When you go through life, there are times that you get lucky. Some have more luck than others. In a long season of college basketball, there is bound to be a little luck in a couple of the wins along the way. Wednesday night, the Creighton Bluejays had luck on their side in their 66-65 victory over Missouri State.
Creighton was lucky in the first half when as the Bears only shot 34.2% from the field despite the 11 turnovers and allowing Missouri State to grab 10 offensive rebounds. They were lucky that along with the 14 points to go along with the turnovers that Missouri State was only up by four at the half.
The good turns continued in the second half. Missouri State again turned their attention to stopping Doug McDermott with the success they had from the game in Omaha. It worked for the most part as McDermott was limited to only five points in the second half, at times barely even getting a touch of the ball. Freshman point guard Austin Chatman played some very important minutes during that second half, using his speed to keep the Bears a little off-balanced. Combined with Antoine Young, the duo had 9 assists and one turnover.
Then in the final 25 seconds of the game, the Bluejays were able to bounce back on a Grant Gibbs turnover to hold off Kyle Weems who missed on a game winning shot, suffered through missed free throw opportunities by McDermott at the free throw line and Watched the final :04 in slow motion to see the potential game winning shot from Anthony Downing just miss from 16 feet.
Despite that being just hard nosed game play, there had to be a little bit of luck in that, right?
As my son and I were hovered over the computer watching the game unfold in the final minutes, I caught myself thinking about a game at Missouri State back in 2007-08 season. The Bluejays escaped Springfield that evening with a 50-49 win. The Bears were held that evening to only four field goals in the first half, Creighton had 22 turnovers and gave Missouri State 13 points off of turnovers in the second half. The game’s final 10 seconds had Creighton’s Josh Dotzler missing a three-pointer with a one point lead and Missouri State’s Spencer Laurie taking the ball up the court and just missing a shot at the end similar to Downing’s. The Jays had a little luck that night too.
However, on Wednesday night, this win was a total team effort. Coach Greg McDermott has talked about how he has wanted to get Austin Chatman, Avery Dingman and Will Artino more minutes in these games. He was successful in that tonight. Artino came in during the first half and had some success down low. Dingman nailed a three-pointer against his home town crowd and got some minutes later in the second half. But Chatman was the one that made the biggest impact.
Chatman was the one that helped get some offense going in the second half. With Grant Gibbs suffering a bit from foul trouble, it was Chatman who was able to get to the free throw line to give Creighton a one point lead with about nine minutes to go. After Gibbs went to the bench with his fourth foul, Chatman was able to find McDermott for a three-pointer. His four rebounds, four points and three assists may not look like much on the stat line, but was the difference tonight for the Bluejays to win.
As much as Missouri State worked to stop McDermott, it continued to create opportunities for Gibbs and Gregory Echenique. Echenique led the Bluejays with 16 points including 6-of-6 from the line. In conference play, Echenique has been 26-of-33 from the charity stripe after starting struggling a bit during the non-conference season. He continues to be dominant in the paint with a game high seven rebounds. Gibbs, on the other hand, decided to score in the second half like he has in the second half of a couple previous games. Gibbs scored all 9 of his points in the second half and played only 24 minutes.
This game was important not only because of the conference race, but also to get a six game losing streak to Missouri State off the table. Winning on the road is always big. Creighton has not started 4-0 on the road in conference play since 1945 until Wednesday’s win. This continues to be a special year for this basketball team and it was just their night to have things go their way.
Creighton now heads back to Omaha to prepare for Indiana State on Saturday afternoon. With losses by #11 Conneticutt and #13 Indiana on Wednesday night, the Bluejays have a great opportunity to move up in the rankings with another win on Saturday. It will be a full house at the CenturyLink Center.