After 15 games, the scouting report on Bradley was out: they were not a very deep team, they were a poor shooting team from behind the arc, and they were having trouble defensively. We heard those things when WBR’s Patrick Marshall talked to Dave Reynolds of the Peoria Journal Star, we reinforced those thoughts when we looked at the statistics, and we saw those things in watching them play a couple of times earlier this season.
Greg McDermott and his staff were well aware of all those things, too, and in the pregame show on AM590 he told “Voice of the Jays” T. Scott Marr that because of the Braves massive struggles from outside, they wanted to pack the defense inside and dare them to shoot jump shots, then run in transition on offense and try to exhaust them. It was a very similar strategy to the one Wichita State employed in winning 90-51 a couple of weeks back.
“We played the odds tonight,” Coach McDermott said a couple of hours later on the AM590 postgame show. “Bradley was shooting 29% from the three-point line, so we wanted to plug up the lane as I said in the pregame show, and keep them off the free throw line. For the most part, we were able to do that. To their credit, boy did they step up and knock down some shots — and shots that they had not been making. We didn’t adjust to what they were doing, and then they get their confidence going, they get feeling good, and then the train’s rolling downhill for them then.”
Nine times out of ten, if the Jays score at the pace they did on Saturday, that’s a defensive strategy that probably leads to a blowout victory. Bradley makes an average of 3.8 three pointers a game, and was successful on just 29% of their attempts from long range coming in. Saturday was the “tenth time”, in other words, as they made 13 three pointers and shot 54%. It was just one of those nights where you tip your hat to a team who has far and away their best shooting night of the year, you take the win, and you move on to the next game.
Coach McDermott shouldered some of the blame afterwards. “We’re a really good offensive team that needs to have more of a defensive identity. Tonight, it was a little bit our fault (as coaches), because the plan we put together was the plan our guys executed. Sometimes, a team is going to make you pay for that.”
The Braves did indeed, yet still lost by nine points and trailed by as many as 20 in the second half. That’s largely the result of Doug McDermott having one of the greatest single-game offensive performances in the storied history of Creighton Basketball. His 18 field goals were one away from the all-time school record, and his 44 points were the most by a Bluejay since Benoit Benjamin scored 45 in a January, 1985 game. At several points during a second half where he scored 31 points, the television crew of Travis Justice and Nick Bahe were so amazed that they were reduced to incredulous giggling. Who could blame them? As he did in the game against Tulsa, Doug McDermott was playing on a different level than everyone else on the court. Bradley threw every defensive strategy known to man at him in an attempt to at least slow him down, to no avail.
Hilariously, at one point, the Bradley P.A. announcer inside Carver Arena said after a basket with obvious frustration, “Doug McDermott, two more points.” His ability to break opposing teams’ confidence apparently extends to public address announcers now, as well.
“Antoine, Jahenns, Grant, all those guards were just looking ahead, and that’s where we thought we could take advantage of them,” Doug explained on the postgame show. “They don’t run the floor very well on defense, so they did a good job of finding me, especially in transition. I got a couple of open threes because of really good screens by Gregory, so I have to give him a lot of credit too.”
As Doug was rolling along, Gregory Echenique was quietly dominating the low post — as quietly as you can when you have 12 points and 12 rebounds, anyway. It goes unnoticed by a lot of casual fans that look only at the stat sheet, but once again, his defensive effort completely changed the opponent’s offensive attack. He had just two blocks, but altered at least six others by my count, which means that of the 37 shots they took inside the arc, his giant presence altered one out of every five shots they took, and who knows how many others by sheer intimidation. Amazing.
With Echenique eating up space in the paint and rendering Bradley’s post offense non-existent, Braves coach Geno Ford decided to play some odds of his own. Midway through the second half, he put both of his centers on the bench, and went with a small lineup that featured Taylor Brown, a 6’6″ forward, at the five.
It was that small lineup that the Braves used to climb back into the game, as it gave them extra shooters — and it negated Echenique’s defensive dominance. “That lineup gave us an advantage on one end,” Coach McDermott noted after the game, “but it put us in a tough spot on the other end defensively because who’s Gregory gonna guard?”
The Braves scored on six straight possessions, including four three-pointers, as they cut the lead from 71-52 to 79-71. Suddenly, Creighton fans who had been transfixed by the historic shooting night by Doug McDermott had to bite their fingernails and hope it wouldn’t go to waste in a loss. Despite the comeback road wins at San Diego State and Wichita State earlier this year, Creighton fans have watched too many leads disappear late in games the last few years to feel safe.
They hit seven of eight free throws over the final minutes of the game, holding on for a 92-83 win. It was a game they probably would have lost a year ago, after Bradley furiously clawed their way back into it, got the crowd going crazy, and seized the momentum. But not this team. Doug McDermott wasn’t going to have any of that.
“We’ve come a long ways,” he noted after the game on AM590. “We have to credit the seniors we had last year, but I just think our leadership has been a lot better this year.”
He’s right, they have come a long ways. Thanks in large part to McDermott’s 44 points, the Jays won their fifth true road game of the year, and led by double digits most of the game on a night when the opposing team played their best game of the season by far. Hard to find anything not to like about that.
You bet.