The first half on Tuesday night in D.C. featured, charitably, some of the ugliest basketball of the season. Creighton shot OK when they were able to get off a shot, but they committed 11 turnovers — one roughly every three possessions — including on each of their last four trips down the court. And as a result they led by just four in spite of holding Georgetown scoreless for over seven minutes.
After turning it over 16 times against Villanova and 15 against Marquette, both losses, the Jays were turning it over at an even higher rate against a team who hasn’t forced many turnovers this year. They were, to be frank, a mess. They threw passes at the wrong time or off-target. They dribbled the ball of their feet. They shuffled their feet while dribbling. It looked like a summer league game full of players who’d never been on the court together, not game 14 of a season with several veteran players who’ve played together for nearly three years.
And Trey Alexander was the worst offender, with five of the Jays’ 11 turnovers in the first half. But something switched at halftime, and Alexander came out a different player — he had zero turnovers in 17 minutes, and scored 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting. What the heck happened in that locker room? According to Alexander, Greg McDermott didn’t go fire and brimstone on his team — he just laid out the facts. He told them 11 turnovers against a team like Georgetown can’t happen.
“I re-evaluated at halftime, and talked to Mac a little bit. He told me, ‘Keep being aggressive, but, you know, be smart with it.'” Alexander said on the postgame radio show. “That’s how we lost the last game, was us getting those live ball turnovers, and we felt like that was something that was easy to clean up. So we just reevaluated ourselves, we kind of talked amongst each other, and kind of figured out ways that we could fix that.”
McDermott said he focused especially on the last four possessions of the half, four turnovers which he believed were self-inflicted.
“It was 28-20 and we had a chance to stretch it out, but we turned it over four in a row,” McDermott said. “Georgetown certainly was aggressive and was switching some screens, but they had been doing that all half and we have to be better than that.”
That’s not to say McDermott didn’t unleash some heat.
“Mac got on my butt about those turnovers,” Alexander admitted. “But I want him to be hard on me, because I feel like it helps me evaluate my game. It helps me pick it up to a certain extent. And I know that he trusts me with the ball in my hand.”
The Jays made seven of their first eight shots in the second half, and built a 47-31 lead by the 14:52 mark. Over the first nine minutes they outscored the Hoyas 25-9, committing just two turnovers over that span (and one of them came on an offensive foul). And they did it by attacking the rim, not by suddenly heating up from three.
Mason Miller started the scoring with a short jumper in the paint, assisted by Alexander who’d driven to the rim and collapsed the defense on him to create space. Then Steven Ashworth drove the baseline for a layup, taking advantage of a Georgetown defense that was scrambling after double-teaming Alexander. Next, Ashworth bounced a pass into the paint to Baylor Scheierman who made a contested five-foot jumper in the middle of three defenders, drawing a foul in the process. Finally, Alexander intercepted a pass and drove the length of the floor for a transition layup.
All of that in two minutes out of the locker room, and it was 37-28 Jays.
After a three from Miller and a transition layup from Alexander, Ed Cooley burned a timeout with his team suddenly down double-digits. It did little to stop the snowball from rolling downhill, though, and when the Jays finally got Ryan Kalkbrenner involved offensively by throwing him a lob for a dunk, the rout was on. They’d eventually score on 14 of their first 17 possessions, scoring more points (30) in the first 11 minutes of the second half than they had the entire first half (28) and building a lead of as many as 24 points.
“I thought we shared the basketball better in the second half, and we made the extra pass a little bit better,” McDermott said. “Our pace was good, and you can only have pace if you if you get stops and you get rebounds. It’s been hard for a lot of teams to get rebounds against Georgetown this year; they’re one of the best in the country with their offensive rebounding percentage. That was a big emphasis for us in practice this week and I thought we executed it pretty well.”
Any road win in the Big East is a good one, even one where you really only play well for 15 minutes. And now the Jays turn their attention to the most surprising team in the league, Providence, who will visit Omaha on Saturday.
Inside the Box Score:
Georgetown ground the game to a halt, and at 63 possessions it was the second-slowest game of the year for the Jays (only UNLV, at 61, was slower). Combined with a relatively poor shooting night from the perimeter, as the Jays shot 8-of-25 from three-point range (32.0%), you had the looks of a game CU often loses. Instead, they won by 17 — which is a ton in a 63 possession game.
Alexander’s second half was one of his best as a Bluejay, as he made 8-of-10 from the floor, 2-of-3 from three-point range, with three assists and a steal — and zero turnovers. It led to a season-best 25 points, and featured several of the physical drives to the rim that his game has lacked over the last month or so.
“Trey has continued to work at it and you’d like to think that things are going to adjust to the mean,” McDermott said. “We’ve had a couple guys — Steven Ashworth is the other one. He was one of the best shooters in the country last year, but he’s struggled there for a few games. He continues to work at it and shoots it well in practice, just like Trey has. Trey finished the first half, I think he turned it over three out of four possessions and he was really upset with himself at halftime. I told him after the game I was really proud of the way he kind of refocused and reset himself and left that in the past and got ready to play the second half.”
Ashworth struggled to find his shot again (2-of-7 overall, 1-of-6 from three) but did have a season-best seven assists and just two turnovers. But others picked up the slack. Kalkbrenner filled the stat sheet with 12 points, nine rebounds and four blocks, and the attention he drew opened up shots for teammates. McDermott said they hammered home the point that the team needed to get the ball deep to Kalkbrenner — and even if they didn’t ultimately throw the ball to him each possession, they needed to look for it.
“That forced them to help and send another guy, which allowed us to get some dominoes falling offensively,” McDermott said. “I thought our guys got him touches more. I thought he really ran the floor exceptionally well, and when he runs the floor, it creates things because not one guy is going to guard him down there in transition. We were able to get into the teeth of the defense and get a lot of points of the paint that second half.”
One of the biggest beneficiaries was Scheierman, who finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds and four assists, making 4-of-6 inside the arc. All totaled the Jays shot 17-of-21 on two’s in the second half, and were rewarded for their focus on the paint with a big win.
In the bigger picture, Creighton is 14th in the NET after Tuesday’s win, and the only team in the Top 25 of the NET with three or more true road wins.
And with the win, McDermott now owns 110 Big East wins, tying longtime Villanova coach Rollie Massimino for 11th most all-time. The 10 men in front of him? Jim Boeheim, Jim Calhoun, Jay Wright, John Thompson Jr., Mike Brey, John Thompson III, Lou Carnesecca, Ed Cooley, Jamie Dixon and Rick Pitino.
McDermott was self-deprecating when informed of the feat after the game by CBS’ Steve Lappas, himself a former Big East coach.
“I guess that means I’m old,” McDermott laughed. “If you hang around long enough you’re either going to win some games and break some records, or you’re gonna get fired.”
He’s won some games, alright.
