Charlotte, N.C.—The Creighton men’s basketball team had a rough finish to an otherwise good year. The Bluejays fell to the Kansas State Wildcats on Friday, 69-59, in a game that they trailed from start-to-finish.
“Congratulations to Kansas State. I thought they played a heck of a game,” Creighton coach Greg McDermott said.
“Defensively, they were very disruptive, especially early in the game that forced us into some uncharacteristic decisions. Rather than maybe using their pressure against them, we probably fell into the trap of trying to beat it too early in the possession. We probably didn’t get as good as shots as we’d like, especially early in the game. Defensively, they had 32 points at the half,” said McDermott.
“They hit two 3s as the shot clock was running down. Their center, who has made two all year, hits one. I really feel like defensively, we really did what we needed to do to be in a good position. We just weren’t very good offensively, and K-State certainly had a lot to do with that.”
Every time the Jays made a run to get within a possession of Kansas State (24-11), the Wildcats would respond by extending their lead to multiple possessions. A 3-pointer by freshman guard Ty-Shon Alexander cut the Wildcat lead to 42-39 with 13 minutes remaining, but the Bluejays would get no closer the rest of the way.
“You have to give Kansas State a lot of credit. They made a lot of tough shots when they needed to,” senior forward Toby Hegner said.
“I felt like we were in the right spot a lot of the time. Sometimes tough shots go in and you have to give credit to them. I wish the best for them.”
The offensive struggles started with senior guard Marcus Foster, who was held scoreless in the first half and to a career-low as a Bluejay with five points. The Wildcats stifled Foster by face-guarding him with junior guard Barry Brown for most of the game, forcing the Bluejays to play four-on-four for large portions of the game without their best offensive weapon.
“Barry [Brown] did a great job on Marcus [Foster] who is a really great player,” Kansas State coach Bruce Weber said. “All of our guys. It was team defense. You know, you hold them to 59. I don’t know if anyone has done that all year. I looked at that closely. It was pretty impressive.”
The Bluejays shot a season-low 33.8 percent from the field, 26.5 percent from 3-point range and saw the Wildcats take 25 free throws to the Jays’ five. Creighton had a season-low of 26 points at halftime and tied its season-low with 59 points in a game. The Jays fell behind 10-2 to start the game and never seemed to find their rhythm thought out the game.
“They came out, they pressed us a little bit, they got up in us and it took us a while to get comfortable in the game,” freshman guard Mitch Ballock said. “Offensively, we just didn’t have it tonight. I felt like, I don’t really know what we shot from the field, but it couldn’t have been too good. We just didn’t have it offensively, but credit their defense. They were up in us and played us really hard so respect to them.”
Ballock led the Jays with 16 points, eight rebounds and four 3-pointers, but was outdone by freshman counterpart Mike McGuirl’s 17 points that surpassed his total of 13 points on the whole season, including tough shots as the shot clock wound down to swing momentum in Kansas State’s favor.
“It was always something that was a hope in the back of my head,” McGuirl said. “It is sort of like a dream come true.”
“We always talk about somebody stepping up and having a special moment and obviously Mike McGuirl,” Weber said.
“I’ve said since the beginning he was the surprise of our summer and then he had injuries. And to his credit, he has been very, very patient and took himself out of redshirt when Kam [Stokes] got hurt. He came back and he got his chance the last couple of games and he rose up and played like a veteran, made a lot of big plays.”
The Bluejays finish the year 21-12 with victories over in-state rival Nebraska and at the time over No. 20 Northwestern, No. 23 UCLA, No. 19 Seton Hall, No. 3 Villanova and a one-point controversial loss at home to No. 5 Xavier. While the Jays had these great performances, they also had disappointments including a 17-point loss to Gonzaga, a 22-point loss to Xavier, a 14-point loss to Providence, a 20-point loss to Villanova and a 23-point loss to Butler. All these teams except for Nebraska and Northwestern made the NCAA Tournament. The game against Kansas State felt another disappointment, as the Jays added some garbage-time points to make it a 10-point loss.
Creighton will see seniors Foster, Hegner, Tyler Clement and Manny Suarez graduate this year with the possibility that junior guard Khyri Thomas goes to the NBA.
“I’m not sure, I honestly don’t know,” Thomas said. “I’ll probably have a meeting with Mac and see from there. I haven’t even thought about it to be honest.”
The Jays will have at least 10 returning players from this year’s team. Creighton currently has commits from two four-star recruits in Marcus Zegarowski from Tilton, New Hampshire and Christian Bishop from Lees Summit, Missouri, to go along with three-star recruit Sam Froling from Canberra, Australia. The Bluejays are still being considered by three-star recuits Tim Finke from Champaign, Illinois, Philmon Gebrewhit from Plymouth, New Hampshire and Christian Lorng from Chatham, Virginia.