Nothing was going Creighton’s way. The Jays could not make a shot, from inside the arc or out. No. 18 Oklahoma’s star guard Buddy Hield had it going early, and newly eligible transfer forward TaShawn Thomas was getting his as well. The Jays were down double digits at the half and that deficit swelled to 18 less than two minutes into the second.
It just wasn’t Creighton’s night. After all, Oklahoma was in the top 25 and Creighton was picked ninth in its own conference. Without Doug McDermott, they simply did not have enough firepower to hang with the Sooners. They were too young, too inexperienced, too lacking in talent compared to a Big 12 power that brought almost everyone back.
All of that was true for the first 21:30 on Wednesday night. Then the script flipped. Suddenly, shots started to fall, the crowd came alive and Oklahoma was on its heels. At the end of the night, it was Creighton who stood victorious, winning 65-63 and letting the rest of the country know that Creighton basketball is more than just one man.
The Jays (3-0) used a 24-4 run to overcome the 18-point deficit and got big stops and big buckets down the stretch.
“I think it gives us a lot of confidence,” senior point guard Austin Chatman said. “Coming into the season we had a lot of questions of how good we would be and things like that and I think this answered a lot of questions of the doubters.”
Hield showed off his whole arsenal on Oklahoma’s first three possessions – scoring on a 3-pointer, a layup and a midrange pull-up – and the Sooners took control right from the tip. The Jays didn’t make their first field goal until the 14:40 mark and missed their first eight 3-point attempts. By the end of the half, the Jays had shot 6 of 25 from the field and 2 of 14 from deep. They trailed 35-24.
Creighton’s only saving grace was its ability to create contact, as the Jays shot 10 of 13 from the free-throw line in the first half.
The second half appeared to be following a similar storyline to the first, as Oklahoma opened the half with another 7-0 run, stretching the lead to 18 and forcing a quick Creighton timeout.
“When we took that timeout down 18 after giving up [three] straight baskets in the second half, we had a defeated look on our face,” coach Greg McDermott said. “The timeout wasn’t about Xs and Os. It was about who we wanted to be. Tonight a team came in here that knew who they were and they punched us right in the mouth and we didn’t quite know how to respond.”
That timeout proved to be the turning point. Chatman took control and Creighton’s senior floor general rallied his troops.
“It came from Austin,” freshman forward Toby Hegner said. “Austin got us all together, he brought us all together and was like ‘it’s our time; we’re down 18; we have to start chipping at the lead.’”
Eight minutes and a 20-point swing later, and the Jays had their first lead of the night at 48-46 following a 3-pointer by sophomore guard Isaiah Zierden, who started for the first time in his career. Shots finally started to fall and Creighton shot 5 of 6 from behind the arc during the run.
“’You always have to stay confident in what you do,” Zierden said. “We weren’t hitting shots, but we know we can, so you have to shoot them if they’re there; you can’t turn them down because that’s not what we do.”
The 3-point barrage gave the crowd of 17,393 a reason to get on their feet, and the crowd in turn fueled the Jays on the defensive end of the floor.
“Where it turned around was all on the defensive end,” Chatman said. “We started getting stops and that started helping on offense so we could get out in transition and run.”
Following the timeout, Creighton held Oklahoma to 6 of 27 shooting and forced seven turnovers for the rest of the game.
The run merely made it a new game; the Jays still had plenty of work to do to win after drawing even with 11 minutes still to play. The lead changed hands five times over the next 8 minutes with neither team leading by more than four.
With 2:32 to play, it was knotted at 61-all. After a couple scoreless possessions, the Jays had the ball with under a minute remaining. Senior guard Devin Brooks had the ball in his hands, took it to the basket and launched the ball over the rim … into the hands of sophomore center Zach Hanson for the easy lay-in.
It was marked down as a missed shot, and Brooks claimed it was a pass, but either way Hanson was there to give the Jays a 63-61 lead.
Hanson came up big in the second half, scoring nine points and grabbing three rebounds in the second half and making several key plays on both ends of the floor. The sophomore post had scored seven points combined in the first two games, but forced McDermott to keep him in the game down the stretch with his effort.
“[Hanson] was huge for us tonight,” Zierden said. “He brought a lot of energy and he fought his butt off down there. I’m extremely happy for him.”
Creighton got a stop on the other end and the 5-foot-10-inch Chatman grabbed his 10th rebound of the night and was fouled with 24 seconds left. The senior stepped up to the line and calmly sank both to put Creighton up by four.
Brooks went 0-for at the line over the next two possessions sandwiched around a pair by Oklahoma’s Isaiah Cousins.
Up 65-63 with three seconds left, the Jays needed one more stop – and they got it as Jordan Woodard’s 3-pointer at the buzzer came up short.
Creighton held Oklahoma without a field goal for the final 5:56 and pulled off the second largest home comeback since moving to the CenturyLink Center.
“We haven’t won many games in my tenure here with defense, McDermott said. “We held a team that scored lot of points last year to 35 percent shooting. We haven’t done that much. So it’s encouraging to see that we’re capable.”
Chatman, who shot just 1 of 7 in the first half, turned things around and finished with 17 points, 11 rebounds and six assists in 38 minutes.
“I feel like this is one of the biggest wins that I’ve had at the CenturyLink,” Chatman said. “Everybody just kind of got on my back and we just did it together as a team.”
Zierden and Hegner each hit three triples and finished with 11 points for the Jays.
Hield, a preseason All-Big 12 First team pick, scored a game-high 21 points and added seven rebounds, four assists, two steals and a block. Thomas had 14 and six rebounds in his second game with Oklahoma while Ryan Spangler added 11 points and 11 rebounds for the 1-1 Sooners.
“We needed to answer some questions,” McDermott said about facing a ranked team so early in the season. “I’m not sure they were all answered, but there will be a belief in that huddle when times get tough that we need to stay the course … I think we learned a lot about ourselves against a good team. We held them to 28 points in the second half and we moved the basketball, we stayed even on the backboards in the second half; all the things you have to do to win kind of a grind it out basketball game.”
After acing their first test of the season, the Jays will look ahead to the Emerald Classic. Creighton will host North Carolina Central on Sunday at 3:01 p.m. and Eastern Illinois on Tuesday at 7:01 p.m. before traveling to Florida to face Ole Miss on Nov. 28.
Freshman forward Toby Hegner drives down the right side of the lane against No. 18 Oklahoma’s TaShawn Thomas.