A day after scoring 100 points against UCLA, Creighton’s men’s basketball struggled to score the ball, falling to No. 22 Baylor 65-59 in the championship game of the Hall of Fame Classic for their first loss on the season. The Jays shot only 34 percent from the floor, and 17 percent from 3-point range.
Junior guard Khyri Thomas led the Jays with 15 points, while also limiting Baylor’s best player, senior guard Manu Lecomte, to only eight points on the night. Lecomte came into the game averaging 21.5 points per game.
“They made it a rock fight, and for 36 or 37 minutes, we won the rock fight. We just couldn’t finish it,” coach Greg McDermott said after the game.
Baylor jumped out to a 5-0 run to start the game, but Creighton came back with a 14-2 run, taking a 14-7 lead early in the game.
The Jays would stretch the lead to nine points halfway through the first half, but then proceeded to go scoreless for two and a half minutes.
Fortunately for Creighton, Baylor could only manage to get the lead down to five. With Creighton leading 20-15, Thomas would score five straight points for the Jays, cumulating with an offensive rebound and an and-one layup.
As the half drew to a close, Creighton again found trouble scoring the ball. After another stretch of two and half minutes without scoring, senior guard Marcus Foster broke the scoreless streak with a put back dunk off a missed layup by Thomas.
Although the Jays struggled to shoot the ball, they went into halftime with a 33-24 lead over the Bears.
The defensive intensity was a big factor in the Jays lead at the half. Creighton forced the Jays into 11 turnovers and held them to only three offensive rebounds. The Jays also held a 19-16 advantage in rebounds, grabbing seven offensive boards in the half.
“We shot 39 percent in the first half. We were a little bit more lively defensively in the first half,” McDermott said. “We forced 11 turnovers in the first half. We built the lead based on our defense really, not our offense.”
To start the second half, the Jays got a stop on the defensive side of the ball, and then sophomore guard Davion Mintz threw a lob to sophomore forward Martin Krampelj who finished it with a layup.
The Jays would stretch its lead out to 12 after Thomas hit a 3-pointer, but would then go scoreless for over seven minutes, allowing Baylor to go on a 10-0 run.
Both offenses would struggle midway through the second half. Creighton went through a stretch shooting 1-for-12 from the field, while Baylor endured a stretch of 1-for-9 from the field.
After Creighton went up 48-42 with seven minutes to go in the game, Baylor used a 15-6 run to grab the lead with just under a minute and a half to go. The Bears didn’t look back, pulling away for the 65-59 win.
“We just got to be a tougher team when it comes down to it,” Thomas said.
Shooting was the weakness for Creighton. The Jays forced Baylor into 16 turnovers, while only committing nine of their own. Although Creighton lost the rebounding battle 38-34, they held the advantage in offensive rebounds at 12-7.
“We had some opportunities to make baskets, we just couldn’t do it,” McDermott said.
Foster and Thomas were named to the All-Tournament team.
The Jays now head back to Omaha for a battle against SIU – Edwardsville on Saturday at 3:30 p.m.