Jay Wright noted that if you think about it, Phil Booth might have more big game, big stage experience than any other player in college basketball today. Guess what? The head coach of the reigning national champs is probably not wrong.
As a sophomore, Booth had 10 points and five steals in a Final Four blowout against Oklahoma, and he followed that up by scoring 20 points and shooting 85.7 percent from the field in the Wildcats’ epic win over North Carolina in the national title game. Last March, he had 10 points and six assists against Kansas in another Final Four wipe-out en route to winning his second national championship.
“His freshman year in the NCAA Tournament he carried us in a big time game. His sophomore year he was the leading scorer in the national championship game. He’s just got an incredible humility about him where when you need him he’s there, and if you don’t need him he’s doing all the little things and not complaining,” Wright said. “It’s what makes him a great leader and a great player.”
That should have made his performance on Sunday afternoon a surprise to no one. After being held to just nine points in the first half, the 6-foot-3 senior guard went on a personal 8-0 run over 1:41 to turn a seven-point deficit into a one-point lead early in the second half.
Creighton responded with six straight points of their own to retake the lead at 53-51 with 13:24 to play, but Booth punched right back with a pair of threes and an assist to sophomore guard Collin Gillespie for another trey. That gave Villanova a 60-53 lead with 10:22 on the clock, and Creighton never got any closer the rest of the way.
“It’s part of the team we have and how resilient we are,” Booth when asked how he knew it was time to take over. “It comes from mentally tough, from being down a lot this season, and learning how to stay with doing what we do. Just fight back and stay aggressive.
“I tried to stay aggressive the whole game. I tried in the first half, but they did great things defensively and switched up different looks. Shots went down in the second half, but as a team we just tried to stay aggressive.”
When the damage was done it was a 90-78 win for the Wildcats and Booth had a game-high 28 points — one off of his career-high. He dropped 19 of those points in the second half alone. He also added seven assists and a pair of steals to his game tally. Between his points and his assists he was responsible for exactly 50% of his team’s scoring for the entire game.
“I thought he made some tough shots. He was efficient,” Creighton freshman point guard Marcus Zegarowski said. “He was making some tough threes, and I think he even hit an NBA one that really hurt us. Our game plan was to play tight and make him make tough shots and he did that, but they also got some back-cuts, and we jumped on a few of his shot fakes … that wasn’t in our game plan.
“The coaches gave us a plan. We should have done a better job at completing that game plan, especially in the second half.”
Villanova’s Phil Booth (#5) rises up for a three in Sunday’s game. (Photo by Brad Williams / WBR)
Zegarowski, who made his first career start on Sunday, finished with 10 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, and two steals in 37 minutes. But the reality is it came in a losing effort for the third straight game. That leaves the Bluejays at 10-7 overall and 1-3 in Big East play, with two of those three league losses coming on their home floor.
“It’s hard after going 1-3 these last few games,” Zegarowski said, “but Coach McDermott said it’s over and the next four games we can go 4-0. This league is definitely hard, everybody has bumps and bruises, so our main thing is to go into practice tomorrow with confidence, with our heads high ready to get better, ready to learn through film and practice, and get ready for our game plan against St. John’s. We have to steal one out there.”
Tip-off for Creighton and St. John’s is scheduled for 5:31 p.m. at Carnesecca Arena in Queens, New York on Wednesday, January 16.