Creighton men’s basketball let another game on the road slip away Friday, falling to Providence 91-88 at Amica Mutual Pavilion after building a double-digit lead in the first half.
A Creighton drought allowed the Friars to cut the deficit to one at halftime, then another in the second half dug the Bluejays too deep of a hole to climb out of down the stretch.
“I think the game started just like I hoped it would,” Coach Greg McDermott said. “I thought we were making really good decisions with the basketball. I thought the quality of shot we were getting at that point was really good. Defensively, we forced them into some things that we wanted to force them into. And then then we got casual. We got up 10, and had a chance, really, to create some separation, and just foolish turnovers, some quick shots, some blown assignments defensively, and then some missed block outs on the other end gave them some energy to have some momentum. And obviously we didn’t start the start the second half very well.”
Here are three takeaways from the loss.
Foul Trouble Creates Big Swings
Both teams had to deal with significant foul trouble to key players.
The Friars, already down the Big East’s leading scorer in point guard Jason Edwards, saw their second-leading scorer in shooting guard Jaylin Sellers foul out with four points (0-of-7 from the field) in just 18 minutes. Three other Friars — all key players — finished the game with four fouls. Providence finished with 24 fouls, while the Bluejays shot 24-of-29 from the foul line. Credit goes to Kim English’s squad for navigating the foul trouble to secure the victory.
On the other hand, Creighton didn’t handle it so well. The Bluejays’ droughts can be traced directly back to key players checking out with foul trouble.
Nik Graves played a big part in Creighton taking the 10-point lead. He hit his first three shots, including a pair of pump-fake, side-dribble 3s during an 8-0 Creighton run that put the Bluejays ahead 24-14.
Five minutes later and with Creighton up 36-28, Graves picked up his second foul and sat for the rest of the half. Austin Swartz converted a layup on the next possession to push the lead back to 10, but the Bluejays missed six of their last seven shots in the half. Josh Dix picked up his second foul at the 1:46 mark, and McDermott opted to roll point guard-less with Swartz and Fedor Žugić in the backcourt the rest of the way.
Swartz, coming off the best game of his career, couldn’t get anything to go against the Friars. That layup was his only field goal of the game, and he went 0-for-5 during that 1-for-7 finish to the half.
It got worse in the second half as Dix picked up his fourth foul at the 13:37 mark. The free throws for the foul gave Providence a 61-57 lead. By the time Dix checked back in less than four minutes later, the Bluejays trailed 71-57.
Dix made an immediate impact upon his return, sparking a 10-3 run while recording a rebound, an assist, a steal, a pair of free throws and a 3-pointer in a 75-second span. However, the 14-point deficit proved too much to overcome.
Creighton outscored Providence by seven in Dix’s 33 minutes on the court, but the time he spent on the bench was costly.
“Too much time,” McDermott told 1620 the Zone after the game. “He’s too important to us on both ends of the floor. We were trying to get to the 10-minute mark if we could, but that stretch when he was on the bench, obviously, was damaging to us.”
Friday was just the second time in his collegiate career that he hit the four-foul mark. He had only fouled more than twice one time in his first 18 games as a Bluejay. That Dix got into foul trouble for the first time on a night when Creighton couldn’t rely on Swartz (1-of-13 from the field, 0-of-8 from 3) was too much for a team operating with a small margin for error.
Creighton entered the game with the third-lowest opponent free-throw rate in the country, but the Friars’ 35 free-throw attempts are nearly double the previous season high for a Creighton opponent (20, by Nebraska and Marquette). Creighton committed 23 fouls, four more then its previous season high. After missing half their free throws in the first half, the Friars went 19-for-23 after halftime.
“I feel like we if we just played our way, it wouldn’t even have affected our game,” Blake Harper said of the officiating. “And that’s one thing that I’m really just upset about. Everybody’s upset about the refs, but I feel like if we just played our way, the refs couldn’t even impact the game. I just didn’t like the way we came out in the second half. I felt like that set the tone for the whole game. I thought we let the officials take control of the game and this is what happens.”
McDermott said that after the great start, there were too many one- or no-pass possessions, too many challenged shots and too many attempts to draw foul calls the road team typically isn’t going to get. Creighton assisted on five of its first seven field goals, then only recorded two more assists the rest of the first half.
Career Game for Jasen Green Not Enough
Tuesday’s win over Georgetown was a tough night for Jasen Green. He battled foul trouble all night and labored through the shoulder injury he’s been dealing with. The result was six points on 3-of-7 shooting, two rebounds and one assist in 21 minutes.
Green made up for all the time he spent on the bench against the Hoyas with a career-high 26 points on 8-of-10 from the field and 9-of-11 from the foul line, plus seven rebounds, four assists, a steal, a block and just one turnover in 35 minutes. Creighton won his minutes by five.
He was in the right place at the right time throughout, capitalizing on great passes from his teammates and forcing the Friars to foul him eight times in the game. He also went to work in the post and knocked down his only 3-point attempt, a great sign after he struggled to even get the ball all the way to the rim from distance against the Hoyas. His four assists put an extra 11 points on the board as well, giving him a hand in 42% of the team’s points. McDermott called his performance “outstanding.”
Adding injury to insult, late in the game, with the Jays down by eight, Green secured an offensive rebound but twisted his ankle on the way down, drawing a foul. He checked out without shooting the free throws in clear pain, though he was able to check back in for the final possession.
“I think he just tweaked the ankle,” McDermott said. “We just brought him in to throw that in-bounds pass had they missed the free throws. He was really good tonight. He’s really important to us, and hopefully after a day or two, he’ll be fine.”
Dix finished with 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting (3-of-6 from 3), two steals, two assists and no turnovers. Harper added 16 points, eight rebounds, four assists, one steal and one turnover in 26 minutes off the bench, shooting 2-of-4 from deep and 6-of-7 from the line. Graves added 13 points on 5-of-10 from the field (2-of-5 from 3) and 1-of-2 from the line, but he only dished out two assists while turning the ball over three times.
Kerem Konan handled the limited back-up center minutes during Green’s brief stints on the bench. Owen Freeman did nor play in the game.
Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Game
So far this season, Providence hasn’t been a team that dominates the possession battle. The Friars turn the ball over slightly more than it turns its opponents over (a 15.4% rate versus 14.6%) and they give up more offensive rebounds than they corral (a 29.9% rate compared to a 32.1% rate for their opponents). Providence ranked 321st in forcing turnovers and 231st in preventing offensive rebounds before Friday.
Creighton lost points off extra possessions 41-26 Friday night.
Both teams only turned the ball over 10 times, but Providence converted their takeaways into 17 points while Creighton only scored 12. Add some tough shots that left the floor unbalanced to the live-ball turnovers and Creighton gave Providence too many transition opportunities (18-14 Providence edge in fast break points). Jamier Jones (18 points) and Ryan Mela (14 points) were particularly dangerous in the open floor.
“The game got kind of crazy, and I think that’s how they want it,” McDermott said. “We took some quick shots with no passes or one pass, and that’s not how we play. The first half, I thought, at least the first 10, 12, minutes of game, I thought the ball to moved better for us than it did the second half.”
Creighton was active on the offensive glass early, looking to take advantage of that weakness for the Friars. They corralled 34.1% of their misses, turning 14 offensive rebounds into 16 second-chance points. Harper grabbed five himself, leading to a put-back of his own miss, an assist to Jasen Green for a dunk and two trips to the foul line (Green split a pair and Harper went 2-for-2).
However, Providence rebounded 44.2% of its misses, turning 19 caroms into 24 points. One-time Creighton recruiting target Oswin Erhunmwunse, a 6-foot-10 sophomore who came off the bench for just the second time this season and played 23 minutes, grabbed nine offensive rebounds by himself, finishing with 13 overall to go with his 14 points.
Midway through the second half, McDermott decided to switch to a 2-3 zone — and it worked. The Friars made just three of their last 13 shots from the field with two live-ball turnovers. The zone allowed Creighton to whittle the once 14-point deficit down to four with just over a minute to play. However, the downside of a zone is it makes it more difficult to find a body once a shot goes up, and Providence grabbed seven offensive rebounds in the final nine minutes.
“Oswin killed us on the offensive glass,” McDermott said. “The price you pay for playing small and playing that zone, but had we not gone to the zone, the game was going to get out of hand in a hurry. The zone, I thought, stagnated them a little bit and got us some stops, got us a couple steals and out in transition. Unfortunately, we missed some rebounding assignments during that stretch.”
In its first seven Big East games, Creighton had only allowed a 28.5% offensive rebounding rate, good for third in the conference. Providence had only grabbed 29% of its own misses in league play (tied for seventh). Erhunmwunse almost singlehandedly swung that, however, and it was too much for the Bluejays to overcome.
