For just the third time since Dana Altman’s 1998-1999 Creighton Bluejays won Arch Madness, his Jays failed to win a game in St. Louis. Altman’s Creighton teams have been the conference’s model for consistency since the late 1990s, but his latest squad will be the third consecutive CU team to stay home during March Madness. And for all the talk about the school’s impressive streaks — 20-win seasons, consecutive years of 10-plus wins in MVC play, etc. — it is the NCAA Tournament drought that is most important. Right or wrong, Creighton hoops fans of every ilk, from Hilltoppers to casual observers, consider a berth in the Big Dance a major indication of a successful season of Bluejays basketball.
The past decade has still been a boom for Creighton Bluejays basketball. This weekend’s upsetting events won’t change that. But the last 10 seasons of CU hoops success is a bit bottom heavy: three of the school’s last five trips to the NCAA Tournament happened in the first 3 years of the last decade. Meanwhile, Northern Iowa has made the Big Dance in five of the past seven seasons since winning the MVC Tournament championship in 2004. During those same seven seasons, Creighton can count just two trips to the NCAA Tournament (2005, 2007).
The state of college basketball programs is a constant ebb and flow, with a school’s players and personnel strategies the forces around which everything else aligns. The Panthers continue to capitalize on a sound foundation of high school-heavy recruiting classes, and this weekend won their second straight Arch Madness championship (following their second consecutive MVC regular season title). The Bluejays, following a few years full of transfers and defections and coaching changes, have yet to return to the form that found CU heading to consecutive NCAA Tournaments. And while the shifts in landscape aren’t singularly Creighton’s, it is imperative that the program address even the most benign of potential problems, lest they snowball into irreversible negative issues.
Bradley 81, Creighton 62
The Bluejays opened their quarterfinal contest against the black-clad Bradley Braves with a 9-0 opening spurt, behind 4 quick Kenny Lawson points and 5 points from the freshmen Josh Jones and Ethan Wragge. The game pace was quick, and the Braves cut the lead to 9-6 before back-to-back 3-pointers from Jones and Wragge gave the Jays a 15-8 lead headed into the first media timeout (taken 2 minutes later than originally scheduled because of the pace).
That’s 2.5 points per minute for the first 6 minutes of the game, putting the Bluejays on pace to hit the century mark. And while everyone in the Scottrade Center knew CU wouldn’t crack 100, it was encouraging to see the starting five Bluejays open a game hot from the perimeter for the third consecutive contest (the Jays also opened 7-point leads early in games at Southern Illinois and versus Bradley the final week of the regular season). But it wouldn’t last. After the game’s first 6 minutes, the Bluejays could only muster 47 more points while Bradley put up 73. That’s not a typo, Jays fans: BU outscored CU by 26 points in the last 34 minutes of the game. (And you thought the 18-point losses to Missouri State and Northern Iowa a few weeks ago were bad?)
And if it seemed that junior guard Sam Maniscalco scored all those points by himself, it isn’t that far from the truth. Maniscalco, whom the Bluejays limited to just a few points in CU’s Senior Day victory over the Braves less than a week earlier, tallied his first points (from the free throw line, of course) with just under 10 minutes to play in the first half. From that point forward, he took over the game. Maniscalco’s 14 first-half point points led all scorers, and he helped the Braves claw their way to a 1-point halftime lead.
That’s right. For a game that will likely be remembered as a devastating blowout of epic proportions, the Bluejays trailed by just 1 point at intermission. Sure, they had coughed up a 9-point lead. And they shot only 32% in the first 20 minutes. But they were outrebounding the Braves, BU wasn’t hitting much from 3-point range, and both teams seemed ready to lock into a close contest the rest of the way out.
The game was still close at the under-12:00 media timeout in the second half, with a Chris Roberts layup giving Bradley a 4-point lead. And then, in a complete reversal of the first 6 minutes of the game, the Braves used a 25-13 run over the next 6 minutes to ruin the weekends of Creighton fans throughout St. Louis and abroad. Eleven of the 25 points came off free throws, with the Jays even fouling Maniscalco twice on failed 3-point attempts (he hit all 6 free throws, of course; it was the third time in the game the Jays fouled him in that situation).
Meanwhile, the Bluejays made just 31% of their shots from the field (and 24% of their 3-point attempts) during the second half, while the Braves bettered their production to 52% from the field. Almost half of Creighton’s second half shots were 3-pointers, and they stopped attacking the rim (the Jays only shot 5 free throws in the second half, whereas Bradley went 19-19 from the charity stripe). The Braves put the pedal down, failing to let up and extending the lead to as many as 20 points.
When the dust settled and the stunned CU fans streamed outside the Scottrade Center into the early weekend sunlight, Maniscalco had a career-high 31 points and Bradley had earned payback for the Bluejays’ two wins over BU in the regular season. Maniscalco’s 18 made free throws (and 19 free throw attempts) were the most given up to an individual opponent since Shy Ely went 18-18 and single-handedly beat CU in February 2008. Justin Carter’s last MVC Tournament appearance ended with his first career double-double (10 points, 13 rebounds), but his 6 turnovers were costly. Kenny Lawson posted another double-double (17 points, 11 rebounds) but took only 5 shots in the second half as the Jays resorted to long-range jumpers.
The loss marked the fifth time this season the Bluejays allowed the opponent to score 79 points or more. Not surprisingly, CU lost all 5 games. But with a full weekend ahead and a few thousand Bluejays fans milling around downtown St. Louis, this loss was the most costly and most frustrating. What was once the Creighton Invitational is now back up for grabs, with perhaps the Panthers of UNI the only team that can claim dominance during the most recent Arch Madness tournaments. It is back to the NCAA Tournament for Ben Jacobsen’s Panthers, while Altman and Rasmussen must go back to the drawing board. There are plenty of ways this sub-par CU season could get worse (see: 2009-2010 Southern Illinois Salukis), and Bluejays fans would be naïve to think it can’t happen to their beloved Bluejays.