Head coach Jay Wright’s Villanova Wildcats have made winning basketball games look easy at times this season. They entered Tuesday night’s game at Creighton with a 27-2 overall record, but the 4th-ranked Wildcats had to fight about as hard as they have all season to earn win No. 28, and earn it they did.
Junior point guard Ryan Arcidiacono led all players with a season-high 23 points, including seven of his team’s final 10 points to help Villanova (28-2 overall, 15-2 Big East) escape with a 76-72 win over the Creighton Bluejays (13-17 overall, 4-13 Big East) in front of 16,337 fans at the CenturyLink Center Omaha.
“I’d love to give Creighton and Greg McDermott a lot of credit, man. They just played a great game,” Wright said. “They had a great game plan. They just played really physical and they played great defense. We just had to gut it out. They made it an ugly game and we had to be willing to play ugly and gut it out and we did. A road game in this conference and this atmosphere — a great atmosphere and great crowd — it’s not pretty, but I’m proud of our guys. Proud of our guys’ guts.”
Devin Brooks tried to keep the Jays in it down the stretch (Brad Williams / WBR)
Four days removed from a gut-wrenching loss at Seton Hall, the Bluejays picked themselves up off the canvas and landed the first punch against a team many pundits feel is a favorite for one of the top four seeds in the NCAA Tournament later this month. After falling behind in the first few possessions, Creighton got 3-pointers from senior point guard Austin Chatman, junior guard James Milliken, and senior forward Ricky Kreklow in succession as part of a 12-2 run that gave the Bluejays a 15-9 lead midway through the first half.
The Bluejays stifled Villanova in the first half, executing a game plan that held the Wildcats to below 30% from the field in the opening half for just the third time all season. Wright said Creighton’s defensive strategy caught his team off guard in the first half.
“I didn’t watch every game they played, but that was the most physical and aggressive I’ve seen them play defensively,” Wright said. “They did a great job. That was their game plan to get up in us, be physical, be aggressive, and we couldn’t run our cuts. They forced us to just have to drive the ball.
“We weren’t prepared for that type of defensive game plan,” he added.
Creighton led for the majority of the opening period, even extending the lead to as many as nine points with 5:46 left. But Villanova senior guard Darrun Hilliard capped off a late comeback by the Wildcats with a driving layup to cut it to a one-point game, 30-29, at halftime. Given how well they played on the defensive end, the Bluejays felt they let an opportunity slip away by not taking a bigger lead into the locker room.
“We were up nine with five and a half to go, I think, in the first half, so we had an opportunity to separate ourselves and I think they got a lot of those back on the foul line,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “We turned our aggressiveness up defensively on them, and tried to not allow them to be as comfortable as we did at their place, but by doing that we got called for some hand checks.
“We had an opportunity there maybe for some separation and certainly some of our foul trouble maybe contributed to [our inability to do that].”
Villanova scored the first five points to begin the second half, but Chatman and senior forward Avery Dingman each knocked down 3-pointers from near the top of the key to tie the game at 36-all with 17:20 still to play. Wildcats junior guard Dylan Ennis responded with a pair of 3-pointers of his own to put his team back in front and kick off a 15-4 run that saw them take the largest lead of the game at 51-40 near the midway mark of the second half.
“We were not prepared for that type of game plan. We didn’t have our players prepared for them to just get up in us and be physical and just stay with our guys everywhere. Later in the second half we started making adjustments,” Wright said. “It’s hard to do that in timeouts so [at halftime] we just reviewed what we were trying to say in the timeouts about them being physical and that we needed to take it at them. You could tell in the second half, first play: offensive foul. Darrun Hilliard came out and did what I told him to do — take it at them.”
The Bluejays, like they have all year, refused to quit and started chipping away at the deficit. With 5:08 to go a 3-pointer by Kreklow brought his team within three points and got the crowd on its feet. A few minutes later, after a free throw by Arcidiacono made it 66-62 Villanova, Austin Chatman hit a deep 3-pointer with the shot clock winding down to cut it to a one-point game.
Austin Chatman’s free throw shooting was spectacular (Adam Streur / WBR)
Chatman, who led four Bluejays in double figures with 21 points on the night, gave Creighton a 67-66 lead on the next possession by hitting a pair of free throws with 1:10 remaining in the game. After a timeout by the Wildcats, Coach Wright called his junior point guard’s number and he answered. With under a minute to go, Arcidiacono drove to the baseline on Chatman. The Creighton point guard was expecting help, but none arrived and Arcidiacono converted the layup and drew a foul on Chatman. He hit the free throw to put the Wildcats up 69-67.
“We had a blown assignment,” McDermott said. “Austin was supposed to keep him on the sideline, but there was supposed to be help there.”
That said the Bluejays head coach wasn’t shy about praising the play of Arcidiacono, not only for that play, but also for what he means to a team that has only lost two games all season while playing in the nation’s No. 2 ranked basketball conference according to the RPI.
“I think he’s outstanding. I know they’ve got a lot of great players, but if you allow me to pick one guy off their team that’s the guy I’m picking,” McDermott said. “I just think he does so much to impact winning and he made a big time play in a critical situation and you have to tip your hat to him.”
On the ensuing offensive possession for Creighton, senior guard Devin Brooks lost control of the ball and it ended up going back to the Wildcats. Forced to foul, the Bluejays sent Darrun Hilliard to the line where the senior hit a pair to make it 71-67 with under 30 seconds remaining. With Villanova trying to salt away the final seconds, Creighton freshman forward Toby Hegner rebounded a missed layup and laid it back in to cut it to 72-69 with 10 seconds remaining.
Arcidiacono hit two more free throws for Villanova to make it a five-point game, but Austin Chatman hit a 3-pointer then Brooks drew an offensive foul on Arcidiacono to give Creighton the ball with 6.4 seconds left, trailing 74-72. The Bluejays threw the ball in to senior center Will Artino, who drove to the rim and tried to tie the game with a soft hook shot, but he left it just short.
“We had an inbounds play running a gate screen that I was going to run through and get a three off of, but they covered that up pretty well,” Chatman said. “Will made a good play and got to the rim, but just didn’t finish the layup.”
Villanova secured the rebound with 0.4 left on the clock and Arcidiacono hit two more free throws to wrap up the hard fought win for the Big East regular season champions.
For Creighton it was their seventh loss this season, and sixth in Big East play, when they’ve had a lead with at least 61 seconds remaining in the game.
“It’s hard. It’s really hard to have your team compete and fight and continue to believe in each other the way this group has, and not crumble from within, and not have them rewarded for that effort,” McDermott said. “That’s what bothers me the most. I thought we fought our tails off. We exerted a lot of energy in the first half. It was arguably our best defensive half of the year, against a team as talented as Villanova.”
“To beat a team like Villanova you have to play hard like that and then you can’t miss free throws, and you can’t have turnovers, and you can’t miss blockouts. You have to be relatively perfect, because they don’t get shook. To our guys’ credit we got behind there in the second half, took their best shot, and still kept fighting and gave ourselves a chance to tie it there at the end. I don’t know that I’ve been anymore proud of my team as I am right now. I’d just like to see them be able to celebrate a little for all their efforts.”
The Bluejays next take the court this upcoming Saturday for senior day when they welcome the Xavier Musketeers (18-12 overall, 8-9 Big East) to the CenturyLink Center for the regular season finale. Even being four games under .500, junior guard James Milliken believes it’s important to send his senior teammates out on a high note heading to the Big East Tournament in New York.
“I feel like if we get this win we’ll go into the Big East [Tournament] feeling pretty good, knowing that we should have beat the No. 4 team in the nation and best team in our conference,” Milliken said. “We just know that a lot of teams aren’t going to want to see us again.”