Creighton men’s basketball dropped its third straight game Saturday as Providence spoiled the Bluejays’ senior night, 79-76.
Creighton has lost nine of its last 11 and falls to 14-16 overall, including 8-11 in Big East play.
Here are three takeaways from a game that looked all too familiar.
Sad Senior Send Off
Creighton only has two seniors on its roster in Josh Dix and Nik Graves, and both of them have only been in the program for less than a year. However, with everything Dix has gone through this season — and with his teammates there supporting him through it — it feels wrong to see the game end the way it did.
“I really feel bad for these two,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “I wanted this game for them. It’s been well documented what Josh has endured this season, and I know he and Nik and their girlfriends spent a lot of time together. I know what Nik has done as a support system for Josh, and you would hope the basketball gods would reward that, but they didn’t today. It’s not because we’re not trying, it’s not because we’re not connected. We do make a lot of mistakes that we shoot ourselves in the foot, and good teams can’t do that, because as we’ve talked about, a lot of our games have been decided by a possession or so.
“I’m disappointed for these two, because I really wanted them to go out on a high note on this floor, but they’ve got absolutely nothing to be ashamed by. They’ve represented the name on the front of their jersey like many of the other seniors that have come before them.”
Dix got a tough look off from deep that would have tied the game in the final 10 seconds, and the storybook ending would have been for that shot to fall. It did not, which has been the case for him far more often this season than ever before in his career. Even so, Saturday was one of his better offensive games as a Bluejay as he finished with 18 points on 6-of-12 from the field (4-of-8 from 3) in 36 minutes. While the final shot didn’t go down for him, a handful of other big ones did that fired up the crowd, including a two-handed slam that gave the Jays the lead midway through the second half.
“It meant a lot,” Dix said. “The fan support has been unreal all year long. It’s not like that everywhere you go. They’ve been with us all year long, and playing one more game in here with Nik and my teammates meant a lot.”
Graves struggled from the field but found his way to the foul line plenty to finish with 10 points and six assists in 35 minutes. Creighton outscored the Friars by six with him on the floor, the best plus/minus on the team.
“For me, this has all been a dream come true,” Graves said. “A lot of people, a lot of kids where I’m from don’t get the opportunity to representing represent a university like Creighton and play for a great coach like Coach Mac. Just to be able to wear it one more time in front of Omaha and all the home fans, it sucks that it’s the last time, but it’s been a heck of a ride.”
Now more than ever, with the transient nature of so many players across the country, it’s difficult for fans to learn about and connect with players to the same degree as in the past when so many more players spent their whole career with one program. Fans aren’t likely to remember these one-and-done seniors for what they accomplished on the court during a forgettable season.
However, as rough as this season has been at times, things could have been much worse without some big-time moments and performances from them as well as consistent effort attacking what proved to be a seemingly impossible task transitioning from the Ryan Kalkbrenner era with so many newcomers.
“I’d hate to think where we’d be without them,” McDermott said. “I’ve said this before, we’ve had transfers come in, guys for one year, some for two, but most of those guys were surrounded by guys that have been in our program, and so they didn’t have to come in and necessarily lead from the jump. These guys are trying to figure out our offense, our defense, the names of their teammates, you had all that going on and they’ve done it with a smile on their face. They’ve embraced it.
“Josh, with everything he was going through, you’d have never known it at practice, you’d never known it in the locker room, because he was a rock for those guys, and showed up and went to work and obviously proved how important his teammates and this program and this university are to him. They’ve been absolutely a thrill to coach. They really have, and they’ll be guys I’ll be in touch with the rest of my life.”
If there’s one thing I hope Creighton fans take aways from this season, it’s the perseverance and professionalism Dix showed through the darkest time in his young life. Graves called his fellow senior an inspiration.
“Everything he’s been through and to come here every day and still show up and have a straight face all the time and just be the person that he is, it’s been really inspiring,” Graves said. “All I can do for him is just to support him, and he’s become probably one of my best friends. Just to be on the court with him and make a bond the way that I think we made a bond off the court, it goes for the rest of the team as well. We’re just one family, and I’ll have all these guys in my wedding.”
Saturday was certainly the final home game for Dix and Graves. Whether or not that’s the case for their head coach is still up in the air. McDermott has been mum about his future and how long he plans to continue coaching all season long, and he deflected the question again after Saturday’s game.
Instead, he turned the focus to the fans and expressed his appreciation — as he has at the end of the home schedule every year he’s been at Creighton.
“Josh said it, there aren’t a lot of places like this — 17,100 in here today with the season that we’ve had, I think, speaks to how special our fan base is,” McDermott said. “I heard [Dan Hurley] from UConn say something the other day, and I mentioned it at my luncheon yesterday, about talking about some of the UConn fans after they lost us, they’re jumping off the bridge and the team’s no good, and then they beat St. John’s and now they’re booking rooms at the Final Four. He talked about some fans are only fans when you’re winning. Those aren’t true basketball fans. Creighton has true basketball fans, because 16 years now for me, and thick and thin, they’ve been here, good times and bad times.
“Obviously, the first year in the Big East was incredible, but the next year was tough, and they were here and they supported us. Obviously, we’ve had a great run of late, and we haven’t been quite as good this year, but they haven’t stopped showing up, they haven’t stopped supporting these guys. The support for Josh from our community and our campus community during a difficult time in his life is what makes this place this place. I echo what Josh and Nik said, that this doesn’t happen everywhere. I’ll never forget, 0-8 in the Big East playing Butler at 8 o’clock on a Tuesday night, and there’s 18,000 people here in 2015. That just doesn’t happen. So we appreciate our fans so much.”
Winning is a Habit
As McDermott said, 30 games into the season, the Bluejays are still making mistakes that good teams don’t make, and on Saturday, it cost them dearly.
Creighton addressed a lot of the areas that cost it the game at Providence earlier this season. The Bluejays earned a slight edge in second-chance points, and the points off turnovers battle was a draw. The Bluejays kept the Friar frontcourt of Oswin Erhunmwunse and Jamier Jones in check after they combined for 32 points and 24 rebounds in the first meeting.
However, that wasn’t enough to swing the game because Creighton simply hasn’t built winning habits. For all the things the Jays do well, this group gives it back in other areas.
Saturday’s game including 13 ties and nine lead changes. However, Creighton only led for 2:48 of game time, and its largest lead was two. Every time Creighton made a push, Providence answered because the Bluejays couldn’t lock in enough to string together buckets and stops in key stretches.
The best example of Creighton’s inability to do the little things necessary to win came on its final defensive possession.
The Jays made a late rally to cut a six-point deficit to one in the final minute. Providence had the ball out of its final timeout with a nine-second differential between game and shot clock. All Creighton needed was one stop, and the entire playbook would be available to go for the win on the other end.
Jaylin Sellers, the star of the game for Providence, dribbled the clock down to 10 seconds then ran a pick-and-roll with Erhunmwunse peeling Dix off him. Jasen Green tried to switch onto him but was just a bit late with his hedge, and Sellers managed to turn the corner and get past him. Fedor Žugić, in for that defensive possession, was waiting for him in help, but when Sellers jump-stopped and threw a slight ball fake, Žugić — who has made tremendous strides this season as a defender — left his feet on the fake instead of holding his ground, allowing Sellers to step through for the easy layup to push the lead back to three.
In the biggest moment, Creighton simply couldn’t do the little things well — and biting on pump fakes had been a problem all game long.
The Friars shot 50.8% from the field and scored 40 points in the paint. After the Bluejays held the Big East’s second-leading scorer in Sellers to four points and 0-for-7 from the field in the first meeting, he went off for 27 points on 11-for-18 from the field including 5-of-8 from 3. Dix — who has been the one constant on defense for the Jays all season — shouldered the blame for his big game, but it certainly wasn’t all his fault. Defensive lapses and execution mistakes were prevalent team wide.
During their senior day addresses, both Graves and Dix said they still believe this team can make a run to end the season. What’s it going to take to make that happen?
“I think it’s going to take a lot of consistency,” Dix said. “We talked in the locker room about discipline and just coming to work every day playing selfless, like we have all year, but locking in on some of those small details that we need to be more disciplined on, especially on the defensive end and on the glass.”
Bluejay Bench Provides Big Boost
One area in which Creighton had a big edge was depth. Providence was without three of its top eight scorers, including freshman Stefan Vaaks who had lit Creighton up for 24 points in the first meeting. Coach Kim English’s seventh and eighth man on Saturday had only played in about half the team’s games going in, and English leaned heavily on his starters with three players logging more than 34 minutes.
The Creighton bench outscored its Providence counterpart 33-6 to keep the Jays in the game. The star of the unit — and perhaps the most encouraging thing to come out of Saturday’s game moving forward — was Austin Swartz, who matched Dix for team-high honors with 18 points.
He only hit one of his six 3-point attempts but he was terrific inside the arc, scoring both at the rim and from the mid-range to shoot 50% overall. The highlight of his night was a two-handed flush on an alley-oop pass from Green, showing bounce we hadn’t see from the 6-foot-4 sophomore guard since suffering the foot injury that has limited him in practice and cost him a game recently. He also grabbed seven rebounds, tied with Green for the team lead.
“I think he’s feeling better from a health standpoint, so that’s good,” McDermott said. “He’s been able to practice more, and he gave us a nice lift there tonight.”
Blake Harper (six points, six rebounds and plus-5 in 19 minutes), Kerem Konan (four points and three boards in 12 minutes with Owen Freeman sidelined again) and Hudson Greer (five points in 10 minutes) each had their moments as well.
Creighton will need all the firepower it can get moving forward if the Bluejays want to extend their season. Saturday’s loss was costly as the fourth seed in the Big East Tournament is out of reach and Creighton no longer can lock up the fifth seed (the last bye into the second day of the tournament) on its own. As of Saturday night, there are six teams between 10 and 12 losses, with varying numbers of games remaining.
“We’re not done,” McDermott said. “We’re going to go to Butler and give it our best shot. Like I told the team, we would love to not have to play in the play-in game in New York, and we probably need a little help, take care of Butler ourselves, and then a little help somewhere to make that happen. But whenever we play, whoever we play, we’re going to show up, we’re going to be ready, and we’re going to give it everything we have.”
