Isn’t this the way it should be? After 17 games, Creighton and Wichita State are tied atop the league standings, and in the final game of the regular season, they square off against one another, winner take all. The Jays and Shockers have played some classics over the years, and have played games with a lot on the line, but nothing like this. Because like Apollo Creed yelled in “Rocky III”, THERE IS NO TOMORROW!
Since the move to the CenturyLink, nee Qwest, Center in 2003, there’s never been a winner-take-all game (for the record, The Primer does not believe NIT, CIT, or CBI games count as high stakes). Creighton has won just a single MVC regular season title over that span — the 2008-09 team who tied for the title. They clinched it on the last day of the season with a 74-71 win over Illinois State in front of 17,116 rowdy fans. Only problem: Illinois State was the third place team that year. After winning, the Jays had to watch the Northern Iowa-Evansville game on TV to see if they would win the title outright, or share it.
Even in the Civic Auditorium Era, home games with stakes this high were few and far between. The 2001-02 team who shared the title clinched it despite losing to sixth-place Drake in a senior-less final home game of the season. The 2000-01 team, which is the last Creighton team to win a regular season title, defeated seventh-place Missouri State 72-48 in the final game of the season.
The 1990-91 team, which also won the outright title, clinched it on the season’s final day with a road win over seventh-place Wichita State. In 1988-89, they won the outright title by beating a Drake squad who finished fifth in an eight-team MVC 69-60 in Des Moines.
You’ve got to go all the way back to 1977-78 to find a game with these kind of stakes, either at home or on the road. They won the league by one game over Larry Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores, a team they swept during the regular season, and clinched the title with a road win over the team who tied for second with ISU — Southern Illinois. Back then, the champion got a bye into the the title game, while the other eight teams played off for the right to travel to the champions home gym to play for the title. So while everybody else played, the Jays sat…for eight long days. Can you imagine the build up to that?!?
The opponent wound up being Indiana State, and though they were one year away from the team that went 16-0 in the league and 33-1 overall — the only loss coming in the national title game to Michigan State — they were plenty formidable. On March 5, 1978, Creighton played a winner-take-all game at home…and it hasn’t happened since.
In front of a national TV audience on NBC — the first such audience in the history of the building — Creighton defeated Indiana State 54-52 on a last-second shot by Rick Apke. I wrote a giant piece about that game as part of our feature on Apke a couple of years back; it’s worth revisiting before tomorrow’s tilt. It gives me goosebumps just reading about the tension and the drama of that game.
Certainly, Creighton’s played big games since then, and on big stages for big stakes. But at home, in front of their own fans, they haven’t played a game for all the marbles since that March day in ’78. As a matter of fact, this will be just the third time in the last 30 years that two teams tied for first place will face each other to end the regular-season with the outright MVC title on the line. Fun fact: the previous two also involved the Shockers, and they lost both times (1985 to Tulsa, 2011 to Missouri State).
***
The opponent on Saturday, Wichita State, comes into Saturday’s showdown on a little different vibe than Creighton. With a chance to sew up a tie for the title, they instead lost at home Wednesday to an Evansville team playing without Ned Cox. They allowed Evansville’s physical man-to-man defense to bother them, and they missed 15 of 19 three-pointers, made just one basket over the game’s final 8 minutes, and turned it over 13 times in losing to the Purple Aces on senior night for Malcolm Armstead, Carl Hall, Ehimen Orukpe and Demetric Williams.
Still, it’s remarkable what Gregg Marshall has done in retooling the Shockers. After losing four starters off of last year’s MVC regular season championship squad, including notorious Bluejay tormenter Joe Ragland, they’re 24-6 and tied for first place on the season’s final day. That’s impressive, and even moreso when you consider they’ve lost two starters to injury since the start of the season. Ron Baker (foot) has missed 19 games so far, and is still hoping to return. Evan Wessel (hand) missed eight games before opting for season-ending surgery on January 8. A third starter, Carl Hall, missed seven games earlier in the season with a thumb injury. And a fourth starter, Ehimen Orukpe, missed three games earlier this season with an ankle sprain.
That they’re in position to contend for a title, much less win one, is unbelievable. A big reason is the immediate impact of junior college transfer Cleanthony Early, who averages 14.6 points and 5.3 rebounds a game. He scored 39 in a win earlier this year vs. Southern Illinois, and in the first meeting with Creighton in January, he scored 13 points on 5-10 shooting, though his line also included 1-4 from three-point range and zero rebounds. Early is a leading candidate for MVC Newcomer of the Year accolades.
The man who won that award a year ago, Carl Hall, has had an impressive senior season despite losing a fourth of it to injury. Hall averages 12.3 points and 7.0 rebounds per game inside, and continued his trend of having monster games against Creighton by scoring 17 points and snaring 13 rebounds — six of them offensive — in the January meeting.
A pair of senior guards anchor the backcourt: Malcolm Armstead (10.0 ppg., 1.9 spg.) and Demetric Williams (8.5 ppg., 2.4 apg.). Armstead has played well lately, leading WSU with 20 points against Detroit in the BracketBuster game after scoring 18 points in a win at Indiana State. He shot 52 percent (14-of-27) for the week, and averaged 19 points, 4.5 assists, 2.5 steals and 2.0 rebounds over that two-game stretch. However, in Wednesday night’s loss, he went 2-11 from the floor, 1-7 from three-point range and scored five points in 36 minutes.
As a team, the Shockers average 69.4 points per game while holding their opponents to 59.8 per contest. They shoot 44.5 percent from the field and outrebound foes by 8.4 boards per game. As it always is against WSU, the key is to use controlled aggression to box out their rebounders, limit their second-chance opportunities as much as possible, and try to stay even on the glass. While Creighton was outrebounded by just three, 44-41, in the January game, they gave up 22 offensive rebounds and lost the battle of second-chance points by a whopping EIGHTEEN POINTS, 23-5. Simply put, that can’t happen tomorrow. Creighton needs that number to be as close to even as possible. Otherwise, Wichita is likely to dominate the paint again, as they did in January when they outscored the Jays 44-20 inside.
If the Jays can limit the Shockers to one-and-done on offense as much as possible, and prevent them from scoring 2/3 of their points in the paint, they’ll probably like the outcome. If they allow the Shockers to push them around in the paint and routinely get second and even third chances to score…the outcome won’t be pretty.
Catching Up with the Shockers: Wichita State compiled an 8-1 Valley road record each of the last two seasons, and combined with the 5-3 road start in road play in 2012-13, WSU carries a 21-5 road Valley record the last two-plus seasons. … With the win against Missouri State on February 9, WSU won their 20th game for the fourth straight season, which is the best stretch of 20-win games in school history … Cleanthony Early averaged 18.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in WSU’s two wins last week to be named the MVC’s Newcomer of the Week, leading the Shockers in scoring with 19 at Indiana State, then backed that with 18 against Detroit in the BracketBuster game … Since Gregg Marshall arrived at WSU, the Shockers have out-rebounded 160-of-201 opponents, including 26 of 30 this season. Indiana State is the only team to out-board WSU this season, doing it twice (by 1 rebound in the first matchup, and by 6 the second), while they’ve tied on the boards with two other opponents.
One Big Paragraph with Lots O’Dots™: With a win Creighton can finish 8-1 in MVC play at home, matching the school’s best mark at CenturyLink Center Omaha (also done in 2003-04, 2005-06, 2006-07) … On Saturday, Creighton seeks to win its Senior Day for the 17th straight time (when it has a senior), and can set a school-record with 53 wins in a two-year span … Creighton can clinch its eighth outright MVC title with a win, and first such crown since 2000-01, while Wichita State is also seeking its eighth outright MVC crown, and second consecutive … CU’s current haul of 14 regular-season titles (7 outright, 7 shared) is twice as many as any other current league foe (Wichita State, 7 outright, 0 shared; Southern Illinois, 4 outright, 3 shared) … This will be the first home game in Creighton history pitting two teams with 23 or more wins against each other.
The RUN-DMD Show: Junior forward Doug McDermott enters Saturday’s game 51 points shy of becoming the leading scorer in Creighton history. He’ll enter the game with 2,065 points, trailing only Bob Harstad (2,110) and Rodney Buford (2,116) on CU’s career list.
Perhaps coincidentally, Creighton’s single-game scoring record is — you guessed it – 51 points, set by Bob Portman in 1967.
The Last Time They Played: On January 19, Creighton fell at Wichita State 67-64. Doug McDermott scored 25 points, including nine of the team’s final ten points, but Ethan Wragge missed two chances at a game-tying three pointer in the final ten seconds.
The Series: This will be the 99th meeting between the two schools, with Creighton holding a 53-45 edge. Wichita State has won two straight in Omaha, including an ugly 89-68 win last February.
Greg McDermott is 8-8 all-time vs. Wichita State (1-4 at Creighton), and has never beaten them at home while coach of the Bluejays. Meanwhile, Gregg Marshall evened his record at 6-6 against the Jays with his team’s victory in January.
Gratuitous Linkage: Paul Suellentrop’s recap of the loss to Evansville provides some outstanding analysis of how the Shockers lost, including some interesting quotes from Carl Hall on how Evansville’s physical play affected them. It’s a must-read to get ready for tomorrow’s game.
This Date in Creighton Hoops History: On March 2, 2007, Creighton held Indiana State to an MVC Tournament record low 38 points in a 59-38 quarterfinal win. The Bluejay defense held Indiana State without a field goal for the final three minutes of the first half, and to just two field goals in the first EIGHTEEN minutes of the second half. ISU hit just three baskets from two-point range for the game, and its 23.3 percent shooting was the lowest by an opponent in Altman’s tenure at Creighton.
Completely Random, Totally Rad Music Video of the Day: Here’s the thing. I can’t play “We Ready” before a hugely unexpected blowout win and be expected not to play it again before The Game. So, here it is. You bet.
The Bottom Line: There’s conceivable ways that Wichita State could come into Omaha, in front of perhaps the largest crowd to ever witness a non-football sporting event in the history of the state, and spoil the party. [Edit: I forgot about the College World Series. Shame on me! Largest crowd for a basketball game in the history of the state? That’s more like it.] But I refuse to acknowledge those. Jays take care of business like BTO in the ’70s.
Jays 78, Wichita State 71