Last time at Bob Devaney Sports Center
Creighton 64, Nebraska 42
Some may miss the Bob Devaney Center for Nebraska basketball. Know that I’m not one of them.
Let’s just say the evening didn’t start off that great; upon arriving in Lincoln we went to Brewsky’s at 27th & Husker Highway, but discovered it’s not the place to go before a game. We waited an hour and a half for food that never came, but at least we got some free drinks out of the deal before we belatedly headed over to the Devaney Center on an empty stomach.
The picture up above was one that I took on my phone as my cousin and I took our seats, just minutes before the Bluejays took on the Huskers on Thursday night. I tweeted out this picture to our White & Blue Review Twitter account and settled in for what I thought might be an interesting game. This was the fifth time we’ve gone together to this game in Lincoln, and other than the game in ’04 when Kellen Miliner hit the shot to get the last victory for the Bluejays in this building, this facility has not been favorable for the Jays. The hype all day was making me skeptical that this night could have a happier ending for Creighton.
The odor of stale tobacco still permeates the Devaney from years of smoking inside the arena (ironic since it was tobacco taxes that built the building in the first place) and as the National Anthem was sung, my phone went from Verizon 4G service to absolutely nothing. My cousin didn’t have service either. I knew that ESPN3 wanted this game exclusively, but this was ridiculous. Throughout the game, it stayed that way, except for a very small window at halftime. Here’s the funny part: as we walked out the door after the final buzzer sounded, I magically got service again. It almost makes you wonder whether a conspiracy is afoot and the Verizon cell towers were turned down during the game.
I bring this up because as we went farther into the game, I thought it was odd that we had not seen Josh Jones hit the court yet. I scanned the sidelines and I didn’t even see him on the bench. My mind went racing, trying to figure out where he was and what was happening. Not having service, I couldn’t hit the airwaves of Twitter to get some sort of explanation, especially since our dinner-that-wasn’t caused us to arrive in the parking lot closer to gametime than we’d have liked, meaning while I heard Nick Bahe on the radio pregame mentioning how this was a great kind of game for players like Jones, I didn’t hear the rest of the story. Namely, I had no idea he had “blacked out” before the game and was at the local hospital.
Since I’ve digressed this far, maybe I should talk about the game. For the first 10 to 12 minutes of the first half, the game looked very similar to games in year’s past in Lincoln. Doug McDermott got an easy basket on a great pass out of a double-team by Gregory Echenique to start things off, but Nebraska’s big man, Andre Almeida, scored right away and then down at the other end of the court, blocked an Echenique shot. After that, both teams were having trouble hitting baskets, the game got pretty sloppy and, at the under 8 minute timeout, the game was a robust 14-8. I was just sure we were headed for another game of “First team to 50 wins.”
Fortunately, the Bluejays started to look a little more comfortable as the half went along, and they slowly began to build some distance between themselves and the Huskers, eventually getting a nine-point lead off of a spectacular ally-oop dunk by Echenique from Grant Gibbs. The lob looked almost too high at first, but Gregory grabbed it out of nowhere and threw it down. It was the spark the Jays needed, and they went in to halftime with a 28-17 lead. It also displayed which big man was more effective in the long run.
Over the first 20 minutes, the biggest complaint from my cousin (the Husker fan) was the officiating. Boy, was he in for a surprise.
Food was on the agenda — finally — at halftime, and my cousin and I stuffed down a slice of Valentino’s pizza while Champions-Forever provided halftime entertainment. We were ready to see what would happen in the second half. Remember that thundering ally-oop dunk that Echenique had in the first half? Well, the Bluejays ran that same play again to start the second half and Echinique threw it down once again. From our seats, we saw Nebraska coach Tim Miles look at Almeida and say “Really?”
Shortly after that, things really started getting chippy when Doug McDermott drove into the lane and jumped in the air without taking a shot, had the ball deflected, grabbed the ball back, landed on his feet and put in a layup. Although it looked like an apparent traveling call, no whistles blew and the pro-Husker portion of the arena went nuts. Miles followed suit, a bad idea with a referee crew of Tom Eades, Mark Whitehead and Scott Thornley because those gentleman have really short fuses. The next thing we know, Miles gets called for a technical. It was a big swing (similar to the game in Omaha last season when Doc Sadler got T’d up in a close game) as McDermott hit the free throws to put the Jays up 15 points early in the second half. They never looked back.
The Creighton defense was all over Nebraska all night and really limited the Husker shot selection. They held Nebraska to 32% shooting for the game and effectively shut down Ray Gallegos, who had been on fire the previous two games for the Huskers. One play epitomized the defensive effort: late in the second half, Avery Dingman poked the ball away from a Nebraska player and there was a scramble between him and Nebraska’s Mike Peltz for the ball. It resulted in a big scuffle between both teams at halfcourt, and the referees called a jump ball. Despite the call, the scrum continued — it got a little rough as the referees were trying to separate both teams and pull an aggressive Peltz away from the pile. After the events that went down just minutes before with Miles technical, it was really surprising that nothing else was assessed against either team after breaking up the pileup.
That bit of drama was a bit of a last gasp for Nebraska, as they slowly faded the rest of the way. The Bluejays shooting percentage shot up in the second half as Creighton kept hitting shots, while Nebraska kept on missing. Before you knew it, Creighton walked out of the building with a 22 point win, 64-42, and they said goodbye to the Bob Devaney Sports Center with a win, and bragging rights for another season.
McDermott had his fifth consecutive games of scoring 20 points or more, checking in with 27. Echenique had a huge night with a double-double (12 points, 12 rebounds), and Grant Gibbs had 10 assists, 5 points and 5 rebounds.
Creighton returns to the court on Sunday at the CenturyLink Center against the Akron Zips. Tip-off is at 1:05 for that one.