[media-credit name=”Tara Bailey” align=”alignright” width=”279″][/media-credit]
The Creighton Bluejays traveled to Drake University looking to sweep the season series against the Bulldogs.
What the Bluejays ended up getting instead was another loss.
The dynamic performance of junior guard Antoine Young and his career-high 24 points couldn’t help the Jays push past the Bulldogs Tuesday night and secure their fourth-place standing in the Missouri Valley Conference.
Young and the Jays managed to shoot only 33.3 percent from the field in the first half and found themselves down eight with less than six minutes to go. Creighton finished the half with an 11-4 run to put the Jays down only one going into halftime.
Creighton improved its field goal percentage in the second half to more than 51 percent, but managed to hold only one lead in the course of the second 20 minutes of the game.
The Jays kept the game close toward the end, but Young’s half-court shot at the buzzer hit the backboard and missed.
Sophomore center Greg Echenique added 11 points for the Jays, while freshman forward Doug McDermott put up nine points and seven rebounds.
Creighton fell from fourth to sixth place with the loss.
On Saturday, the Jays beat the University of Evansville 75-69. The Aces came out firing, making seven of nine shots to open the game and grab a seven point lead. But Creighton responded with a run of its own to build a 37-32 lead by halftime.
“When a team does that, it can be deflating,’’ head coach Greg McDermott said. “But our guys just continued to compete. This is a really good win for us, because Evansville is a team that is playing with a lot of confidence and is on a roll. Those are scary teams to play.”
Evansville came into Saturday especially hot, winning six of its past seven games. They left tied with Creighton and Indiana State University for fourth place in the Valley.
“I was scared to death of this game because of the way Evansville’s been playing,” coach McDermott said. “It’s a really good win for us.”
The Jays won this game in the trenches. McDermott, Echenique and senior center Kenny Lawson accounted for 23 of the Jays’ 35 total rebounds. The Jays outrebounded the Aces by 11 but did the most damage on the offensive glass, where they racked up 17 second-chance points.
“We just needed to get back to competing,’’ Lawson said. “This game wasn’t so much about what Evansville does or the X’s and O’s of the game. It was about us playing hard and having a sense of urgency.’’
Young led all scorers with 21 points and added seven assists. He said a good effort was needed after an “embarrassing” loss to Bradley the prior week.
“I think we responded well,’’ Young said. “It shows a lot of character about our team that, after we got embarrassed up in Peoria, we came out and played a good game today.”
The Jays are going to need to be at the top of their game the rest of the season to be among the conference leaders. Even though an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament is out of the question, the Jays need to play well heading into the conference tournament in an attempt to earn an automatic bid.
“This team isn’t the type that just folds with adversity,’’ Lawson said. “Things haven’t gone the way we’ve wanted them to this season, but no one is quitting. We’re coming to practice with the idea of trying to get better. We know at the end of the season, there’s always a chance for us to be real successful.’’
The road to end-of-season success starts now. The Jays host Southern Illinois University on Sunday night in a crucial conference game.