Bluejay Beat Podcast:
Recap:
Four minutes into the second half on Saturday, Creighton trailed double-digit underdog DePaul — playing without their best player and leading scorer Javon Freeman-Liberty — by 10 points, 38-28. The Jays’ offense had struggled all game long, missing 11 straight shots during a seven-minute scoring drought in the first half. They committed turnovers on three straight possessions early in the second half.
It looked eerily reminiscent of the loss to Arizona State in December, where the Jays similarly struggled to score against a physical opponent. They never did figure it out that night and lost 58-57. Fortunately, their defense was reminiscent of that night, too.
And that defensive grit is what turned the tide.
“(DePaul) hit us in the mouth first,” Trey Alexander said. “When we came out in that second half, we had the mindset that if we don’t play harder than them, they’re going to beat us.”
Ryan Hawkins added that this was a game where they hung their hat on defense, because not much else was working.
“It’s fun to have games like Wednesday night where we’re shooting well, getting in a rhythm offensively and scoring in transition,” Hawkins said. “But then you have nights like tonight where shots aren’t falling. We were 1-for-70 from three it felt like. 2-for-14 actually, but it’s the same feeling. For us to say, you know what? Our shots aren’t falling? We’ll go guard somebody. We’re going to be tougher than you the rest of this game. You’re going to have to beat us to win.”
So there the Bluejays were, diving on the floor after loose balls. Fighting to force jump balls. Plugging driving lanes with aggression. And over the next 12 minutes of game time, DePaul scored two points — TWO POINTS — over a span of 17 possessions. Meanwhile, the Creighton offense found a rhythm and scored 23 points during the stretch — just your every day, run-of-the-mill 23-2 run.
By the time they were done, a 10-point DePaul lead was an 11-point Creighton lead, 51-40.
Interim head coach Alan Huss had a hand in the comeback, too. He switched them into a fullcourt press after halftime that flustered the Blue Demons. It’s something they practice as a just-in-case tool in their box, and Huss thought it might energize a team that looked a half-step slow. He was right.
“I told the guys, DeAnthony Bowden was here today and he used to be the master of that full-court press,” Huss said after the game on the postgame radio show. “It was fitting that he was in the locker room after the game, because for years I watched him do the same thing we did in that second half — fly around, guard ball screens aggressively, dive on the floor and all that stuff.”
Likewise, when Alexander’s instincts told him to face guard DePaul’s point guard, Jalen Terry, in an effort to make him uncomfortable, Huss noticed it and told him to keep doing it. “I was just trying to disrupt their offense,” Alexander said after the game, “and make them work through somebody else.”
Alexander’s defense was superb. It changed the game — with Alexander harassing him, Terry could not get to the spots he was getting to in the first half, and without him creating, DePaul’s offense was stuck in the mud.
“Alexander denying Terry the ball by face-guarding him changed the game,” Huss said. “They are very set-dependent to run their offense, and that really bothered the timing of their set plays. It turned them into a one-on-one team, and it made it really hard for them to score.”
Ryan Kalkbrenner started the comeback with a traditional three-point play on this layup.
Then Arthur Kaluma took the ball coast-to-coast, broke down two defenders and scored at the rim. 38-33. And after a second dunk by Kalkbrenner, DePaul coach Tony Stubblefield called timeout to try stop the Jays’ momentum.
Alexander had other ideas. He made one-of-two free throws on the Jays’ next possession, and then stole the ball from Terry moments later. Seeing Ryan Hawkins streaking downcourt, he threw a long pass to him and led Hawkins to game-tying dunk.
Then Alexander made a pair of free throws to give CU the lead, 40-38, and after a Hawkins jumper made it 42-38, Alexander blocked a shot on defense to start a fastbreak — where Hawkins did this.
He wasn’t done. A couple of possessions later, he corralled a loose ball, and running in transition passed up a good shot in the paint for a wide-open shot by Ryan Nembhard who promptly drained the three.
Alexander’s line shows he scored 12 points with seven rebounds, two assists, three steals and a block in 25 minutes. Good numbers. But if you watched the second half, you know it’s a case where the box score tells only part of the story — Trey Alexander changed the course of a game Creighton seemed on their way to losing, and turned it into a fairly comfortable win.
And when Hawkins blew through the defense to throw down this hammer slam, it capped a fairly improbable turnaround given where the game stood minutes into the second half.
Alexander’s last two games have been the kind of breakout performance Jays fans and coaches have been waiting for. He had a career-high 11 points and four assists in Creighton’s win on Wednesday vs. St. John’s, adding five rebounds. Then he topped it with 12 points against DePaul, all of them in the second half, with seven rebounds, two assists and a career-high three steals. His defense has been stellar, with Huss saying on the postgame show that Alexander’s defensive instincts are among the best he’s ever seen from a freshman. And his willingness to take on the backup point guard role has been an important development on a team desperate for a secondary ball-handler alongside Ryan Nembhard.
It proved invaluable on Saturday when Nembhard fouled out with just under four minutes to play after he expressed displeasure with a foul call. The personal foul and the technical were fouls four and five on the day; the Blue Demons made all four free throws to cut an 11-point lead to seven and could have swung momentum. Alexander and Hawkins weren’t having it. The pair combined to score the Jays final nine points, with Hawkins grabbing two defensive rebounds and a steal as CU sealed the win.
Hawkins has been the Jays’ most indispensable player all year for what he’s given them on the floor — a consistent scorer, a good instinctual rebounder, a savvy veteran with a knack for making the big play.
His intangibles have been bigger. When the game was hanging in the balance on Saturday, he gathered the team on the court and gave them a pep talk.
“I pulled the guys together and said, we can’t have a live-ball turnover, and we have to take away the three. Those are the things that are going to get them rolling,” Hawkins recalled. “It helps that I’ve played about 400 college games by now — the guys listen to me.”
His leadership was even more important on Saturday with Greg McDermott quarantined at home after testing positive for COVID. The Jays’ coach live-tweeted the game from his basement couch, offering encouragement to his players, exhorting the crowd to give the team a lift, and (most amusing to me) passive-aggressively commenting on the officiating. The Omaha World-Herald’s Jon Nyatawa compiled the full batch of tweets into a graphic:
Key Stats:
Ryan Kalkbrenner quietly had another massive night, scoring 18 points with 10 rebounds and six blocks. His defense at the rim has been notable all year, and he continues rising up the Creighton record book for blocks. The last player with at least 18 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks in a game was Kenny Lawson in 2010, against the DePaul of the Missouri Valley — Evansville.
You have to go back another decade to find the last time Creighton’s defense was as stifling as it was on Saturday. The last time they gave up 15 or fewer points (to a Division 1 team) in a second half? 2001, when they did it twice in ten days — 15 against Northern Iowa on February 21, and 14 against Missouri State on March 3.
Fun fact: interim head coach Alan Huss had four points, four rebounds and a steal in that win over UNI, and three rebounds and an assist in the win over Missouri State. Huss was a senior on that 2000-01 team and started at center in both games.
Highlights:
Press Conference: