No. 2 UConn shot the lights out to take down Creighton men’s basketball 85-58 on Saturday in a pink-clad CHI Health Center Omaha.
The Bluejays played the Huskies to a draw through 15 and a half minutes, but UConn hit Creighton with a 14-3 run to end the half and take a double-digit lead into the locker room. In the second half, UConn shot 8-of-16 from 3 while Creighton went 0-for-11, turning the game into a blowout.
The Huskies shot 16-for-31 (51.6%) from 3 overall and 54.1% from the field with four players scoring in double-figures as freshman sharp-shooter Braylon Mullins led the way with 16 points. Creighton shot 40.9%, including 5-of-21 from deep.
“UConn is terrific, especially when they shoot the basketball like that,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “With Mullins back, he just provides so much spacing to their team because he’s got incredible range, gets it off really quick. It was just one of those nights where they were all making shots … I thought for 15, 17 minutes, we played the way we wanted to play. The game was kind of where we needed it to be in terms of the pace of it. That run at the end of the first half obviously hurt us, and then they came out of the locker room and were able to extend it right away.
“There’s a reason they’re ranked No. 2 in the country; that’s a that’s a heck of a basketball team.”
Official attendance for the annual Pink Out game was 18,650, the eighth-largest crowd in program history. The student section filled up soon after doors opened, with plenty stuck in standing room only areas.
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
Lineup Shakeup
Greg McDermott made the dramatic move to completely change up his starting lineup in early December, inserting Ty Davis, Austin Swartz and Isaac Traudt into the lineup while moving Nik Graves, Blake Harper and Owen Freeman to the bench.
The move produced good results initially, but with Creighton’s recent struggles, McDermott shook things up again against UConn. He went back to Graves at the point and Harper at the four in place of Davis and Traudt, and those two responded in a big way.
“Some of it was matchup driven,” McDermott said of the move. “Blake has probably been, per minute played one, of our best rebounders, and we knew we were going to need some rebounding help against them. Nik’s pace and ability to get into the paint and be quick in transition. I think Ty’s done a good job, and that Isaac was doing a good job. I just felt like was probably time to mix it up, and as you heard them say, that they don’t care. Fans make a bigger deal out of starting lineups than we do in the locker room. Everybody needs to do their job, whatever that job may be, on that particular night.”
Graves put the team on his back to keep the Jays in it through much of the first half. He made his first five shots including three triples (two off the dribble) and a tough turnaround in the lane. His last bucket tied it up at 27-all, giving him nearly half the team’s total at that point.
“Really just trying to set a tone early,” Graves said. “Obviously, this game means a lot for a lot of people, just all the families coming here to support us and the whole community coming to the game to support one message. Honestly, I was able to hit a few shots, but really just trying to play hard and play for something bigger today.”
The game got away from the Jays from there, but Graves finished with a game-high 17 points while only missing once. He added four free throws and two assists to his early flurry of buckets and only turned the ball over once in 29 minutes.
Harper went right through his defender on Creighton’s first possession for a bucket to open the scoring then flexed for the camera. He grabbed a couple contested rebounds early and brought an overall level of physicality to the lineup that the Jays really needed, drawing four fouls and going 5-of-6 from the free-throw line in the game. He finished second on the team with 11 points and led the team with five rebounds in 25 minutes.
“Making sure I prepare for the game the same, make sure nothing changes,” Harper said of his mindset as a starter. “At the same time, I feel like my teammates got me. It was a pretty bumpy road, I would say, for me, but I just want to thank my teammates for all that.”
Too Good for Two Looks
When I asked McDermott about cracking UConn’s top-five defense, the first thing he said was the Jays needed to rebound. He was talking about generating transition offense to prevent the UConn defense from getting set in the halfcourt, but it turns out rebounding in general was the biggest key to the game.
The Huskies shot the ball at a pretty high clip, but the Bluejays’ first-shot defense was better than it had been recently. Unfortunately, too often the Huskies got two cracks at it, and they’re just too good to give that many opportunities.
“That’s literally like word for word what Mac was talking about before the game, drilling into our heads about getting the possession and forcing a missed shot, and they got to do it all again for a shot-clock reset,” Harper said. “It’s just frustrating to hear our coach talk about that in the locker room, and then we come out and do the exact opposite. But UConn’s a tough team; you’ve got to give them props.”
At the half, UConn held an 11-point lead and was plus-11 in second-chance points. The Huskies finished the game with 13 offensive rebounds, and they scored on 10 of them. Following offensive rebounds, the Huskies shot 9-of-10 from the field (4-of-5 from 3) and 1-of-2 from the foul line for 23 second-chance points. UConn didn’t miss following a rebound until its final shot, and the only other stops came on a pair of turnovers.
“I think a lot of time Jasen [Green] or Owen [Freeman] was forced into a help situation, and now Tarris [Reed Jr.] is running free, and we’re trying to tag him with someone that’s not big enough or strong enough to tag him,” McDermott said. “And then a lot of them just got tipped and we weren’t able to come up with them.”
UConn grabbed 13 rebounds on 31 misses, a 41.9% offensive rebounding rate. That’s far too high against a team shooting as well as the Huskies were.
More than a Game
Harper said he knew there’d be emotions for Josh Dix and himself heading into the Pink Out, but the moment hit him harder than he expected in the locker room before the game as he thought about his late mother, Linda. Harper wore her name on the back of his shooting shirt during warmups.
“I feel like I wasn’t even focused on basketball for the first part,” Harper said. “I just felt like there was a lot going on in my head, thinking about my pops and just how everybody is affected by this one thing, and how that brings a lot of people together. I feel like the guys helped me. I had a little moment in the locker room. Coach Mac picked my head up. That’s why I came here to Creighton. That’s what I came here for, just for the guys to pick me up, the brotherhood. We’re all we got. Like Coach said in the locker, we’ve got to stick together …
“Really never in my life have I had teammates that I just met, like in June, talking to me like we’ve known each other our whole life. That’s really what I took from tonight and for our team and just sticking together throughout the game as well. I feel like that that’s going to keep us going.”
Harper’s dad, Byron, made the trip from Washington D.C. to Omaha for the Pink Out, and Blake said it was special to have him in the building with him.
“I’m an only child, so small family — just me and my pops and my mom, bro,” Harper said. “My pops has been supporting me through thick and thin, when as a 17-year-old, you’ve got to turn into a man. Just having him take the trip, and from where we started with this basketball stuff to, shoot, all the way to Omaha, Nebraska, it’s a testament to our journey together. That’s my guy, and I appreciate him for everything.”
The Pink Out is something Creighton does bigger and better than anywhere else in the country because of McDermott and the others in the community who have taken his vision and made it a reality. That more than 18,000 people showed up during a season in which the team isn’t on track to make the NCAA Tournament is a testament to how much the day means to the fan base,
“Cancer impacts everybody,” the head coach said. We all know someone that’s going on that journey. Some have beat it, some have lost the battle, some are going through it right now. We started the Pink Out 21 years ago, I think, when Theresa was diagnosed, when we were at UNI, and then carried it to Iowa State, and then it took on a life of its own here because of the community. There was a group of people that formed a committee that made this the gold standard of this type of event in the country. This was the first time where I had a couple guys in the locker room that have been impacted to the level that they have.”
News of what the Bluejays were dealing with reached the opposite locker room as well as Coach Dan Hurley opened his post-game statement with his appreciation for the opportunity to be a part of a special cause.
“For me, just to participate in the Pink Out and having a chance to talk to big Mac a couple days ago and how breast cancer has impacted so many people and so many people in the Creighton family and Creighton basketball family,” Hurley said. “Prayers to a couple of guys who have either lost family members or have family members going through it. It was an honor to be a part of this game here from that standpoint.”
McDermott said he made the choice in the locker room to address Harper and Dix’s situations head on and to tell them how proud Linda would be of Blake and how proud Kelly Dix, who is currently battling cancer, is of Josh. Despite all this team’s struggles and the frustration McDermott has had with the group, what happened in the locker room after he addressed Harper and Dix is what makes this year’s team a “fun group to coach” for McDermott.
“They’re fun to be around,” he said. “We have our warts, we certainly do, and we’re still growing, we’re still developing. But what transpired in that locker room for the game was pretty special, and it speaks to the people that raised those 16 guys in our locker room. They came from a pretty good place, because the way they rallied around their teammate in there, that’s what you want Creighton to stand for.”
