This isn’t the first time Evansville has happily been the fly in the Jays proverbial ointment. When I brought up the Aces’ numerous annoying wins in Evansville over the years in the Primer, I wasn’t trying to foreshadow anything. Honest.
“(He) got rushed a little bit, and he didn’t make plays that he had been making. We took some bad shots tonight – not only (him) but everybody. We didn’t share the ball as well as we’ve been sharing it…Our energy level was not good. Evansville played with a lot of the same energy and passion that we had been playing with.”
That quote came from Creighton’s coach after his team uncharacteristically made just five of 20 three-point attempts, turned it over 12 times, and were stunningly upset in front a small crowd in Evansville. The date? January 23, 2003. Sounds an awful lot like last night, though, doesn’t it?
On that January night in 2003, the Jays went into Evansville’s old arena ranked tenth in the country, and left town with the image of about 75 Purple Ace fans jumping around on the court playing on an endless loop on SportsCenter. It was a humiliating, humbling loss to a team that had no business winning, but who deserved to by legitimately outplaying a Top Ten team.
Tuesday night, Creighton went into Evansville’s new arena ranked 15th this time rather than tenth, they made just 4-22 from behind the arc, didn’t share the ball as well as they typically have all season, and their energy level was down. A lot of the script was similar, and so was the result — an upset loss that ended with about 75 fans jumping around on the court and Creighton walking off dejectedly.
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This team has built up a ton of goodwill among fans, media and national college hoops observers in compiling a 21-4 record through 25 games. After Tuesday’s loss, the temptation to discount all of that and throw everything the team has accomplished out the window was a strong one for some people.
Six days ago, Creighton scored 102 points against Illinois State, the third place team in the Valley, and raced out to an 18-2 lead on the backs of strong defense and great shooting. Five weeks ago, Creighton went into Wichita on New Years Eve and pulled out a win by out-toughing the toughest team in the league. Two months ago, Creighton fell behind the now-Top 15 ranked San Diego State Aztecs by 17 points at Viejas Arena, and came back to win. Over three-plus months, Creighton has proven who they are, and who they are not. The team that struggled in southern Indiana Tuesday night is not who they are, nor is it likely to be who they are in the future. You don’t get to 21-2 by accident, or by dumb luck, or with smoke-and-mirrors.
This is a damn good team. Losing to Evansville does not change that. Very few college teams go through an entire season without hitting a rough patch for a week or two; this is it for the Jays. Their shots aren’t falling, their legs look a bit tired on defense, and their confidence is down a bit. The funny thing about that is, as former Bluejay Kaleb Korver told a group of us at the Olympic Sportsbar on Tuesday after the game, all it takes is a couple of shots to fall for all of that to come back. Shots start falling, and suddenly you have more energy, your confidence rises, and good things start happening again.
It will. Ethan Wragge will not continue to miss every three-pointer he attempts. Josh Jones will get hot again. Jahenns Manigat will get back to hitting his open looks. Avery Dingman will knock down a few shots. And when they do, the paint will open back up and allow Gregory Echenique and Doug McDermott the room they need to operate successfully, and the inside-out game that the Jays rode to a 21-2 start will return. There’s only so much schematically a coach can do to counter-balance a defense that chooses to pack two and three defenders into the paint, daring the offense to make jump shots — at some point, you have to hit those open looks. Almost without exception, Creighton has done that this year. They will do it again. Count on it.
A rowdy, sold-out crowd and ESPN in the house for Wichita State is just the kind of thing that might jumpstart them. Hopefully people haven’t bailed on the team after their first bad stretch of the season — if they have, they’re going to miss out on some awfully fun basketball in the weeks to come.
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Tuesday’s game got off to a sluggish start. Creighton came out in their alternate road uniforms with the player names on the back, which they’ve worn just once this year — in the loss to St. Joseph’s out in Philadelphia. Kenny Harris hit a three on Evansville’s first possession to go up 3-0, and the tone was set. A plodding, slow game ensued; Creighton would tie the game three times over the next ten minutes, but never took the lead.
Doug McDermott did some good things offensively, scoring 12 points on 5-8 shooting with three rebounds and a block in 16 first-half minutes. Conversely, Gregory Echenique was denied the ball by an Evansville defense intent on clogging up the lane and forcing jump shots, a strategy he was powerless to stop. Will Artino made the freshman mistake of trying to force the issue, and picked up two fouls in just two minutes of action. Defensively, Creighton played reasonably well, keeping themselves in the game through their coldest shooting stretch of the year.
At the final media timeout of the half, it was 29-19 Evansville. A 12-4 by the Jays to close the half cut the deficit to 33-31 at the break, as Doug McDermott had a three-pointer and a jumper, Antoine Young hit a 15-footer, Austin Chatman hit a jumper, and Echenique made two free throws. Given how poorly they had shot the ball in the game’s first 16 minutes, Creighton had to be liking their chances. They came out of the locker room to find an Evansville team that had adjusted to their late-half spurt by no longer packing the paint, and wisely, they threw it inside for high-percentage shots on each of their first four possessions (three layups by Echenique, one by McDermott).
Then Evansville coach Marty Simmons called timeout with 16:20 to go, and went back to the defense they’d played much of the first half. Suddenly, the paint was cut off again, and the Jays were dared to make jump shots again. For a while, they did, and they built a seven-point lead with 12:55 to go, 48-41.
Just as quickly as they’d heated up, unfortunately, they cooled off again. They would score just nine points the rest of the game, going 3-17 from the field over the game’s final 13 minutes. Meanwhile, Evansville made just enough baskets to take the lead and then, ultimately, pull away. It wound up as a 24-9 run over the last 13 minutes, a dishearteningly bad stretch of offensive basketball that would have led to a blowout on a night where their defense didn’t play well. They held Colt Ryan to just 15 points (eight below his average) despite the guard never leaving the floor for a second, playing the full 40 minutes. They held Evansville to a respectable 43% shooting and 37% from behind the arc, and outrebounded the Aces 37-30.
Given that, on a night where the Jays shoot merely “bad”, they win by about five. On a night where they shoot their average, they win by 15+ in a rout. Instead, they had their worst shooting night of the season by a landslide, and lost. It happens.
Wichita State comes to town in four days. Win that game and all of the Jays goals are intact — a regular season title, the top seed in Arch Madness, a good seed in the NCAA Tournament. Lose and…well, let’s not talk about that scenario.
You bet.