In what Villanova head coach Jay Wright described as his team’s best defensive performance of the season, the 16th-ranked Wildcats held Creighton’s three-pronged perimeter attack of Ty-Shon Alexander, Mitch Ballock, and Marcus Zegarowski to 9-for-30 shooting from the field — including 1-for-10 from beyond the arc — and stayed within striking distance long enough to finally land the game-changing counter punches on offense down the stretch of a 64-59 win at the CHI Health Center Omaha on Tuesday night.
Creighton took a 52-44 lead with 8:21 to play after an old-fashioned 3-point play by sophomore forward Christian Bishop, but Villanova’s defense tightened its grip and held the Bluejays to just seven points on the final 13 possessions of the game, forcing nine misses on 11 shots, to close the game on a 20-7 run and earn a win in a game that they trailed for nearly 35 straight minutes.
“That’s what we do,” Villanova junior point guard Collin Gillespie said. “That’s Villanova basketball. Coming into an opponent’s arena, just staying 94 by 50 feet with your brothers and your coaches knowing that there are going to be ups and downs throughout the game and they’re going to go on runs, but just battling for a full 40 minutes. I think we did a pretty good job of that today.
“We got down early, but we battled back and stole it in the end.”
Christian Bishop had one of his best nights as a Bluejay, but it wasn’t enough to offset the other Bluejays (Juszyk / WBR)
If what the reigning Big East champs pulled off in front of a sold-out crowd of 17,682 was considered a heist, then Gillespie was the man with the plan. The Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania native scored a game-high 24 points on 8-of-10 shooting, hauled in seven rebounds at 6-foot-3, and only turned the ball over one time in 39 minutes on the floor.
More than what he did, it was when he did it. Gillespie was a freshman on Villanova’s national championship team two years ago. He was the starting point guard last year when they won the regular season and conference tournament title despite losing three starters and their top reserve to the NBA from that aforementioned group that went all the way. He’s well-versed in both how to extinguish a fire and how to start one of his own, and that was on display against Creighton. He hit his first 3-pointer of the night to answer the 11-3 run that Creighton went on over the first 6:55. His second and third pulled the Wildcats (11-3, 2-1 Big East) within 10 after the Bluejays had rattled off a 13-2 run to extend their lead to 14 points with 6:29 left in the opening half. His fourth and final triple gave his team a 55-54 lead with 3:39 to go, his second of two assists on the night led to Saddiq Bey’s 3-pointer with 2:47 to go that gave Villanova the lead for good, his mid-range jumper with 2:03 on the clock made it a three-point game, he knocked down two of his four free throws to make it a five-point game with less than 10 seconds remaining, and he grabbed six of his seven rebounds over the final 5:16 to ensure that Creighton possessions went one and done down the stretch. Big plays in big moments.
“He’s a killer,” Wright said. “He’s a Villanova guard and he’s an absolute assassin. We were going to call a timeout if we had to get him a rest, but I wasn’t taking him out.”
Damien Jefferson also stepped up for the Bluejays in the loss (Juszyk / WBR)
In a 65-possession game that was largely dictated on Villanova’s terms in regards to pace, the Bluejays in the end made too many mistakes to put enough distance between themselves and a team that is comfortable being uncomfortable. After trailing by as much as 14 in the first half and 10 in the second, the Wildcats scored eight points off turnovers while only giving it away twice after halftime. They scored 10 of their 14 second-chance points on the night over the course of the final 20 minutes with six of those coming late in the game, including the last two with under 20 seconds to go after Creighton had forced a missed three from junior forward Jermaine Samuels while trailing 60-57. Freshman center Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, who grabbed a game-high 14 rebounds despite dealing with foul trouble, secured the crucial extra opportunity along the baseline and forced Creighton to commit five fouls and burn five more seconds of the clock in the process in order to put Villanova into the bonus.
A pair of free throws by Bishop — who led the Bluejays in scoring with 16 and rebounding with nine in 26 minutes — extended the lead to 47-37 with 11:08 to go, Villanova went on to convert on 70.6% of their remaining possessions while only turning the ball over one time the rest of the game.
“Villanova’s never been a team to beat themselves and they still aren’t,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “It’s like death by paper cut after paper cut after paper cut and finally you bleed to death. It’s just very methodical and hard to guard.”
While Villanova’s playmakers eventually took the game over with ruthless efficiency late in the game, it hitched a ride on the shoulders of its defense to get to that point. After all, Creighton held a 14-point lead with 6:29 left in the first half after holding Villanova to just 10 points and 4-of-20 shooting on the first 20 possessions. The Bluejays couldn’t ever effectively pull away with a timely three-point barrage because of Villanova’s length and versatility on the perimeter, which limited CU to just five attempts from beyond the arc in the first half before holding them to 1-of-9 from deep in the second stanza. At times Creighton rushed some threes, and at other times they were too hesitant to put them up, but rarely was Villanova not there doing there part to break rhythm, especially on Creighton’s best long-range shooters.
“They executed their game plan,” Creighton junior guard Mitch Ballock said. “They played on top of us and took away our strengths. It was tough to get open looks. Every time we’d come off a screen a guy was hedging hard and a guy was trailing hard.
“When you can switch everything you can take away open shots. When you can switch five ways it’s really difficult to get good looks because you can stay on top of guys and make everything go to the rim. That’s what they did.”
Creighton’s second loss in a row drops their overall record on the season to 12-4, while their mark in league play falls to 1-2. They’ll now go on the road for their next two, starting with Xavier on Saturday, January 11 before heading to Georgetown on Wednesday, January 15.