In the days leading up to the start of practice for the 2012-13 season, White & Blue Review will look back on the top five games, performances and moments of last season, as voted on by the editors of WBR. Today is the last in that series.
Creighton’s won 11 MVC Tournament titles, six more than any other league school — but it had been four seasons since the Bluejays prevailed at Arch Madness before this past March. That was the school’s longest stretch without a MVC Tournament championship since the seven years between 1991 and 1999. So cutting down the nets on Sunday afternoon in St. Louis was a triumphant moment — and the #1 moment of the 2011-12 season.
After spending most of the final month of the season battling (and mostly winning) one-and-two possession games, it was fitting that Championship Sunday would be another nail-biter. They would need overtime to outlast fourth-seeded Illinois State, in the game by virtue of upsetting #1 seed Wichita State on Saturday.
“Great players take over the most important of games, and McDermott did so Sunday afternoon in front of a national broadcast television audience,” Otter wrote the next day. “He scored 12 straight points during one stretch of the second half, cutting into Illinois State’s 4-point lead and answering every Redbird run with a pick-and-pop three-pointer or a nifty finish in the frontcourt. Jon Ekey played solid defense against McDermott, and the sophomore Player of the Year in the Valley still managed to score 33 points, grab 6 rebounds, and carry the Jays and Creighton Nation on his back to a tournament title.”
Much as they had the day before in upsetting Wichita State, the Redbirds made plenty of outside shots while playing tough defense and forcing their opponent into bad looks. Aside from a handful of buckets from McDermott and a couple of threes from Grant Gibbs, no one else could catch fire. A vastly-outnumbered ISU Red fanbase in attendance grew louder and louder with every minute that passed with their team in the game. Ridiculous foul calls — including a hideous technical foul on Echenique for hanging on the rim for .0007 seconds — fired their fans and players up even more. Otter takes the story from here.
“As the game dragged on and it became evident Illinois State wouldn’t surrender, McDermott started to display ‘The Look’ — that poise, that body language shown by a tremendous individual and team player when he decides it is time to take over a game. As a frontcourt player, McDermott is dependent on teammates to find him in good spots to score. Gibbs and Young did that, and Dougie Fresh rewarded them with finish after finish. His 33 points tied Nate Funk for Creighton’s single-game record in a Valley tournament game. But all apologies to The Dimer; McDermott’s was more impressive given the stage (championship game, versus the semifinals) and the fact his game was close (Funk’s 33 came in a 75-58 blowout against Missouri State in 2007).
Echenique, McDermott’s frontcourt mate, spent the afternoon doing the dirty work. He almost tipped in Young’s miss at the buzzer at the end of regulation, in a play that looked eerily similar to his game-tying tip against Evansville in the regular season. He finished with 8 of the toughest points he’s scored all season, and capped a tremendous weekend that saw him join McDermott and Young on the All-Tournament team.
Young couldn’t connect on that leaner right before regulation ended and with the game tied. But he took over in the extra five minutes, scoring 8 of his 14 points in overtime. He missed a few free throws in the first 40 minutes that I’m sure Young and CU supporters would have agonized over had the Jays dropped this title game. But he was smooth in OT. And his old running buddy from the AAU days, Josh Jones, picked a heck of a time to contribute his only bucket of the night — a thunderous one-handed jam in transition to give Creighton a 9-point lead with 1:15 left. From there, Young and Jones and the Jays had to withstand Ekey, Jackie Carmichael, Nic Moore, and Tyler Brown trying to will a tired group of Redbirds starters past the wall and into a position to win. They couldn’t do it, thanks to tremendous perimeter defensive effort down the stretch by Jones, Young, and Gibbs.”
In the end, it was truly a team effort — as it always is for victorious teams in St. Louis — spearheaded by a sophomore All-American who refused to let his team lose. There’s no feeling quite like winning a championship, and to do so in such thrilling fashion makes it an easy call for the #1 moment of the 2011-12 season.