Key Stats: Creighton goes 11-17 from the free throw line and blows a nine-point lead in a loss to Ole Miss. CU goes 16 minutes without a field goal against Middle Tennessee, yet finds a way to win by 10. That’s the entire trip boiled down to two sentences.
Favorite Moment: The Emerald Coast Classic was one of the only holiday tournaments without TV coverage, and the only one with power conference teams among its’ field to not have televised games before the championship. A free webcast was provided, but it wasn’t exactly ESPN3 quality — it was more like ESPN20. Half-frame rate video. Audio commentary that I could have sworn came from this guy. And that was on Friday night, when it mostly worked. Saturday night, it mostly didn’t, which made the halftime feature touting the technology behind their webcast really funny to me. It was amusing enough when they were talking in some detail about how exciting it was to have a webcast because it’s “something new to college basketball” (because, you know, it’s not), but then as they were describing what went into providing the webcast…it cut out. Eventually, the picture came back, but the sound never did.
In hindsight, it was a perfect metaphor for another frustrating Florida trip.
Quick Recap | Ole Miss 75, Creighton 68:
Friday night against Ole Miss, the Jays shot reasonably well in the first half as they built a 37-31 lead, making 7-17 from behind the arc (41%) and 11-24 overall (45%). They got 12 points on a trio of three pointers from Isaiah Zierden. They got nine points and five assists from Austin Chatman, and nine points with an assist from Devin Brooks. Defensively, they held Ole Miss to a very similar 11-26 from the field, and outrebounded them 16-12. The lead was just six, though, because they committed nine turnovers. When their defense failed them in the second half, those missed opportunities to build a bigger cushion proved costly.
Statistically, Creighton shot nearly as well in the second half as they did in the first, going 11-26 overall and 6-14 from three-point range. Watching the game (well, attempting to anyway), it didn’t seem that way. Mostly, that was because it was clear they needed to be better than that to keep up; Ole Miss was red-hot, scorching the Jays’ defense to the tune of 63% from the field, a very uncharacteristic 4-7 from three point range, and an excellent 12-13 from the free throw line. CU shot well enough to win if they’d played even passable defense, but in playing their worst defense of the young season, they needed to shoot much better than they did to outscore the Rebels. They didn’t.
Even still, they clung to a two-point lead as late as the 2:11 mark before Ole Miss closed the game on a 10-3 run. During the deciding stretch, Ole Miss was perfect from the field and 7-8 from the free-throw line, while the Jays missed their free throws and missed all but one of their field goal attempts. The veteran Rebels converted under the pressure of a close game, while the Jays got tight.
It was an extremely frustrating loss, because it was a game you could honestly say the Jays should have won. They led for nearly 27 minutes of game time, built a lead as large as nine points, shot reasonably well, and managed to out-rebound a team whose strength lies on the glass. Their defense was atrocious in the second half, their execution in the final two minutes was poor, and the result was a demoralizing 75-68 loss.
The loss was the Jays’ seventh-straight in the state of Florida, adding to the misery of the 1999 NCAA Tournament loss to Maryland, a blowout NIT loss at Florida in 2007 and a three-game sweep in the 2009 Old Spice Classic. More relevant to this particular group, they’d won 40 straight games when leading with 5:00 left, and had won 37 in a row when leading at halftime. This was the first time they’d blown either a halftime lead or a late-game lead in nearly two years. Demoralizing loss? Yeah.
Quotables:
“In the first half, we defended well enough to win, but we turned it over and that kept us from getting the separation we probably could have gotten. Then in the second half, we took better care of the ball, but defensively we weren’t on point. They took advantage of some size advantages they had, particularly in the guard court. We had a hard time guarding them man-to-man, so we switched to a zone and White hit a big three. Then we switched to a triangle-and-two, and Newby hit the big three when we were trying to take White and Summers out of it.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“The bottom line is they made big threes and made big free throws when the game was on the line. We had a couple of good looks at threes that we missed, and we missed our free throws when the game was on the line. In a close game like that, that’s what it comes down to.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“They provided a lot of help in transition defense to try to plug up the middle of the lane, and they did a better job of getting to Zierden during that late stretch. They’re a good defensive team, they have a lot of length and a lot of size across the guard court, and they have some guys that can protect the rim inside. My fear was that they’d come out of their shooting slump, and obviously they shot it much better tonight against us.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“A lot of our mistakes were casual, self-inflicted mistakes. When you see that length and that athleticism, you need to slow yourself down and make sure your positioning on the court is where it needs to be. We got sped up a few times, and that’s exactly what they were trying to do. When we took our time and made the extra pass, and attacked their pressure, we got wide-open shots. We were able to build that nine-point lead as a result of that. That was disappointing that we allowed them to play the game the way they wanted to play it.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
“We can’t allow this loss to turn into more than what it is. It’s one loss against a pretty good basketball team. Middle Tennessee lost today, too, and they’re feeling a lot like we are. They’ll be hungry, and ready to come back and play a day from now. We’ve got to tee it up in about 19 hours, so we don’t have very long to feel sorry for ourselves.” -Coach Greg McDermott in postgame press conference
Quick Recap | Creighton 57, Middle Tennessee 47:
As Coach Mac alluded to, the question then became whether they’d allow Ole Miss to beat them twice, and carry over the frustration to Saturday’s matchup with Middle Tennessee. Arguably, that happened last year out in California, where a tough loss to San Diego State was followed up by an inexplicable loss to George Washington.
In this one, at least initially, it appeared the answer was a resounding NO. Creighton busted out of the gate on fire, making 14-23 from the field and 4-7 from three-point range, with everyone chipping in. Chatman and Zieden had six points apiece, Hegner, Artino and Milliken had five each, Avery Dingman had three, and Brooks, Rick Kreklow, and Zach Hanson had two points each. They turned it over just twice, won the battle of rebounds 15-13, made their free throws, and combined with a nice defensive effort in holding MTSU to 26% shooting, the Jays built a commanding 36-15 lead at the break.
Then…the second half came. Oh, the second half. Creighton made three total field goals, and went over SIXTEEN MINUTES between made baskets. I’m sure there have been longer stretches of offensive ineptitude, but I can’t remember any, at least not since the Rick Johnson Era. Thing was, Middle Tennessee was scarcely any better — the Jays had a 23-point lead at the start of the drought, and still led by nine when they finally made a basket 16 minutes later.
Here’s how bad it was: Artino made a bucket at the 19:45 mark to give the Jays the lead at 38-15. Their next field goal came at the 3:45 mark when Zierden rattled home a three-pointer. In between, there was sixteen minutes of missed shots, one empty possession after another, with half of the possessions ending with a turnover before they could even attempt a shot. Thankfully, much as they had in the first half of the Oklahoma game when shots weren’t falling, the Jays figured out a way to get to the line and convert. They made 14-16 from the line in the second half, and used their 21-point halftime lead as a cushion to survive a historically-bad shooting effort.
That’s what happens when you don’t really have one player separate themselves as the leading scorer, a rock that can be relied on for a basket when things get tough. For four years, that player was Doug McDermott. Before him, there was a long line of Bluejays who could be counted on to create offense when everything else bogged down — from Rodney Buford to Kyle Korver to Nate Funk. Who is that guy on this team? When your team misses four or five straight, who can you defer to and count on to take the ball and make a play? Until they figure that out, stretches like we saw in the second half (though hopefully not quite as dramatic) will happen.
Quotables:
“The ankle is feeling really good. Two days ago was the first time I’d run in three weeks. I was a little nervous last night, I wasn’t sure how it would go, and I was about a half-step slow. Tonight I felt a lot better. Huge improvement today, I felt really good, and it was just really good to be out there with my teammates.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame
“There’s absolutely no way I could have returned as quick as I did without the new facilities at the Championship Center. We had all of the icing stuff at the Old Gym, but the underwater treadmill at the new place is huge. I could run on the underwater treadmill like a week after the injury. I was able to rehab on that for two weeks of the three weeks I was out.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame
“During that 16-minute stretch without a basket, the biggest thing we stressed was taking care of the ball. We had six turnovers in the first nine possessions. It’s tough to win a game doing that, so fortunately we jumped out of the game well so we had a bit of a cushion. Our main concern was taking care of the basketball. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a team go 16 minutes without a field goal. It was unreal. We battled through it, I thought our defense was really good, and it was a good win.” -Avery Dingman on 1620AM Postgame
“Obviously, that 16-minute stretch is not how we draw stuff up (laughs). But sometimes that happens. What we talked about was, sometimes that’s going to happen. But we put ourselves in a position to be able to survive 16 minutes of basketball without a basket with the way we came out in the first half.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame
“Before the game, we talked about how last year we lost that semifinal game to San Diego State — a close game that we felt like we probably should have won. We talked about not coming out and letting one game turn into two games. About not letting a team like George Washington or Middle Tennessee get you. We just couldn’t let one loss turn into two. That’s what motivated us. We’ve got such a big week coming up — we go at Tulsa and at Nebraska, and both of those are potential NCAA Tournament teams. This was the start of it, and we needed a win.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame
“We applaud our fans. Every tournament we go to, we always have the most fans. From Vegas to California last year to this year in Florida, we notice that. We played against Middle Tennessee today and there was no Middle Tennessee fans. It was all Creighton fans in here. We applaud our fans for traveling so well and we’re so grateful for that. It’s tough coming into these dead atmosphere gyms, but it makes it so much easier knowing that we have our fans with us. It was so quiet in here tonight that all you could hear was Creighton fans. That makes it so much easier to play.” -Will Artino on 1620AM Postgame
“I’ve never, never, never, ever coached a game where we went 16 minutes between field goals (laughs). You know, we turned it over eight of the first 17 possessions, and it was a low-possession game to start with because of the way they were playing. When you turn it over half the time, it’s tough to score. Fortunately, our defense was good enough during that stretch to hold them off. You can make up a 20-point deficit in a hurry if something like that happens, so our defense was good enough to keep it at 15-16 points and hold them at bay.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We had some tired guys. We rode Devin and Austin and Z pretty hard on Friday, and when you turn around and do it again 19 hours later, it’s tough. I have to keep reminding myself that these guys haven’t been in this position before. Nobody’s played more than 10 minutes a game, this is all new to them — back to back games at the college level, none of these guys have ever done it before, at these kind of minutes. There’s going to be a learning curve.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“I’m disappointed we didn’t execute the way we’re capable of. We had the 21-point lead, and then I felt like we played not to lose instead of playing to win. It was like we came out and said, ‘Lets run a good possession, lets not make a mistake.’ Then the more we tried not to make mistakes, the more mistakes we made because we lost our edge and lost our aggressiveness. I’m just happy to get out of here 1-1.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“We talked last night and this morning as a staff about how this group was going to react. I felt it even before tonight’s game, so I finally just said it out loud — ‘Hey, I get it, we’re all ticked off. We led that thing for 38 minutes and somehow we let it slip through our hands. None of us want to be playing right now. I get that. But you find out a lot about who you are when times are tough. You can sit there and feel sorry for yourself or you can do something about it.’ I thought our guys really competed that first half. They flew around defensively. They made some things tough for Middle Tennessee. We held them to 15 points, which is a great, great half of basketball. The ball moved on offense for us, and we were making simple plays, no turnovers, a lot of assists, so I was really pleased.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame
“There’s going to be peaks and valleys with this team for a while. I know our fans and frankly myself would like to see that seven-minute stretch we had against Oklahoma all the time. But the reality of it is, we’re not there yet. We’re going to continue to develop.” -Coach Greg McDermott on 1620AM Postgame