Creighton scored the game’s first eight points on Wednesday against #20 Texas A&M, including five points from freshman Jackson McAndrew and a three from Steven Ashworth, making a surprise return from his ankle injury.
Ashworth would make three 3’s in the first half alone, including one from the logo, looking no worse for wear. The Jays had a lead of as many as nine points in that first half, and despite three separate Texas A&M runs that each gave the Aggies the lead, CU had an answer each time.
Texas A&M took the lead briefly early in the second half, only to see Pop Isaacs immediately answer with a three-pointer to put CU back ahead 38-36. Six minutes later, A&M again took the lead for one possession before Isaacs again had the answer, burying a three that was practically a carbon copy of the first — right down to the assist that set it up. On both plays, Jamiya Neal drove into the paint, stopped, and popped it out to Isaacs just to the right of the circle. On both plays, Isaacs hit the shot to put CU back ahead.
McAndrew helped extend the lead with a three, part of a stretch where he and Isaacs combined to score 16 straight for the Jays. And then after A&M went back ahead, McAndrew hit a three-pointer with 57.0 seconds left that gave CU the lead. It looked like an early-season signature win might be happening, and that an early career highlight might have just happened for the freshman in his sixth collegiate game.
Alas, everything else the rest of the night went sideways.
An offensive rebound by Texas A&M — their 14th (!) of the second half — led to a go-ahead 3-point play and a 72-70 edge. Ryan Kalkbrenner, a 73% free throw shooter, split a pair of free throws that left the Jays a point behind, 72-71. Then A&M got an uncontested dunk on the back end of a press, and the Jays were whistled for a 5-second violation trying to inbound the ball for a possession where they could have potentially tied the game.
The nightmarish final 45 seconds turned a game where the Jays led for 31 minutes into a loss, and sent them tumbling into the seventh-place game on Saturday morning.
“Compared to yesterday, the way they competed and the grit that we had to play as well as we did against a very good team, there’s a lot more positives than negatives,” Greg McDermott said. “But obviously it’s really, really disappointing that we lost and didn’t figure out a way to finish it. When you when you lead a game for 30 minutes you should win the game, no doubt about that.”
Offensive rebounds, turnovers are killer
Texas A&M came into the game as the top offensive-rebounding team in America, grabbing a board on an astronomical 43.8% of their missed shots. They were even better than that against Creighton, grabbing a board on 44.7% of the shots they missed.
14 of those came in the second half alone, leading to 17 second-chance points as the Aggies erased a 31-27 Bluejay lead at the break. Combined with turning eight CU turnovers in the second half into eight transition points, it’s rather miraculous the Jays still had opportunities to win.
“I was really proud of the way we hung in there the first half,” Greg McDermott said on his postgame radio show. “But in the second half, they went to some more isolation stuff and really forced Kalkbrenner to come out and help. On probably half of (the offensive boards), we had a bad matchup on the back side but the rest we just got manhandled. It was an area of the game I was really concerned about and turned out to be the difference.”
In the first half, Creighton allowed just seven offensive boards on 28 missed shots and six second-chance points.
“Had we been able to defend and rebound the second half like we did the first half, we’d have won the game,” McDermott added. “But we just unfortunately were unable to put 40 minutes together.”
Jackson McAndrew’s Breakout Game
The 6’10” freshman scored 16 points in his second career start, and his third made three of the game gave CU a lead in the final minute — a stone-cold shot in a pressure moment for a freshman to hit.
“I was really proud of Jackson,” McDermott said. “He hit two huge threes with the game on the line. The growth that he’s made the last two days with the minutes that he’s got is going to be really good for us moving forward.”
While McAndrew gives them a boost offensively at the ‘4’, he’s not as strong as their other options. As with most freshmen, there’s a give-and-take to his game at this early point in his career — and the ‘take’ right now is strength and physicality.
“We needed Jackson out there on offense, but defensively he’s not very strong yet,” McDermott said. “And he’s trying to block out and get some guys off the glass that are bigger and stronger.”
Another Quick Start, but a Better Finish: Creighton 80, Notre Dame 76
Unfortunately, after getting Ashworth back, the Jays lost Ryan Kalkbrenner to what was described as a “lower body injury” while Pop Isaacs was limited because of flu-like symptoms. Even still, they blasted out to a big early lead — much like they had against Texas A&M. Fred King started in place of Kalkbrenner and scored seven of the Jays’ first 12 points.
“When you find out in the locker room before the game that you won’t have Kalkbrenner, and Pop is back in the bathroom all morning sick, it’s tough,” McDermott said. “Pop played 25 minutes more than I thought he was going to play. He’s one tough dude to be able to do that.”
Leading 12-11 after six minutes, Creighton ripped off an 18-2 run over the next six minutes to seemingly pull away. Among the baskets in that stretch was this transition layup from Jamiya Neal, who scored five straight points:
A 12-0 Notre Dame run the lead to 30-25 before Neal again scored five straight — capped by this windmill dunk.
Then an 11-0 Notre Dame run midway through the second half briefly gave them a lead at 53-52. Shades of the A&M game, where Creighton led almost the entire night only to give it away late? Not so fast. Ashworth quickly drained a three to put CU back in front, and then Neal made back-to-back threes 52 seconds apart. Just like that, it was 62-53 Creighton. And though the Irish hung around, CU went perfect at the free-throw line in the final minute to pull out a win.
“Jamiya really stepped up in a big way,” McDermott said. “Offensively he made some plays for himself and plays for other people that we felt he’s capable of making. As long as he shoots the right ones, he’s a very capable shooter and he works at it on practice after practice every single day.”
Neal said it felt good to see some perimeter shots go in, and that he knew with Kalkbrenner out, “we all had to take a step up. That means offensively I had to take a step, so I figured why can’t today be the day?”
Bench has a big day
Creighton got 21 points from their bench, including eight from Isaac Traudt and four apiece from Ty Davis and Jasen Green. Those were huge offensive contributions with Isaacs’ illness and Kalkbrenner’s injury. And though Fred King’s 14 points, five rebounds and four blocks don’t get credited to the bench, getting those numbers from your backup center aren’t something to take for granted.
“All those guys off the bench, from Jasen to Ty to Isaac to Mason and Shane — and Fred hadn’t played a lot, but he answered the bell with a pretty efficient game — I’m really proud of them,” McDermott said. “I’m extremely proud of them, because it would have been easy to show up here early in the morning and find out two of your teammates probably aren’t playing and hang your head, and these guys were up for the challenge.”
He specifically called out Shane Thomas’ defensive effort. In 10 second half minutes, he scored two points on one shot, but slid onto Tae Davis defensively after Neal picked up four fouls guarding him.
“I just had a gut feeling to go with Shane defensively down the stretch,” McDermott noted. “He made some really, really good plays for us, and he’s got a physical body. What he maybe lacks on offense, he makes up for on the other end. I felt like the game was going to be decided there. Those were important minutes in the game, and I thought he was really good.”