Connor Cashaw was money off the bench against DePaul on Wednesday night (Spomer / WBR)Creighton didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts offensively on Wednesday night in Chicago. Even with DePaul’s top two big men — Femi Olujobi and Paul Reed — sidelined with foul trouble, the Bluejays still found themselves trailing 12-10 midway through the first half. Then all of a sudden they received a major boost from an unlikely contributor when senior guard Connor Cashaw got to the rim to tie the game with 10:34 left. The first of his eight first-half points helped Creighton build a 41-30 lead at the break.
He finished with a season-high 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting — all on layups — in the 12-point win, and it was his reps on the scout team the two days prior to the game that helped him prepare to find those scoring opportunities.
“I had to know all of their plays on scout, so I always knew what they were doing,” Cashaw said. “The coaching staff prepared us on the scout team very, very well. Not only that, but staying consistent and staying confident is something my dad preaches, and something this staff preaches, so that helped as well.”
Playing time has been sporadic this season for the grad transfer from Rice after averaging 10.5 points in 29.7 minutes per game during the first years of his college career. Even after Wednesday, Cashaw is averaging 2.2 points per game in just over 10 minutes a night, but that hasn’t stopped him from being ready when his numbered is called. Most recently he logged 40 minutes in an overtime loss at Villanova on February 6, then hauled in five offensive rebounds in 13 minutes at Seton Hall three days later.
“This season made me better mentally,” Cashaw said. “I had to have the same mental prep every game regardless of knowing what’s going to happen. You have to be ready in case your number is called, because you never know what situation is going to happen. As you saw with the Villanova game where we had three players injured, so guys had to play 39 minutes who really didn’t play that much the rest of the season. Those are the opportunities you have to take advantage of, and keep believing in yourself and your teammates.”
Cashaw has been in for defensive purposes at times this season (Spomer / WBR)Cashaw’s willingness to accept any role that has been asked of him this year — whether it’s 40 minutes at Villanova or 1 minute against Marquette — has made an impression on his younger teammates. Transfers bring with them a certain amount of risk, because you never can be sure if they are going to embrace the way a program operates or if their own individual agendas will rock the boat. Even in a season with as many ups as downs on the court, and plenty of adversity off of it, none of those risks have surfaced with the senior from Lincolnshire, Illinois.
“Connor is probably the ultimate team guy,” sophomore guard Mitch Ballock said. “He’s probably the best teammate I’ve ever played with. If you think about his situation where he was averaging in the high teens in points at Rice, then he came into a different role at a different school with different people and different teammates and everything. It’s obviously an adjustment off the court and on the court, but the approach that he takes every day is just a winning attitude. He’ll do whatever he’s got to do to win. He never complains about it.”
Winning was all Connor Cashaw wanted to do when he got to Omaha. He didn’t care about his minutes, how many shots he was going to get, or what role he was going to play. He only had one goal: to play in the NCAA Tournament. And even as Creighton sits with a 14-13 record with just four games left in the regular season starting with Saturday afternoon’s home tilt against the surging Georgetown Hoyas, Cashaw’s confidence in his team’s ability to earn that bid hasn’t wavered.
“I haven’t lost faith in that,” Cashaw said. “Even during the four-game losing streak. Honestly. The belief and confidence just became stronger because of my teammates and the staff. A lot of teams that I’ve seen go on a four-game losing streak will have people start to go their separate ways, and that’s not the case here. Everyone came together, everyone came closer.
“We know it’s kind of us against the world. We are in this together. We have a young team and we know we are right there. The stats show it in the four games we just lost where we led in the last four minutes. Obviously the situation in those last four minutes didn’t go our way, but it’s not like we were getting blown out, and it’s not like we have bad guys on the team. Nobody is selfish, everyone does their part and works hard. That says a lot about our chemistry and the people that Coach Mac recruits. These are great guys. I feel like I’ve known these guys for four years. I feel like I’ve been here for four years. That’s how close I am with this team and how much I love them. It’s crazy. I know a lot of people say that like ‘yeah, I love them, they’re my brothers,’ but that’s serious — these guys have been amazing. That’s why no one has given up.”
Cashaw has embraced his role on the Bluejays this season (Spomer / WBR)That belief, even in his one and only season at Creighton, and the way it has translated to the practice floor and in the games makes it easy for the younger players to lock in and keep pushing to give guys like Cashaw a chance to end their careers on a high note.
“When your older guys like Connor and Kaleb and Martin have that mentality to just come in and say we still have five games or four games or whatever we have left plus the Big East Tournament, let’s just make the most of it. Let’s go out and hoop and have fun, and we’ll see where it takes us,” Ballock said. “If we had those same guys but with a negative attitude, then we’d be probably say screw this, this sucks, let’s just get the season over with, get those guys out of here, and try again next year. But we still have a month left to make some noise because of those guys and the approach they bring every day. It helps us move forward.”
Projected Starting Lineups
Creighton (Overall: 14-13, Big East: 5-9)
- G Marcus Zegarowski (Fr. | 6-2 | 180) – 10.8 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 3.1 apg
- G Davion Mintz (Jr. | 6-3 | 185) – 10.1 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 3.0 apg
- G Ty-Shon Alexander (So. | 6-4 | 195) – 16.5 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 2.7 apg
- G Mitch Ballock (So. | 6-5 | 205) – 10.1 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 3.4 apg
- F Martin Krampelj (Jr. | 6-9 | 235) – 12.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 57.9% FG
Georgetown (Overall: 16-10, Big East: 6-7)
- G James Akinjo (Fr. | 6-0 | 180) – 13.0 ppg, 5.2 apg, 2.8 rpg
- G Mac McClung (Fr. | 6-2 | 185) – 13.5 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.2 apg
- G/F Jamorko Pickett (So. | 6-8 | 205) – 6.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 1.2 apg
- F Josh LeBlanc (Fr. | 6-7 | 230) – 9.4 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 65.2% FG
- C Jessie Govan (Sr. | 6-10 | 255) – 18.2 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 51.3% FG