The biggest cheer was for an inanimate object.
Creighton fans didn’t turn out Wednesday night to watch an underachieving perennial mid-major power struggling to hit .500 on the season. They didn’t fight wind chills and snarled traffic and last-minute holiday shopping to watch some of the Bluejays pretend to play defense. And they sure didn’t pay a couple hundred dollars for season tickets to watch possibly the worst home matchup for CU at the Qwest Center all year.
Nope; they came out, and cheered, for pizza.
Consider it an enforcement of some sort of mercy rule. The flood of fans leaving the building after Antoine Young hit two free throws (points 74 and 75 on the night, good for “Pizza Pie Piled High”) wandered to their cars knowing that in the next few days, if their stomach and heart desired, they could snag themselves their very own personal pan pizza from any Omaha area Godfather’s Pizza location. Don’t get me wrong: I know Godfather’s. I like Godfather’s. I ate it twice a week from November through February for the duration of my entire college career. But no one should cheer as loudly as the crowd did last night for free pizza.
Keeping that in mind, the sheer pitch of the applause and the quick migration to the concourse that followed seemed more like one giant “thank you for letting us leave” salute from the stands than it did a genuine appreciation for the Godfather’s original thick, rich crust. Sure, the roughly 10,000 or so Bluejays fans in attendance (not the 15,000 or so announced as the paid attendance) didn’t have to stay against their will, or anything. And sure, just as “there’s no such pizza as bad pizza,” there isn’t anything bad about watching your alma mater/favorite college basketball team play hoops on a mid-December evening. But when the promotional applause-o-meter hits its peak during the final seconds of a meaningless blowout just because the home team helped fans get Godfather’s instead of Home Team, the atmosphere comes up as flat as the crusts at Pitch.
But can you blame them? After opening a 14-point lead (and holding Savannah State to just 2 points!) in the first 9 minutes of the game, the Bluejays rode that margin and coasted for what seemed like the remainder of the evening. Sure, this game (during finals week at the Hilltop) against one of the statistically worst teams in all of college basketball was sandwiched between a heartbreaking loss of Creighton’s own doing a few days ago against George Mason and an upcoming trip to one of the most hostile environments in all of college hoops to face an undefeated and ranked New Mexico team. But to say some of the Jays looked less than intrigued to be playing defense during the second half would be putting it lightly.
Even the night’s highlights came with burnt crusts. P’Allen Stinnett had 8 points and 9 rebounds in 14 first half minutes (5 of the boards came in the first 10 minutes of the game). Poised for a great statistical night, and his first career double-double, Stinnett’s production slowed to a snail’s pace. In an identical 14 second half minutes, the junior added just 2 points and zero rebounds.
Kenny Lawson put together a line considered solid on any night: 12 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocked shots, and 1 steal in 26 minutes. The Tigers could not guard him, it seemed. But he scored six of his dozen points in the first 3-plus minutes of the game, and then cooled considerably from the field. The result? CU and Savannah finished the game tied with 24 points in the paint apiece.
Ethan Wragge entertained the crowd with a deft shooting display. He was 4-7 from 3-point range, including 4-5 in the second half, for 18 points. He also grabbed 6 rebounds and went a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line. And he did it all in 18 minutes of play. The same goes for Wayne Runnels, who made the most of his limited minutes — he only played 11, but he went 3-4 from the field and 5-5 from the free throw line for 11 points during that span. These are good things, right? Sure … except it makes you a bit frustrated, as a fan, that for whatever reason Wragge and Runnels can’t find more than 13.8 and 15.5 minutes per game, respectively. Be it their defense, their knowledge of Coach Altman’s systems, or any other aspect of their game that might be keeping them from seeing more time, it doesn’t change the fact that right now Wragge is the team’s best outside scoring threat (especially considering what he’s done on a per-minute basis) and Runnels is the team’s second most active guy in the paint.
On a night where the opponent and situation had all the makings of offering the Bluejays a chance to unleash some frustration via well-executed, efficient basketball, the result featured anything but. And that’s perhaps the most inexplicable moment from last night: not that the crowd cheered more for pizza than plays, and not that a freshman forward looked like the most focused guy on a team full of upperclassmen. Rather, that Altman and the Bluejays couldn’t muster a bit more bravado and put together a full 40 minutes of therapeutic hoops. The defensive effort in the second half was lackluster, to be kind: Creighton fans better hope the Jays were merely saving their stifling defense for the trip to Albuquerque, because they’re going to need it. The Lobos are an offensive machine right now, and they’re fueled by a rabid pack of Wolf fans that will be standing on top of the Bluejays from the rows of the packed Pit arena. They’ll be there early, they’ll be loud, and you can bet they’ll be cheering for more than pizza.