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Men's Basketball

Recap: #14 Creighton 84, DePaul 62

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[Box Score]

Key Stats: Creighton makes 11-17 three-pointers in the first half and 14-22 for the game. CU commits seven turnovers in the first half, and just three in the second.

Favorite Moment: Midway through the second half, Devin Brooks launched what appeared to be either a pass to a wide-open Will Artino under the basket or a wildly errant three-point attempt. It’s really hard to say; only Devin knows for sure what his intentions were. What happened after it left his hands was astounding, though. The ball hit the side of the backboard and ricocheted all the way out to the three-point line where Austin Chatman caught it on the fly and put up a three. Oh, and it went it. Of course it did.

When THAT happens, you know it’s your night.

It wasn’t officially an assist, but I kind of wish it was because it would have been the greatest assist in the history of assists.

Quick Recap: Is it possible Doug McDermott has saved his best for the final act? After scoring 45 points against Providence on Senior Night, he scored 35 in the Jays’ Big East quarterfinal romp over DePaul — and only eight of those points came after halftime. In the first half, he had that same look that he did against the Friars, and when that’s the case, it’s going to take a superhuman effort for an opponent to overcome it. “DePaul” and “superhuman” aren’t generally in the same sentence, at least not since Ray Meyer stopped coaching, and when Doug’s locked in like that on a night when they’re only marginally interested in playing defense…you get what we had here Thursday night.

10-14 from the floor, 7-9 from three-point range, three assists and a steal, en route to a Big East Tournament record 27 points. Again, that was all in the FIRST HALF. It was a performance that had the Garden rocking the way only the Garden can, a vintage Big East Tournament performance that made for riveting television.

And yet, as sublime as he was during those first twenty minutes, it was the play of one of his fellow seniors that may have been the real key to victory. Jahenns Manigat hit his first three attempts from three-point range, stretching DePaul’s defense like a rubber band — with him firing away, they briefly tried to switch to a zone to throw Creighton off, except McDermott read it like a book and hit back-to-back threes in a 60 second span to run Creighton’s lead out to 20-8. DePaul would make a few runs here and there the rest of the way, cutting the deficit to as few as 10 on a couple of occasions, but for all intents and purposes that was the game.

In the second half, the Jays appeared to lose focus, and after leading 49-29 at the break they played basically even with DePaul in the second (35-33), barely outrebounding them (14-13) and having just two assists on 13 made baskets. To be fair, though, some of that can be attributed to the bench playing heavy second-half minutes — Avery Dingman played 10, Will Artino 11 and Devin Brooks 12 — against DePaul’s top five. Treading water is exactly what you hope for when resting your starters in a blowout, and that’s what they provided. It will pay huge dividends if the Jays win on Friday. Because the bench played well enough that Coach Greg McDermott didn’t feel the need to play his starters a ton, they’ll be fresher for Saturday. Grant Gibbs only played 18 minutes, Ethan Wragge only played 26, and no other starter had more than 32. In a three-games-in-three-days tournament scenario, that’s about as perfect a first day script as you could hope for.

Quotables:

“As I told the team in the locker room, I was extremely pleased with our defensive effort and attention to detail in the first half. I thought we flew around pretty well and made DePaul’s shots very difficult. We made them take the shots we wanted them to take, rather than maybe the shots they’d have preferred to take. Because our defense was good and our rebounding was good, we were able to establish transition game.” – Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“Jahenns really got us off to a good start, and Doug’s performance in the first half was one of the better ones that I’ve seen, and I’ve seen some good ones out of him. That was about as good as it gets.” – Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“In the second half, I thought we were a little tentative, and we played a little more ‘not to lose’ than ‘playing to win.’ I would have liked to have seen us throw that knockout punch in the first five minutes of the half, but to DePaul’s credit they didn’t allow us to do that.” – Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“I don’t think the guys were nervous for tonight’s game. I do think the guys were anxious. Fortunately, we had an opportunity to come here and play St. John’s, and even though we lost that game, I think that awe factor of coming into this building the first time was taken care of. We had a shootaround, they took their pictures, and all that stuff. This trip was all about the game and concentrating and getting down to business.” – Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“Obviously, we’ve got a heckuva following out there as you all heard tonight. That adds a little fuel to our fire as well. If that many people are going to make the trip halfway across the country to support us, we owe them a good effort.” – Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference

“As a kid, you dream of playing in venues like this. The Garden is about as good as it gets. I’ve watched the tournament a lot growing up, you remember the classic moments, there’s been so many great games here. Just being part of it was definitely in the back of my mind in warmups, and it just really felt surreal out there.” -Doug McDermott in postgame press conference

“St. John’s did a great job on me in the second half here, but a lot of that was my fault. I quit moving off the ball, and I have to do that first to be successful. I wanted to come in with the mindset today to just continue to keep moving, just be aggressive, and that’s not only going to get me shots but it’s going to get shots for my teammates.” -Doug McDermott in postgame press conference

“It wasn’t really anything DePaul was or wasn’t doing tonight, I was just feeling it. I was in a rhythm and a zone. It felt like I could make it from anywhere out there. They were doing a good job, I just happened to get going and my teammates recognized I had the hot hand. In the second half, I wasn’t quite as aggressive, I took a couple of bad shots and got complacent.” -Doug McDermott in postgame press conference

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