Through seven games, Creighton’s Baby Bluejays have been every bit as inconsistent as expected. They fell behind Arkansas-Pine Bluff by 15 points, trailed Kennesaw State at halftime, and were down by eight with four minutes left against Southern Illinois. They found a way to win all three games. Saturday against SIU-Edwardsville, they dug their biggest hole yet — 16 points — but once again put things together just in time to eek out the win.
On the one hand, they’re winning the games, which is good. And no one can accuse this group of not winning close games, because every game has come down to the wire and they’ve won all but one. But on the other hand, they’re playing with fire against teams they shouldn’t struggle this much with, so it’s natural to wonder what happens when Villanova comes to town in three weeks.
Saturday, SIU-E spent 25 minutes embarrassing the Bluejays on their home floor. They built a 42-30 halftime lead, which was bad enough, but did it by out-working and out-hustling them. The Cougars scored 32 of their 42 points in the paint. CU turned it over 10 times. At one point, SIU-E took eight straight layups, with seven coming in transition as the Jays got beat back on defense time after time. To no one’s surprise, they made six.
“We spent seven days on the beach, and we looked like we were still on the beach for 20 or 25 minutes of this game tonight,” head coach Greg McDermott said half-jokingly on the postgame radio show.
Ryan Kalkbrenner picked up two quick fouls, and played only three minutes in the first half. That certainly contributed somewhat, but his teammates didn’t pick up the slack, either. For his part, McDermott admitted on his postgame radio show that he should have put Kalkbrenner back in before halftime despite the foul trouble. He said his thought process was to hold his post player out as long as the Jays could keep the deficit to six or seven; it didn’t really grow beyond that until the final 90 seconds of the half.
Without their post presence, the Jays repeatedly took ill-advised shots — often three-pointers out of the flow of the offense. They were 4-of-14 from three-point range in that first half. Those 10 misses combined with 10 turnovers gave SIU-E a lot of chances to run in transition, and they took advantage.
“We made SIUE better with turnovers and bad shots,” McDermott said. “I tell the guys all the time, a bad shot is just as bad as a turnover because when we take a bad shot, or a shot that’s out of character for us, the other four guys aren’t expecting that shot. The start of your defensive transition isn’t in motion because everybody is thinking ‘Whoa, what just happened there?’ And a lot of those shots end up as an airball, or become a long rebound, and that sends the other team off to the races. We gave up so much momentum with turnovers and bad shots early in the game tonight. And then when we did get back, we didn’t sit back in our defense and fight. One time, we had three guys back on a break and they just dribbled between us to shoot a layup.”
It had all the hallmarks of a holiday tournament hangover. And when SIU-E scored on all six possessions to open the second half, building a 56-40 lead in the process, it was officially a “break glass in case of emergency” situation. Kalkbrenner started to turn the tide with this dunk in transition:
Moments later, Kalkbrenner blocked a shot, grabbed the board, and started a transition break by kicking to ball to Trey Alexander. That huge sequence cut the deficit to single digits, 58-49, and got the crowd into the game. Then McDermott broke the emergency glass and brought in redshirt freshman Rati Andronikashvili, who’d played sparingly (and unimpressively) through the first six games.
Andronikashvili provided the spark the Jays needed. With the freshman deflecting passes, diving onto the court for loose balls, and providing vocal encouragement, they went on an 11-1 run to give themselves a chance.
“We made sure to do our job,” Andronikashvili said. “We didn’t do something unbelievable. We were just in our spots, where we had to be, where we were not in the first half.”
McDermott credited him with changing the pace of the game, and steadying them defensively. His line wasn’t anything spectacular — in eight minutes he was credited with two steals and an assist while missing his only shot — but following his lead, the team’s energy level ratcheted up a notch. How can it not when a teammate is diving all over the court like this?
It continued even after he checked out. Ryan Hawkins forced a pair of shot clock violations with aggressive defense. Ryan Nembhard jumped a passing lane to knock the ball loose, then raced down court for a layup:
A few possessions later, Hawkins created a shot for himself on the block by using some wily veteran moves.
Then Alexander made a pair of enormous baskets. The first cut the deficit to one, 65-64, on a corner three created by Hawkins when he got the defense to collapse in on him, leaving Alexander open. He kicked it out to him, and the freshman buried the shot. Then Alexander split not one but two double-teams on the way to the basket for a layup that gave the Jays the lead.
From there, the Jays pulled away, with this contested shot from Kalkbrenner putting the game on ice.
Defensively, the Jays held SIU-E to seven points over the final 14 minutes, as the Cougars made 2-of-18 shots. That gave their offense room to mount a comeback. Twice they had long scoring droughts — a seven-minute stretch in the middle of the second half, and over the final five minutes. SIU-E led 65-59 with 5:07 to play. And they never scored again.
“The defense was really solid down the stretch,” McDermott said. “That can’t get lost in everything else that happened in the first half. That’s what they’re capable of. And it’s our job as a coaching staff to try to get us to be like that a little bit more often.”
Alexander’s Best Game (So Far) Key to Win
Trey Alexander scored eight second half points, all of them huge parts of the Jays’ furious comeback. But his fingerprints were all over the game — a blocked shot that forced a shot clock violation, the corner three that cut the lead to a single point, a great fundamental defensive rotation to stop the driving lane and force an out-of-rhythm three when SIU-E was looking for a dagger, and the eventual game-winner.
“We made a great screen on the backside to get Trey loose for that three-point shot, and after having a tough game before that, he knocked it down which was huge for us,” McDermott said. “Then he made a big defensive play for us on the other end. Changed the game.”
“We kind of just had to look ourselves in the mirror,” Alexander added, “and I feel like that’s what a lot of people did.”
Comeback Spoils Barone’s Homecoming
SIU-E head coach Brian Barone, son of Creighton Hall of Fame coach Tony Barone, had around a dozen family members in attendance for Saturday’s game. Brian was seven years old when his dad took the CU job, and has fond memories of his time in Omaha. After the game, he shared this photo of Greg McDermott taking time to find Tony’s widow and give her a hug.
McDermott replied on Twitter, “The Barone family will always be held in high regard at Creighton. Your Dad blazed a trail that others could follow. Congrats on well played game and best wishes the rest of the season.”
Others weighed in, too.