Greensboro, N.C. — The Creighton Bluejays needed all 40 minutes to secure their first NCAA tournament victory in 10 years and tie the school record for wins in a single season.
Junior guard Josh Jones blanketed Alabama guard Trevor Releford and forced a missed game winning 3-pointer with one second on the clock. Sophomore forward Doug McDermott corralled the rebound, which gave the Jays a victory by the score of 58-57.
“This is a terrific win for our program,” head coach Greg McDermott said. “Here we beat Alabama at their own game. I would not have guessed that we could win a game at 58-57. I thought we were going to need to be in the 70s and get the tempo in our favor the entire game.”
Creighton was down by as many 11 points in the second half before battling back and eventually took the lead for good on a layup by Doug McDermott. He would finish the game with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
Greg McDermott credits Josh Jones and the bench as two big reasons why the Jays came away with the victory.
“If you want to point to one thing as to why we won the game it’s our bench,” McDermott said. Our bench outscores their’s 18 to 6. We get big baskets from [Ethan] Wragge, Austin [Chatman] gives us quality minutes, and [Avery] Dingman gave us good minutes in the first half, and then of course Josh [Jones] was outstanding down the stretch.”
“The thing about Josh, when he goes into the game, something’s going to happen. Sometimes it’s going to be good and sometimes it might not be, but something is definitely going to happen.”
Creighton’s offense is usually the story of any game they play, but this game was about defense. The Jays changed their normal defensive strategy by implementing a 2-3 zone against Alabama’s usually poor outside shooting team. This kept Alabama’s forwards in check and forced the Tide to shoot 3-pointers, which they only shoot at a clip of 28 percent on the season.
The Jays got out to a strong start and opened the game scoring seven of the first nine points. Doug McDermott had two buckets in the first two and half minutes and sophomore forward Ethan Wragge added two 3-pointers to add to the Jays good shooting start. Those would be Wragge’s only points of the half however, as he missed his next three attempts.
Alabama put on its own shooting performance though, shooting 47.8 percent from the field in the first half and 44.4 percent from beyond the arc. Trevor Lacey finished with 12 points on 4-4 shooting in the first half. Behind this performance the Tide went into halftime with a seven-point lead.
Creighton shot only 34.6 percent from the field and 38.5 percent from 3-pointers. Young, the Jays’ second leading scoring, only fired one shot in the first half and that was the first shot of the game.
The Jays came out sluggish in the second half and were down by a score of 36-25 with 17:33 remaining. CU would eventually get things going though and went on a 12-1 run to pull even with the Tide. Junior guard Grant Gibbs sparked the offensive run by putting up six of the 12 points. Gibbs finished the game with 10 points, six rebounds and four assists.
“[Alabama] came off to a good start, got us down 11 right off the get-go,” Doug McDermott said. “And then as the half went on, we fell into a 2-3 zone and were getting some stops and got some good looks offensively and got it inside.”
Alabama wouldn’t concede however, and would pull back ahead by seven points with a little over eight minutes left in the game.
It was right after this that Creighton played one of the better stretches of their season. Jones would score all seven of his points to help Creighton go out up 14 unanswered points and held the Tide scoreless for almost six straight minutes.
As usual though Alabama kept on fighting and took advantage of Creighton only going 1-6 on free throws down the stretch. The Tide brought the game within one point with 19 seconds left, but Creighton’s defense held strong and forced an air ball.
“You’ve got to give Creighton credit; they made the plays that had to make to put themselves in position,” Alabama head coach Anthony Grant said.
Creighton fared well against Alabama’s stingy defense and only committed seven turnovers compared to 14 assists. The 58 points were the second lowest for a game by the Jays this season and the lowest in a win in the NCAA tournament since 1941.
The Jays face an entirely different team on Sunday as they are set to face the University of North Carolina Tarheels. The Tarheels are a high scoring team like the Jays and rank second in the nation in points per game. Game time has yet to be announced.