Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and Creighton men’s basketball was a little of both on Tuesday night as the Bluejays escaped with an 86-83 overtime win over Georgetown.
The fans that stuck around until the end saw a buzzer-beating game-winner for Georgetown come off the board after a review determined — by the smallest of margins — that the ball was still touching Langston Love’s fingers as time expired. That gave Creighton (11-7, 5-2 Big East), who had rallied from a seven-point deficit in the final two minutes, another five to take control, and that’s what the Jays did on Fan Appreciation Night at CHI Health Center Omaha.
“Wow, just a crazy, crazy game,” Coach Greg McDermott. “Over the course of season, you have games where you don’t understand how you lost, and then you have some games like tonight where you’re trying to figure out how the heck you won. But I’m really proud of the guys for sticking with it.”
Here are three takeaways from the game.
The Pivotal Moments
For most of the night, the Hoyas did what they wanted offensively. They finished the game shooting 56.9% from the field and scored 50 points in the paint. Creighton went bucket-for-bucket through the first 10 minutes, but a four-and-a-half-minute scoring drought allowed Georgetown to create some separation.
The Hoyas scored 10 straight points to take a 32-22 lead with six minutes to play in the first half, and a feeling of déjà vu likely washed over the Creighton fans who had been in the building to witness their team fall apart in the last 10 minutes of the first half against St. John’s on Saturday. This sequel followed a different script, however.
Nik Graves tipped in his own miss to end the drought and stem the bleeding, though Georgetown quickly answered with a bucket inside from 7-footer Julius Halaifonua to push the lead back to 10. After three straight misses, Creighton finally displayed the toughness it took to get back in the game.
Austin Swartz anticipated a pass to a cutting Hoya and deflected it, then dove on the floor when he couldn’t control it initially. The ball eventually popped free and Isaac Traudt ran up from halfcourt and dove on it himself, ripping it away before trying to get the ball out to another Bluejay. From there, Graves flew in to keep the ball from going out of bounds then pushed it up the floor. The Bluejays eventually found Kerem Konan inside with a mismatch for an easy two.
Austin Swartz (1) and Jasen Green (0) high five against Georgetown. Photo by Brandon Tiedemann.
Georgetown point guard Malik Mack hit a step-back jumper on the next possession, but that proved to be the Hoyas’ last bucket of the half. The Bluejays picked up their intensity level on defense and forced three turnovers and two misses over the final three minutes. Those stops jump-started the offense as well as Creighton ended the half on a 12-0 run featuring a 3 from Swartz, a “one more” pass from Swartz to Josh Dix in the corner for his own triple, a three-point play at the rim from Graves and another Swartz 3 to cap it.
McDermott said that run loomed large, and Swartz agreed.
“It was huge, just being able to come into halftime with the lead,” Swartz said. “It was arguable that we didn’t play well enough to deserve that lead, but we were playing a really good team. There’s nothing more important than late-game execution and two-minute execution at the end of the half. I think that gave us a little bit of confidence, just going in the half knowing we didn’t play our best ball, but still being up two, and then I thought we started off the second half pretty well, at least on offense.”
Creighton led 38-36 at halftime then extended the lead to six with two more 3s from Swartz in the first two minutes of the second half. However, the defensive effectiveness from the final stretch of the first half didn’t carry over to the second.
In fact, Creighton allowed Georgetown to score at least one point on 16 consecutive possessions. The Hoyas went nearly 13 minutes without an empty possession, shooting 11-of-16 from the field (2-of-4 from 3) and 7-of-10 from the free-throw line with five offensive rebounds.
By the time the scoring streak the run came to an end, the six-point lead had turned into a three-point deficit, which grew to seven as the Hoyas scored on three of their next four possessions as well.
“We talk about next play all the time, and we preach it, preach it, preach it,” McDermott said. “But they scored 16 possessions in a row in the second half, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been part of a game where that’s happened and we won. Fortunately, we were matching them. They didn’t create much separation during that stretch. But they had some guys play really well tonight. They had some guys shoot at a level they haven’t shot the ball.”
The teams traded buckets on the next two possessions as the clock dropped below the two-minute mark, meaning Creighton would have to do something it hadn’t done the entire half: string together stops.
First, Graves attacked the paint and fed Jasen Green for a layup, then Dix anticipated Mack trying to get the ball to his big man rolling and deflected the pass to Green, who threw it ahead to Dix for the dunk with just over a minute to play that triggered a Georgetown timeout.
“Jasen made a huge play on the top of the floor and then threw it ahead to Josh for the dunk,” McDermott said. “Jasen, his activity wasn’t the same as it usually is, and as you can see, he’s having a hard time lifting that arm above his shoulder to go get rebounds. That was a huge play in the game, and it gave us an opportunity to set up our defense and at least have a chance to tie it at the end.”
Out of the timeout, Georgetown got the ball to Love at the top of the key, isolated on Graves. The senior point guard slid his feet well enough to stay in front then leaped vertically to challenge the shot as Love sought to initiate contact. He didn’t get the call and Green secured the rebound, giving the Jays a chance to tie the game with a 3-pointer.
That’s exactly what they did with 18 seconds left (more on that in the next section), leaving the Jays needing one more stop. Without a timeout remaining, Georgetown in-bounded the ball to Mack and he looked to make a play, isolating on Dix. He drove middle, spun back to the outside and drew a double-team as Swartz left Love to trap Mack with less than two seconds to go. Without a window to get a shot off, Mack lobbed the ball to the suddenly open Love, who caught it and redirected it into the basket as time expired.
The officials called the shot good on the court before immediately calling for a review, leaving the remaining crowd and both teams sitting on pins and needles.
“Panic, at least for myself,” Swartz said of his feelings in the moment. “There was not a lot of words being said. Geoff [Groselle] does the iPad in the back, so he was trying to figure out was it good, was it not? We were able to get the angle of it wasn’t good, so everybody was able to breathe when he showed that angle of it. But for about a minute-30 it was a little scary. For a second, my heart dropped.”
The officials eventually saw what the Bluejays did on that iPad (though Georgetown Coach Ed Cooley questioned the ruling after the game) and waved the bucket off, sending it to overtime.
“It’s a game of inches sometimes, and we won by a tenth of a second … They wave off a basket that was on his fingertip,” McDermott said. “The next frame it was off; it was that close. So sometimes you’ve got to be a little fortunate as well, and we were.”
The teams traded buckets in overtime until Swartz gave Creighton the lead with 30 seconds to play. Georgetown called a timeout and McDermott subbed Fedor Žugić in for Swartz on defense. KJ Lewis, Georgetown’s leading scorer on the season, isolated on the Montenegrin wing and drove. However, Žugić slid his feet well enough that Lewis had to push off to create separation. He didn’t draw the offensive foul, but Lewis lost the ball out of bounds as he was trying to gather it to get the shot off.
Dix split a pair of free throws to make it a three-point game and Georgetown called its last timeout in the frontcourt with 5.5 to go. The Hoyas had Lewis throw it in to Halaifonua then follow it for a handoff, but Blake Harper executed the switch onto Lewis and kept his feet planted while throwing his arms straight up in the air, forcing an air-ball on the 3.
Graves, Žugić and Harper — three guys who haven’t necessarily been known for their defense — all made solid, disciplined plays down the stretch to help the Bluejays escape when stops were few and far between.
Swartz’s Spectacular Shot-making
I wanted to draw attention to the defensive plays first, but the star of the show offensively was undoubtedly Swartz. After scoring just five points on 2-of-6 shooting against St. John’s on Saturday, the sophomore guard exploded for 33 points against the Hoyas. He shot 12-of-16 from the field including 8-of-12 from deep and sank his only free throw.
“It was great,” Swartz said. “When all you see is the rim, that’s one of the best feelings you can have. But even more important is we got the win, and my teammates were able to set me up for some easy shots to get me going early, and I was just able to keep that throughout the game also with the help of my team. They were still finding me in transition. Nik did a great job, and Ty [Davis] did a great job pushing the ball up the court, playing with pace, just getting some easy ones and all I saw was the rim.”
Swartz scored nine in the first half, 17 in the second (including Creighton’s first 11) and seven of the team’s 10 in overtime (including stealing the tip, which they talked about in the huddle, and turning it into a three-point play).
When they needed a 3 to tie it at the end of regulation, McDermott ran the play for Swartz, initially looking to run him off a flare to the corner after in-bounding the ball. However, Caleb Williams switched out to him to take away the look.
“Coach Mac drew up a great play just for me to come off,” Swartz said. “The original look wasn’t there. I believe Jasen kind of set me a ball screen, and I had it, and they kind of messed up the switch or whatever, so I just kind of bounced it. I knew we needed a 3, so I just got my toes behind the line and let it go.”
AUSTIN. SWARTZ. WE'VE GOT MORE BASKETBALL IN OMAHA.#GoJays pic.twitter.com/DhBHmZOBti
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) January 14, 2026
Of course, he buried it. As he said, all he could see was the rim, and at that point, it probably looked like an ocean to him.
Swartz also delivered the final go-ahead bucket with 30 seconds to go in overtime, and it wasn’t an easy one. Halaifanua initially contained him coming off a ball screen and forced him to pick the ball up as Lewis recovered to him, but Swartz turned the lemon of a possession into lemonade.
Silky smooth under pressure 😮💨#GoJays // 📺 Peacock pic.twitter.com/oDAqNmyXeM
— Creighton Men’s Basketball (@BluejayMBB) January 14, 2026
“I was just trying to make a play,” Swartz said. “Someone set the ball screen, I pump faked, saw him jump, so just a little runner, floater, kind of pull-up. I’m not going to say I work on that specifically, but I do work on my touch in the mid-range a lot. So just being confident, and like I said, all I saw was the rim.”
The 33 points tops his previous high of 27 he set at Xavier in Creighton’s Big East opener. He’s just the seventh Bluejay since 1996-97 to hit at least eight 3-pointers in a game, joining the likes of Mitch Ballock (twice), Kyle Korver (twice), Ethan Wragge, Ryan Hawkins, Isaiah Zierden and Terrell Taylor.
Holding Their Own
Green has done a terrific job avoiding foul trouble since taking over as Creighton’s starting center, despite being undersized. Georgetown presents a formidable challenge with a pair of productive 7-footers, however, and Green picked up two fouls in the first five minutes of the game.
He sat the rest of the half, and McDermott turned to Kerem Konan as the first big off the bench instead of Owen Freeman. The first-year forward from Turkey was ready for the moment. His first stint lasted just over five minutes, and the Jays won that stretch 10-9.
“I just thought the six or seven minutes he played against St. John’s at the end, I saw some confidence,” McDermott said. “I saw maybe a better understanding of what we’re trying to do, and his ability to execute it. As you can see, his English is a lot better than our Turkish, but the language is still a problem. When you’re communicating on the fly, or you’re trying to yell something from the bench to the court, he may or may not understand it, and so it’s on us to do a better job to make sure he understands. But sometimes those things on the fly, they’re hard to stop and explain, so his teammates have to do a good job of making sure he understands what’s coming next.”
Kerem Konan looks to the sideline against Georgetown. Photo by Brandon Tiedemann.
Konan checked back in and played the last six minutes and change of the first half, helping Creighton close on a big run, then he played two more stints in the second half, including another early one after Green picked up his third foul just over two and a half minutes in.
“I was ready to play when I got to the court, so I gave my everything,” Konan said. “I know what to do on the court.”
He scored six points, converting all three of his shots, drew two fouls and grabbed one rebound in a career-high 18 minutes as the Bluejays went plus-11 with him on the floor. The most impressive play he made was bodying 7-foot-1, 257-pound Georgetown center Vince Iwuchukwu out of the way before scoring inside during his third stint.
Konan’s mother, Duduşen, was in the building for the game and sat in during his post-game press conference. As McDermott said, she picked a good one.
Though McDermott went to Konan first, Freeman still got a stint in each half as well, playing just over six minutes. He grabbed four rebounds (two on each end), converted a put-back plus a foul for a three-point play and logged a couple of one-on-one stops on Iwuchuwku inside, including swatting one of his attempts.
“Coach Cooley saw blood in the water with Jasen Green’s injury, and just pounded, pounded, pounded with those two bigs, and those two bigs are really, really talented,” McDermott said. “So fortunately, I thought Kerem and Owen had a great stretch in the second half that they were able to play pretty well on a night when Jasen was having a hard time going.”
Green’s health will be something to monitor for the foreseeable future, but Konan’s growth is an encouraging sign as the Jays will need both him and Freeman to contribute to navigate the rest of Big East play.
That starts with a trip to Providence for a Friday tipoff.
