Creighton’s 91-88 double-overtime victory against South Dakota on Tuesday featured as drastic a swing as coach Greg McDermott and his players have ever been a part of.
Neither team reached the 30-point mark by halftime, nor did either team shoot above 40 percent from the field. Creighton (8-2) found itself down 28-25 at the intermission, and senior Guard Devin Brooks was the only starter who had even made a field goal. Brooks had five points on 2 of 4 shooting and Avery Dingman contributed two on a pair of free throws. Creighton’s bench accounted for the other 18 first-half points.
The struggles continued somewhat into the second half as both teams were stuck in the 40s in points with less the seven minutes remaining in regulation. Then the game changed.
Trailing 45-43 around the eight-minute mark, the Bluejays exploded offensively, scoring on four straight possession to create a 9-2 run that put them ahead 52-47 with 5:32 on the clock.
The run included two buckets apiece by senior point guard Austin Chatman and junior guard James Milliken.
The lead grew to seven after senior forward Ricky Kreklow and Chatman each split a pair of free throws, and a minute later it stood at nine after Chatman sunk a pair with 2:59 to go. Three straight buckets by the Coyotes cut it back to three, however, at 58-55 with just over a minute to go.
The final minute was played primarily at the free-throw line, with Creighton going 7 of 8 and the Yotes hitting 4 of 4. Following two of those free-throws with 22 seconds to go, senior guard Tyler Larsen hit a 3-pointer to cut Creighton’s lead to one with 10 ticks left. After another successful trip to the line, the Bluejays led 65-52 with five seconds on the clock.
Larsen brought the ball down court, and as he made a move to get open Kreklow slipped and fell. Larson rose up and knocked down his second triple in 10 seconds to send the game into overtime.
“The play wasn’t even for me …” Larson said. “There was only four second left so a play needed to be made … I’m just looking at the clock the whole time; I see three seconds, so I’m like ‘OK, you’re going to have to get a shot up.’ I stopped and I saw him fall, and it was a wide open shot. It’s my last year; I have to knock that down for my team, and for my university.”
Creighton used a 9-2 run featuring 3-poiners by Chatman and sophomore guard Isaiah Zierden to take a seven-point lead in the first overtime. However, Larsen struck again from deep and senior guard Brandon Bos picked off an outlet pass right under the basket from Creighton senior center Will Artino and laid it in through contact from Artino. He hit the free-throw to complete the three-point play and bring his team within one.
Artino got redemption on the other end. After the Coyotes got a stop, Larsen passed to no one in particular, and Artino scooped it up and dished it to Chatman at the rack for a layup and a three-point lead.
The Yotes refused to lie down, however, and junior guard Trey Norris did his best Larsen impersonation and hit a 3-pointer to tie it up at 76-all. Creighton failed to score on the final possession and the two teams continued on into double overtime.
South Dakota took the lead on a pair of free throws by Bos, but an 8-2 run by Milliken put the Jays back up by five with just over a minute to go.
Bos kept the outcome in doubt with a pair of 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions, but Chatman hit five of his six free throws down the stretch to give the Jays enough of a cushion.
Once again, Chatman was the driving force behind the Jays’ success. He led the team in scoring for the fourth straight game with a career-high 24 points. He also dished out eight assists with just two turnovers, and did it in a career-high 47 minutes after playing 37 minutes in Sunday’s 65-55 win at Nebraska.
“Chatman is so good,” South Dakota coach Craig Smith said. “He is so good, and just makes the right decision every time it feels like.”
Brooks suffered an injury during the first half and missed all but the first possession of the second half. In his place, Milliken stepped up in a big way. After scoring 29 total points in the eight games since his 13-point point Creighton debut, the junior college transfer caught fire and finished with 23 points in 34 minutes, both career highs.
“We just had a lot of confidence in him,” Chatman said about Milliken. “With that injury to Dev, he just had to come in and give big minutes and he did that tonight. He was ready when his number was called.”
Milliken went 2 of 2 in the first half to get himself going, and took off in the second half. He hit big three-pointers (4 of 7 from deep), clutch pull-ups (including two on consecutive possessions during the 9-2 run that kick-started the Creighton offense) and finished at the basket a couple times as well, showing off the scoring ability that had coaches raving about him during his redshirt season on the scout team last year.
In fact, it was a return to that scout team that snapped him out of his slump.
“We made the decision, a week or 10 days ago, to run him on the scout team as the other team’s best player,” McDermott said. “Let him be [Terran] Petteway, let him be [Casey] Kasperbauer or Bos, and run him off screens, let him shoot it, and let him get feeling good about himself versus playing one out of every two possessions if he was in the rotation.”
Milliken gained confidence from the return to his scout team role, and it paid off in the game on Tuesday. The coaches and players knew what Milliken was capable of, and they looked to him to put his talent on display against the Coyotes.
“It started with Coach telling me to look for my shot more because they were sagging off of me,” Milliken said. “My teammates made the extra pass, like Isaiah passed up two wide open threes just to get me one. They trusted me to make the shots and I felt comfortable making them.”
Zierden finished with 11 points, seven rebounds, three assists and no turnovers. Artino and Kreklow each finished with eight points and eight rebounds, and Artino recorded three steals in the overtimes, including one at the final buzzer to ensure South Dakota could not get a shot off.
Larsen led all scorers with 25 points. Junior guard Tre Burnette scored 16 first-half points and finished with 24. Boss added 23.
The South Dakota starters outscored Creighton’s first five 81-37, but Creighton’s bench made up the gap with a 54-7 edge behind Milliken.
McDermott was not pleased with his team’s effort and performance coming off of the big win at Nebraska, but the Jays still managed to come out on top.
“We just have to take it for what it is,” McDermott said. “All over the country you see NJIT go to Michigan and win. Brown goes to Providence and wins [Monday] night. The separation is just not that great. It’s really a fine line, and for whatever the reason is that you’re not totally ready to play, that other team’s extremely focused and makes shots, anything can happen. We survived one. We were lucky.”
The Jays return to action at CenturyLink Center Omaha on Saturday as St. Mary’s comes to town for a 1:15 p.m. tipoff. The game will be televised on Fox Sports 1.