I love being a Creighton Bluejay. I always have. I always will. But Sunday night was rough.
Forget for a moment that Creighton’s soccer team gave up one-goal leads twice in the final 10 minutes of regulation against SMU in the NCAA Tournament. Forget that the program that has been, is, and will be the school’s only real chance to win a Division I national championship coughed up yet another late match lead and had its season end. That was just the rotten, stale, curdled icing on the Happy Disappointment! cake.
The Bluejays men’s basketball team travelled to Des Moines for a neutral court game against Iowa State. Greg McDermott coached well against his old school, which is helmed now by Cyclone legend Fred Hoiberg. The teams traded basket for basket for much of the game, treating the fans from both schools to an entertaining early season effort. Two late free throws, following an improbable 5-point comeback in the last 20 seconds of regulation, allowed Creighton to forge a tie at 88. That’s when Iowa State’s Jamie Vanderbeken took an inbounds pass and two dribbles with 1.6 second left and launched a 30-foot jump shot that found nothing but the net. 91-88, Iowa State. Game over. Except, it shouldn’t have been. The buzzer sounded and lights around the basket flashed before the shot left his hands (check here for a great photo by Jeff Beiermann of the Omaha World-Herald). Yet, because there was no television for the game, and thus no monitor courtside, the veteran officiating crew could not review the play. Game over. Really.
Creighton’s hoops heartbreak usually happens in March. Let’s just get some of the more recent examples over with. Overtime loss in the NCAA Tournament? Nevada in 2007, check. Last-second loss in the NCAA Tournament? West Virginia in 2005, check. Having the best team in school history trail by 16 points at halftime, claw back in the closing minutes, only to lose in the NCAA Tournament? Central Michigan in 2003, check. Don’t forget NIT home losses against Kentucky and Miami, games that went down to the wire but ended with the Bluejays’ season ending in frustrating fashion.
Sure, losing by a buzzer beater to Iowa State Sunday stings. But after rattling off the aforementioned late season heartbreakers, dropping a close game to the Cyclones in November pales in comparison. Still, it hurts, if only for more casual reasons. Barring the Bluejays residing squarely on the bubble come March and having this loss held against them, Sunday’s result won’t keep Creighton from winning the Valley, prevailing at Arch Madness, or potentially winning meaningful March basketball games. But our history with the opponent, coupled with the way the game materialized, leaves me frustrated.
The Bluejays finally got on track offensively. I wrote last week about Creighton’s offense, or seeming lack thereof, during the Jays’ first three games of the season. Entering Sunday, Greg McDermott’s team averaged 69.3 points per game, a full 10 points less than the 2009-10 Bluejays through three games. Sunday saw CU shoot its way out of the early season scoring slide.
Led by all five starters scoring 12 or more points, the Bluejays shot 50% from the field, 52% from 3-point range, and 80% from the free throw line en route to 88 points.
- Antoine Young scored 21 points to lead all Bluejays. It was his second 21-point effort in four games, and fell one point shy of his career high (22, at Southern Illinois last February).
- Kenny Lawson finished with 20 points. He hit 4 of the 10 3-point shots he took; McDermott even drew up long range attempts for Lawson out of a timeout late in the game. In fact, Lawson, who remains Creighton’s primary low post player until Gregory Echenique becomes eligible December 18, made twice as many 3-pointers (4) as he did 2-pointers (2).
- Darryl Ashford started and scored 17 on the day, tying his career high. He began the game scorching from the field. Before Iowa State could wake up, Sleepy scored 6 of Creighton’s first 12 points.
- Kaleb Korver scored 12 points, two off his career high, with all his damage coming from behind the 3-point arc.
- Doug McDermott continued his impressive start to his freshman season, becoming the first Bluejays since Chad Gallagher to score 10 or more points in the first four games of a freshman campaign. McDermott finished with 16 points in 36 minutes, matching his career high (set in his first game of the season against Alabama State). The performance was good enough for the freshman to earn his second consecutive Missouri Valley Conference Newcomer of the Week award.
That the Bluejays couldn’t limit the Cyclones defensively takes some of the luster off CU’s first exceptional offensive effort of the season. Creighton’s first three opponents averaged slightly more than 61 points per game; Iowa State tacked 30 more points to that average, mirroring the Bluejays’ shooting percentages every where except the free throw line. In fact, missed free throws down the stretch by Iowa State allowed the Bluejays some wiggle room; when Young made two free throws of his own with just over one second left to play, it seemed the missed freebies had doomed the Cyclones to five more minutes of overtime basketball. Alas, that didn’t happen.
In a time when about half the arena could probably stream video on their phones, it is remarkable that a late buzzer beater couldn’t even be reviewed because of the lack of a television broadcast. There’s really no use rehashing how a shot that came after the buzzer had sounded counted. I understand that the officiating crew had no recourse to check to see if Jamie Vanderbeken’s shot was good because, since no television or webcast existed for the game, no equipment was available courtside.
I honestly didn’t know whether the shot was good or not until the Wells Fargo Arena folks replayed the final shot via its closed circuit broadcast on the building’s scoreboards. That’s when the Bluejay faithful in Des Moines let out a collective roar; the evidence was clear as day, on the scoreboard replay. The cheers turned to gasps, then boos, when the officials headed toward the tunnel without approaching the scorer’s table to check the courtside monitor. There wasn’t one. Thanks, Maury Hanks.
Who knows what would have happened in overtime? The Cyclones shot nearly 66% in the second half, so that could have continued. Or Antoine Young could have eclipsed his career scoring mark and continued single handedly keeping Creighton in the game. Neither team was in serious foul trouble, but Melvin Ejim had just fouled out for Iowa State; the Cyclones surely would have missed his 22 points and solid defense. The point is, it would have been great to see it play out.
Something tells me it will be awhile before the Bluejays will get a shot at redemption. Creighton and Iowa State had played 30 times entering Sunday’s game, with each school winning 15. After more than 20 years of not playing each other, CU and ISU met in December 1975 (Bluejays won by 12) and played 13 more times in the next 20 seasons. But after a 70-52 Cyclones win in January 1995, the two teams didn’t renew their history until 15 years later. That’s too long.
I find it hard to believe Jamie Pollard and Bruce Rasmussen couldn’t figure out a way to play a three-game series; Iowa State comes to Omaha, the Bluejays head to Hilton, and then schedule a neutral court game in Des Moines at Wells Fargo Arena. But, alas, both teams will likely continue to see more games with Alabama States and Texas Southerns and Idaho States than they will against each other.
Hopefully it doesn’t take 15 more years for another matchup between these two schools to materialize. If anything, there are at least 10,252 fans (and a handful of players and coaches) who probably want to see how the remaining five minutes would have played out.