After letting DePaul hang around for a half, No. 17 Creighton men’s basketball put the Blue Demons away in the second half for an 85-62 victory Saturday night.
“Another amazing crowd, amazing Pink Out,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “Everything was good except for our play in the first half. But we fixed it and especially, I think, we paid better attention to detail defensively to start that second half and were able to create some separation.”
Here are three takeaways from the game.
Bluejay Backcourt Takeover
In the first meeting between the two teams, DePaul had no answers for Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner. The 7-footer had 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting in just 23 minutes.
The Jays opened game two with a set to get Kalkbrenner a deep touch, but he blew the bunny and missed the tip in, which somewhat set the tone for the half. Kalkbrenner shot 2-for-7 from the field and ran into some foul trouble that limited him to 13 minutes. He went 7-for-8 from the foul line to still hit double figures, but Creighton’s offense looked anything but smooth in the first half.
The Jays held a three-point lead at halftime, and DePaul opened the second half with a dunk as Kalkbrenner got buried under the rim and didn’t want to give his third foul so early.
With Kalkbrenner and the overall offense somewhat out of rhythm, the backcourt took over. Trey Alexander and Steven Ashworth combined to score Creighton’s first 19 points of the second half to open a 16-point lead, and the Jays continued to roll from there. Baylor Scheierman and Kalkbrenner joined the scoring party after that as Creighton used a 26-4 run in total to extend the one-point lead out to 23 mid-way through the half.
“We moved the ball a lot better in the second half as well,” Alexander said. “I think there was a lot more movement on the on the offensive end, and then after that dunk, I think they only scored on two their next 15 possessions. So I think it was big for us to see a couple stops, and then I think that led to our offense and we were able to get in transition after that. So it was a lot of great movement in the second half and I think that we did a very good job of getting in transition of stops.”
Steven Ashworth shoots the ball over a DePaul defender at Creighton’s annual Pink Out. Photo by Eric Francis
As the guards picked apart the DePaul defense from all three levels, it softened things up for Kalkbrenner who made his last five shots, three of which were dunks.
Alexander led Creighton with a game-high 23 points on 50% shooting, despite a 2-for-8 line from deep, and added seven assists with just one turnover. Ashworth tied his season-high with five made 3-pointers (on nine attempts) and added a pair of technical free throws to finish with 17 points.
“Coach Mac’s great at underneath out-of-bounds and I got two of my first few [3s] out of underneath out-of-bounds plays that we’ve practiced,” Ashworth said. “We watched the film and saw that we might be able to get some good looks there, and so when you see the first few go down, I think that your confidence is always there and then in the second half, I think it was Trey that found me on all three of them. When you’ve got guys that can get into the paint and make guys collapse and then just myself outside on the perimeter making sure that I’m finding windows, I think that I did a good job with that in the second half and was able to knock them down.”
Kalkbrenner finished with 22 points and 10 rebounds, surpassing 1,500 career points in the process. He’s the 14th player in program history to hit that milestone. Scheierman notched his own double-double with 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting (4-of-7 from 3) and 10 rebounds, eclipsing 1,000 rebounds for his career.
In the first half, Creighton was just 4-of-8 on layups and didn’t have a dunk (compared to DePaul’s 8-of-11). The Jays went 7-8 at the rim in the second half while holding the Blue Demons to 6-for-11. Add in seven second-half 3s (12 in all compared to three for DePaul) and the Blue Demons couldn’t keep up.
More than a Game
Saturday was the program’s annual Creighton vs. Cancer Pink Out, and the fans showed out despite the last-place opponent.
Announced attendance was 18,571, the ninth-largest crowd in program history, with most of the fans decked out in pink.
For Ashworth, who experienced his first Pink Out on Saturday, it hit really close to home as his family won the bid for his jersey to put his sister-in-law’s name on his shooting shirt.
Baylor Scheierman signs autographs after Creighton’s win against DePaul. Photo by Eric Francis
“It was amazing,” Ashworth said. “It was special to be able to just experience that. For me and my family, it hits close to home. I didn’t know that they were going to have everybody’s name up there around, and so obviously before starting lineups were called, to see my sister-in-law’s name on the left who’s a cancer survivor, and then my uncle who passed away last year from a brain tumor, to see his name, it was just something that was special to be able to remember that as a basketball player, you’re always playing for something bigger than yourself.
“But to be able to remember those that you love most while playing a game like this, it was something super special and Creighton and the entire atmosphere and the entire culture does a great job of putting on an event like this to fight that good fight.”
McDermott spoke extensively post-game about the American Cancer Society Hope Lodge, the recipient of donations raised as part of the Pink Out. In addition to raising money, the Pink Out is also about raising awareness of cancer and the need for screening, which McDermott highlighted as well.
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the importance of screening and early detection in the fight against cancer, and that’s part of the reason that this is such a great event and such a powerful event,” McDermott said. “You hope that a few people that maybe have let it slide go ahead and get those get those checkups … I’ve said it before and it said it leading up to this game, what this community does and how they have supported this has been absolutely incredible.
“And you heard Steven, every one of our guys has been impacted by it some way. So it’s very powerful for them and what they’re doing on the floor right now, meeting these families, they put the name on the back of that shooting shirt because there’s a story behind that name. Some of the stories there was a happy ending and unfortunately some of them there weren’t, but as I told the guys, ask what that story is, because that’s why those people bought those, put the name on that jersey, paid to put the name on the jersey, because they want to tell the story. They want to tell the story of someone that was so courageous and fought this awful disease and was able to win and live a healthy life, and then there’s some that didn’t, and they want to tell those stories. So it still amazes me. I get goosebumps when I walk through that tunnel every time.”
Right Back in the Hunt
With the win, Creighton (16-5) takes sole possession of second place in the Big East at the midway point with a 7-3 record, a good place to be after starting in a 0-2 hole. UConn is two games ahead in the loss column, but there’s still plenty of basketball to go and the Jays will get the Huskies in their building on Feb. 20.
Creighton went 7-1 in January with the only loss coming in Storrs against the top-ranked Huskies, and now the Bluejays will get a break as the Jays don’t play again until Butler visits CHI Health Center Omaha on Friday.
“We’ve had a great month of January and I think we can keep building off of it,” Alexander said. “I think that after this recovery period that we have we just have to continue to build and even be more locked in going into February because we know that we have some big games coming up … Everybody needs a break right now, just to kind of sit and reflect and then be able to watch a little bit of film. We haven’t really had a period of time where we could just be away from the game for a little bit and be able to just live our normal student-athlete lives.”
With five days before the Jays have to return to the court, McDermott said he’s going to give the team a couple of days off, an opportunity they haven’t had since the Christmas break.
“It’s been a grind, and I think you heard Trey speak to it,” McDermott said. “Mentally, they just need a little bit of a break. Fortunately, the group gets along really well and they like being around each other … I just think a little bit of a reset is good. I think it’s good for the coaches as well. We can kind of take a step back and watch some film of ourselves from a different lens and not be so worried about the next game. We started 0-2 in the league, and our backs were against the wall, and in the month of January, we were able to dig our way out of that and had some tough games on the road during that stretch. Unfortunately, February is not going to be easy; there are no easy games left on the schedule.”
