ST LOUIS, MO – Much as they did a week earlier, Creighton jumped out to an early lead on Friday against UNI. And despite eight turnovers and a stone-cold final four minutes, they managed to sustain that lead into a 25-17 halftime edge. Given the number of games Creighton has blown after holding halftime leads, Northern Iowa had them right where they wanted them, right?
Wrong.
Kenny Lawson, a senior who apparently isn’t quite ready to give up his NCAA Tournament dreams just yet, made sure of that. He went 3-4 from behind the arc in the second half, grabbed three absolutely clutch rebounds, and had one aggressive dive for a loose ball — resulting in a tie up — all indicators that the senior knows his time at Creighton is quickly running out.
“We understand this is our only chance to make it to the NCAA Tournament, so we’ve been working really hard in practice this last week,” Lawson told the media after the game. “It was great to get this game. But we’re still not done. We can’t be satisfied.”
His huge second half scoring surge is reminiscent of magical March runs from Creighton’s St. Louis past — bench players who came up big in key moments, seniors not wanting their career to end without giving their final Arch Madness every ounce of themselves. His emotion and determination rubbed off on his teammates, and never moreso than in the final minute when a freshman, Jahenns Manigat, nearly blew the game.
As the lead dwindled late, the sense of impending doom from the Creighton fans was palpable. It wasn’t a feeling of “if” they would blow the game, but a question of “how” it would happen. It seemed that inevitable, and given how many games they’d blown, it was understandable.
And so with Creighton leading 60-57 and ten seconds remaining, Kaleb Korver rebounded an errant shot and fired it upcourt to a streaking Manigat. Certain this would mean their worst fears would not come to fruition, the Creighton half of the arena exploded, letting their guards down and allowing themselves a sense of celebration. They were certain of a layup or a dunk that would drive the nail in the Panthers coffin, and to the loudest crowd noise of the afternoon, Manigat dribbled for what should have been a victory lap.
Instead, he missed it. The layup bounced around the rim, and was corralled by Jake Koch. Instead of a victory lap, it had turned into a nightmare. The answer to that question, the one about how the Jays would blow the game? Would you believe the answer would be a freshman missing a wide-open fastbreak layup that would have iced the game? Not even the most negative, glass-completely-empty fan could have envisioned that.
“Me and Kenny, we were kind of celebrating, like dang,” Doug McDermott recalled after the game. “We were laughing and then we knew we had to get up and get a stop.”
When asked what was going through his mind after the miss, at first Coach Greg McDermott joked. “After I wanted to strangle him?” Then he turned philosophical. “You’d like to put it away there, obviously, and he missed it. In that situation, you’re going to miss it one time out of 100, probably, and that just happened to be the one.”
In the huddle, they regrouped, because they still had a three point lead to protect. Wouldn’t you know it, Manigat would get his shot at redemption. “We talk about rear-view mirror all the time. You’ve got to put it behind you. It’s the next play. You’ve got to forget about the last play, good or bad,” Coach Greg McDermott said after the game. “We instructed them to stay on the floor and not go for shot fakes. It’s easy to listen to that. When you get out there and Kwadzo (Ahelegbe) is up to not leave your feet, that’s not easy to do. He defended it extremely well. Kept Kwadzo in front of him.”
Indeed he did. As Ahelegbe rose up to shoot at the buzzer, Manigat stayed in front, didn’t bite on the shot fake, and partially blocked the would-be tying shot. It was glorious redemption for the player who could easily have been the biggest goat in recent Creighton basketball history.
Their reward is a Missouri State team who escaped with a two point win, the top seed who you figure has already had their wake-up call, their test, and will show up ready on Saturday. Both teams snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and their semifinal game should be a fantastic battle. As Lawson, the senior hoping just to play one more day, put it after the game, “A lot of times down the stretch of the season, we may not have put those stops together. We did that tonight…we’re starting to pick up confidence as a team. You know, knowing we can finish a game.”
Oh, Jays fans know Kenny. And they — we — hope they can finish two more before making another victory lap — but this time, instead of a going for a layup, they’ll be lugging a trophy.