout the season, the strength of the team is its unity. It doesn’t always look the same, but they find a way more often than not.
Jamiya Neal turned on the defense in Overtime (Williams / WBR)
“We don’t really panic in our program,” McDermott said. “I thought the first half — and I told the team this after the game and at halftime — I thought we let our offense dictate our defense, hanging our head because we were missing some shots that were relatively open.”
“But we stayed true to who we are. We kept believing, kept fighting. We went to the full-court pressure. That changed, at least sped the game up a little bit, which we needed to have happen when we were down that big, but guys kept fighting, they kept believing. Kalk hits two big threes to get us back in the game. Steven didn’t have a great night by Steven’s standards, but he had a huge shot to tie the game.”
A win at Madison Square Garden in March means another day in New York City. No matter how it looked or how it went down or what was needed to make it happen, Ryan Kalkbrenner isn’t looking back because he has some unfinished business after now reaching the semifinals for the fourth time in his five-year career.
“I’ve been saying ever since I decided to come back for another year, I haven’t gotten the Big East Championship yet,” Kalkbrenner said. “To come back for another day and get another shot at staying another day and getting a shot at the championship is huge.
“I really, really, really want this championship, and I’m going to play my butt off to get it.”
Next up on the docket will be an 8:00 p.m. CT / 9:00 p.m. ET matchup with No. 3 UConn on Friday night. The Huskies used a late lopsided run of their own to rally from a second-half deficit to defeat Villanova 73-56 in the final game of the day on Quarterfinal Thursday.
The Bluejays and Huskies split their two head-to-head matchups during the regular season, with each team winning a down-to-wire affair on the other’s home floor. The rubber match will take place after the conclusion of No. 1 seed St. John’s vs. No. 5 seed Marquette, which tips off at 5:30 p.m. CT. Both of Friday’s semifinal games and Saturday’s title game will be televised on FOX.