The Creighton men’s basketball team has made the NCAA Tournament each of the last three years, and each of the last three years the Creighton University Department of Journalism, Media & Computing has sent Creightonian writers to cover the Jays.
I was fortunate enough to be one of those writers the last two years (the other being columnist and now minor Twitter celebrity Matt Bourgault). So thank you to – in my completely objective opinion – the best department on Creighton’s campus. I’d also like to give a special thank you to Nichole Jelinek for all of her hard work in putting together this trip for us.
Now, with the thank yous out of the way, let’s dive into this year’s highlights from the second and third rounds in San Antonio.
We were there to cover Creighton, obviously, but our press passes also got us prime seats (you may have seen myself or Matt and his “Boosie is free” sign on TruTV on Friday) for some really great games and some amazing performances.
We saw six games at the AT&T Center and they ranged from “aaaaaahhhhhh this is awesome!” to pure depression.
The best game we saw was the Sunday evening face-off between Iowa State and North Carolina. The end was a bit confusing due to clock error (a theme from the weekend), but the Cyclones staged a furious rally to pull off a last second 85-83 win (more on this later).
Second on my list was the other North Carolina game, where the Tar Heels used last-second free throws to beat Providence 79-77, spoiling a phenomenal performance by Bryce Cotton (also more on this later).
Third, we have Creighton’s 76-66 win over Louisiana. We got to see Dougie McBuckets doing his thing, clutch Wraggebombs from Ethan Wragge and Austin Chatman coming into his own. On the other side, Louisiana had a pair of studs in Elfrid Payton and Shawn Long (again, more later).
Fourth is the 93-75 clinic Iowa State out on against the other North Carolina, of the Central variety. The Eagles made it fun and competitive in the first half with their drive and kick and drive and kick and shoot offense, but the Cyclones blew them away in the second half to tie Michigan State for the most points scored in the tournament so far.
Fifth by default was the Nebraska-Baylor debacle. Official Karl Hess was the star of the game, Tim Miles got ejected after a shot clock error, neither team could hit a jumper and Baylor shot 48 free throws. Yuck.
Last was Creighton-Baylor (I promise no more on this).
Now, on to less soul-crushing topics. We saw some great games and some terrific players, but three moments stood out among the rest. We will go in reverse order this time because I want to keep you on your toes.
In third place on my top moments list, we have the performance of Iowa State senior guard DeAndre Kane and the closing minutes of the Cyclones’ win over North Carolina. Iowa State was down eight – its largest deficit of the game – with 4:23 remaining and the Tar Heels were using their size advantage to pound the ball inside and run out the clock.
However, Iowa State did what they do best and started bombing away from deep, using an 8-0 run to tie it up. After the teams traded buckets over the last two minutes, Iowa State had possession with 15 seconds left. They put the ball into their senior playmaker’s hands and cleared it out for him to go to the rack. He did so and dropped in the game-winning layup.
“It was a little isolation for me to try to attack the basket,” Kane said about the final play. “If any guys were going to help me, I was going to try to kick it out to one of my teammates. But nobody helped, and I made an acrobatic shot and it went in. Give a lot of credit to Coach. He drew up a great play for me to finish the game at the end.”
Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State’s coach, threw the credit right back to Kane.
“You put it in the player’s hands that you trust the most, and it certainly paid off the most for us tonight,” Hoiberg said.
Kane finished with 24 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. He looked like a grown man playing amongst boys (seriously, though, he’s older than Grant Gibbs).
Second among the great performances was the Dougie McBuckets show against Louisiana. Shot weren’t falling for the Jays early, but there was no way Doug McDermott was going to let his team lose. He crashed the glass hard and seemingly came up with every rebound for Creighton. By halftime he had already recorded a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds.
McDermott slowed down in the second half, going 14 minutes without scoring a point, but he stepped up late to put the game away. A cold-blooded 3-pointer from the top of the key followed by a layup in isolation pushed the lead back to nine. McDermott finished with 30 points and 12 rebounds.
Finally, the top performance from the weekend came from another Big East player – Providence senior guard Bryce Cotton. Cotton’s entire season was incredible. He played virtually every minute of every game, taking a seat only when knocked out by injury. In almost any other year, Cotton would have been the runaway winner for conference player of the year. He just happened to play in the same league as the best player in college basketball (hey, Doug).
Cotton saved one of his best performances for last, putting his team on his back – no small feat for a 6-foot guard – and carrying it to the brink of victory. Cotton picked the Tar Heels apart, one killer crossover, pull-up jumper and difficult layup at a time.
“He had a phenomenal game,” North Carolina guard Marcus Paige said about Cotton. “It seemed like whenever they needed a basket, he came through for them. He’s really quick and can score off the dribble or shoot the jump shot and get all the way to the basket.”
Cotton does not get enough credit for what he has accomplished this season, a sentiment his head coach Ed Cooley agrees with.
“I’ve been saying the whole year I think Bryce is one of the top guards in all of America,” Cooley said. “It’s just for whatever reason he didn’t get the national love. I think today if there is somebody in this national tournament that does that, they would be considered Superman. That kid has been doing that for us all year. We’ve played against tough competition all year.”
Cotton finished with 36 points, eight assists and five rebounds in the two-point loss. Add in the 17 points his assists created to the 36 he scored himself, and Cotton was responsible for 53 of his team’s 77 points.
I’m going to wrap this up by naming my San Antonio All-Regional and Honorable Mention teams, because there were more than three great players.
Headlining the All-Tournament team are the three guys I just talked about: Kane, McDermott and Cotton. Kane averaged 19 points, 9.5 rebounds and six assists on 47 percent shooting in his two wins. McDermott averaged 22.5 points and seven rebounds while shooting 54 percent from the field, and his 45 total points were the most by anyone in San Antonio. Cotton played just one game, but it was the best performance of the entire regional.
Joining them on the All-Regional team is Baylor 7-footer Isaiah Austin. He didn’t put up huge numbers, averaging just 15.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks, but he shot 64 percent from the field and his defensive impact can’t be measured in numbers alone. Iowa State forward Melvin Ejim – the Big 12 Player of the Year – rounds out the team after averaging 18 points and six rebounds on 62 percent shooting in two wins.
On the honorable mention team we have three players who put up tremendous single individual performances as well as two lesser-heralded players that were really solid in two games. North Carolina Central senior guard Jeremy Ingram scored 28 points and pulled down six rebounds in his team’s loss to Iowa State. On the other end of that game, Cyclone sophomore forward Georges Niang put up 24 points, eight rebounds and four assists while shooting 69 percent from the field before leaving the court – and ending his tournament – with a broken foot. Louisiana junior guard Elfrid Payton was terrific on both ends in defeat against Creighton, finishing with 24 points, eight rebounds and three assists while shooting 45 percent and taking on the challenge of defending Doug McDermott.
North Carolina freshman Kennedy Meeks is a big boy at 6 feet 9 inches and 290 pounds, and he knows how to use it. Meeks averaged a double-double with 13.5 points and 11 rebounds while shooting 63 percent from the floor. Finally, Creighton’s Austin Chatman gave fans some hope for next season, putting up 13.5 points, four rebounds and 3.5 assists while shooting 59 percent from the field as a sub-6-foot point guard.
I need to end this column before I hit 1600 words, so I’ll leave you with this: March is the best time of the year and it doesn’t get any better than the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. What happened in San Antonio is a microcosm of the Tournament as a whole, and it is pretty spectacular.