Thursday, March 9
New York, NY
8:30 PM
Creighton University
24-8
70
vs
58
Providence (Quarterfinals)
20-12
1
2
F
Creighton
27
43
70
Providence
30
28
58
Cole Huff
Photo by: A.J. Olnes
Men's Basketball Opens BIG EAST Tournament With Win Over Providence
3/9/2017 10:19:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Bluejays will meet Xavier in the semifinals on Friday night
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. -- Sixth-seeded Creighton opened the second half on a 17-4 run and never looked back in a 70-58 victory on Friday night in quarterfinal round action of the 2017 BIG EAST Tournament, presented by Jeep.
The win improves Creighton to 24-8 on the year, while Providence is now 20-12. With the win, Creighton advances to Friday's 8 p.m. Central semifinal against seventh-seeded Xavier. The Musketeers eliminated second-seeded Butler by a 62-57 score earlier on Thursday.
Both teams battled through foul trouble in the first half. Creighton's starting point guard Davion Mintz picked up two fouls in the first 2:30 and played just six minutes in the first half. CU's leading scorer, Marcus Foster, had nine of CU's first 17 points, only to be relegated to a spectator's role after two fouls in a 46-second span and be forced to sit the rest of the half.
PC led 30-27 at the break, led by six points from Jalen Lindsey. CU was led by nine points by Foster and eight from Khyri Thomas at the break. CU shot 37.9 percent in the first 20 minutes despite 1-of-11 long-range marksmanship. Creighton led the rebound battle 22-18.
Creighton opened the second half on a 7-0 run, taking its largest lead to that point at 35-30. Free throws from Mintz and Thomas preceded a Cole Huff trey and a Thomas hoop to force a timeout. Justin Patton then threw down a dunk after the break as CU went up by seven.
Mintz continued to push the pace, extending the run to 17-4 to open the half as Creighton went up 44-34 with 11:41 to play. The Bluejays would not see their lead dip below four (44-40) the rest of the evening.
Thomas led Creighton with 19 points, while Foster had 15 and Huff contributed 10 points. Foster's 15 points give him 589 on the year, breaking Doug McDermott's mark (581) for points by a newcomer. The Bluejays shot 42.6 percent from the floor, including 4-of-20 from three-point range, and were also 20-of-33 at the line. Creighton picked up 10 steals, including three each by Mintz and Thomas.
Kyron Cartwright, who buried a three-pointer in the final seconds of Providence's win in Omaha on Feb. 22nd, led the Friars with 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists before fouling out in the final minute. Emmitt Holt added 14 points and Alpha Diallo scored 10 points. The Friars were 20-of-50 from the field and 4-of-21 from long-range, sinking 14-of-26 foul shots. PC won the rebound battle 39-38, but committed 22 turnovers.
The quarterfinal culminated a wild day at the World's Most Famous Arena that saw the No. 5 (Marquette), No. 6 (Creighton) and No. 7 (Xavier) seeds advance, in addition to No. 1 seed Villanova.
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Creighton - 70, Providence - 58
COACH MCDERMOTT: I'm extremely proud of our team. We kind of won a rock fight tonight. Neither team shot free throws well. Particularly in the first half neither team shot well. But I talked to the team at halftime. They had scored 30 points in 36 possessions the first half, and I felt like if we continue with that defense, that things would loosen up a little for us offensively.
And we were able to force some turnovers -- Khyri was terrific defensively. And I thought Davion, after maybe having some freshman jitters playing in this tournament the first time in the first half, I thought he really settled in and was great on both ends of the floor the second half.
So extremely proud of the team to get back to the semifinals, to have an opportunity to play in another championship game.
Q. Really the first time you dominated a great team since losing Watson. You have a sophomore and freshman there but did it a different way. Only seven assists but both had three steals. This man did great from the line. Is the team learning to win a different way than you did with that 18-1 start when you had the senior passer to run things?
COACH MCDERMOTT: While we've scored some games, we probably don't have the spreadability that we had prior to Maurice's injury. But we've had to reinvent ourselves. And I've said it many times, Khyri and Marcus, in particular, the first 20 games of the season they were secondary bought in, secondary decision makers. And the last 12 or 13 they're primary decision makers and ball handlers.
And that's quite a change to make 20 games into a season. And there's been some peaks and valleys to that. There's been games they've been terrific. There's been games where they turned it over a little bit too much.
But they've gotten better. Davion went from not playing much to playing a significant role. Isaiah is playing some point guard he wasn't before. Tyler Clement is playing a bit. We've had to move pieces around but they've stayed together. That's a credit to the leadership in our locker room and these young guys. As you said I've got a freshman and sophomore up here. They've grown up fast.
Q. Khyri, you didn't guard Cartwright much in Omaha the last meeting, but tonight you were switching off him and Bullock. And Bullock goes 1-for-8. Khyri turns the ball over six times. What were you doing tonight to make things chaotic for both of them?
KHYRI THOMAS: For Bullock, I wasn't really doing a whole lot. I don't think he was being as aggressive the first two times we played him. And Cartwright he's super quick. He blew by me every time. But with him I just kind of laid off his shot and laid back off the 3-point line and made him drive. And he kind of made some tough shots and missed some as well.
Q. What does it say about your team that you were able to win this game when your leading scorer was on the bench with foul trouble and really not on the court when you made that big game-changing run early in the second half?
COACH MCDERMOTT: Well, you bring a guy like Isaiah Zierden, who's in his fifth year off the bench. Isaiah has played every role we've asked him to play. He's dealt with three major injuries during the course of his career. He's led us in minutes last year. He's coming off the bench. He just does what he does.
He was instrumental in that run. He brings a calmness to our team. But we had to balance a lot of foul trouble. And while Marcus was in foul trouble, he was our best cheerleader over there on the bench, talking to the guys at every timeout and never became unengaged in the game while he was sitting on the bench with foul trouble. And that's the sign of a pretty mature player.
Q. You had eight free throws in the first half, jumped up to 25 in the second half. Was being aggressive and getting to the line one of your points of emphasis in the second half?
COACH MCDERMOTT: When you're not shooting 3s well you better do something different. Obviously the threat of our ability to shoot the 3, because we've been one of the better teams in the country all season, opens things up and allows us to maybe get to the rim a little bit more than some teams. But Khyri was terrific. Justin was active, slipping out of some ball screens and getting to the rim and putting pressure on the rim. But without question, getting into the bonus early was really critical for us that second half.
Q. Davion, coach just mentioned you got some turnovers to start the second half, but looked like you were just playing with a little bit more energy as a team. I guess, did you notice that? And why do you think you got off to such a good start in the second half?
DAVION MINTZ: I want to say I have best teammates in the nation because the first half it was ugly for me. When I came into the locker room they uplifted me and calmed me down. I came out a little anxious, just ready and excited. But once I calmed down and got my groove, that's when I could hype myself up and it started with them. I thank them and the coaching staff for sticking with me.
Q. What does it say about the league the same day that the 2, 3, 4 seeds get knocked off?
COACH MCDERMOTT: I said it a long time ago, when we lost Maurice and Xavier lost Edmond, you could take -- obviously Villanova separated themselves on the top, and DePaul, while they got a lot better, didn't win a lot on the bottom. But you could take the other eight and put us all in the hat and pick us out any night. There's not much difference and any given night anything could happen. I think that's what you've seen happen in the league over the course since those two injuries have taken place.
But there's great basketball in this league. And I think that's going to be evident when Selection Sunday rolls around.
Q. You talked leading up to this about 50/50 balls and wondering why not everybody is kind of sacrificing their bodies. And I think at one point in the second half there was a possession where all five of your guys touched a loose ball at half court. You pushed it to 10. Did you feel like that was when the game switched in your favor, and what's changed in the days leading up to that?
COACH MCDERMOTT: We've talked about it after the last game. And those guys that made those hustle plays at Marquette fueled something that in everybody in the program -- and that possession was a great microcosm of the game for us.
We talked about, really simple before the game, you don't have a lot of time to talk to your team when they have 20 minutes to get ready. So we talked about intelligence and toughness, shot selection, being in the right spot, communication, and then winning the 50/50 plays. And for the most part tonight we were able to do that.
Q. You've alluded to this a little bit, but in a game like this, where you don't play your best, to find a way, just how important is that, and what does it say about your team that you were able to get this win?
COACH MCDERMOTT: This time of year you try to survive. You're trying to get to the next day. And that's going to be the case this weekend and then next week the NCAA Tournament is the same way.
You see what you've got that night. Do you have your A game? Do you have your B game, shooting the basketball? And you just adjust and you try to find a way to win.
But our guys really competed tonight. And we were playing a team, Ed's done an unbelievable job especially these last three, three and a half weeks of the season to take a team that was 4-8 and get them into the NCAA Tournament. They're the hottest team in the league. And for us to be able to frustrate them with some of our defense is really a credit to our team.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Friday, March 10, 2017
Ed Cooley
Providence
Creighton - 70, Providence - 58
COACH COOLEY: Well, that was a masterpiece there. We just didn't play well. I give Creighton a lot of credit. That was, pick who played worse in that game. That probably wasn't one of Mac's (Greg McDermott) better games as a team. 26 points on turnovers, uncharacteristic turnovers for us. I thought we were lackadaisical. Just we didn'tplay well. We picked a bad time to play our worst game in pobably five or six weeks.If you would have told me that they would be 4-for-20 and miss those free throws and have seven assists I'd like to say we have a chance to win the game.
Again, give them credit; they advance. In tournament play you can't play poorly and expect to win. So hopefully we have another game left in us in the NCAA Tournament. I think we've done some good things as of late. We just picked a bad time to play poor. Proud of our kids, very, very proud of our team finishing the regular season well.
Unfortunately, we didn't play well in our tournament here in Madison Square Garden. But our league shows how tough it is night in night out and hopefully we get invited to this party on Sunday.
Q. Talking about uncharacteristic turnovers, is it just sloppy, mental mistakes?
COACH COOLEY: I think a lot of them were mental mistakes, they really were. For whatever reason, guys, it happens. You get games that -- normally games like that in November and December. But come March you've got to try to play as clean as you can and we just didn't play clean. I thought we played tough. I thought we were really, really tough we just didn't execute at all. It was really poor.
Q. Your team shot almost 50 percent from the line tonight, how concerning is that?
COACH COOLEY: It's been -- we've been struggling all year from the line. I don't have an answer for that. We practice it as much as we can. Hopefully if we have another game, hopefully we shoot 90
percent. It happens sometimes.
Q. The team's putting a lot of pressure on themselves defensively when they're missing shots. Do you think that's also the effort they're expending on defense is affecting the free-throw shooting?
COACH COOLEY: No, I mean, come on, these kids are 18 to 22 years old. As my pop says, they should be able to touch the sky two out of three times. They're young, energetic. No, it's what you play for.Who cannot play in this building and be excited you know what I mean? That's what you're playing for. You want to get stops, which we did. We got some unbelievable stops but we gave it right back to them on six different occasions. We took the ball, we got the stop and threw it right away to them. So I don't think it was us focusing on defense, it's just we played bad.
Q. Quick perspective, you were 4-8, you would have taken this 10-9 conference in the end. Is this a game you throw away the tape, say, hey, guys we're on a roll, hopefully looking forward to things next weekend?
COACH COOLEY: I think your question is great. We definitely don't need to see this. I saw it once. Right now -- what I just talked to the team about is anytime you have a chance to control your own
destiny, not just in basketball, in life, when you have a chance to control what you want to do and you don't take advantage of it, don't complain. We had an opportunity to cement ourselves clearly and we didn't take advantage of that. It's a great learning point for my kids. It's a great learning point for me as a coach and hopefully if we get invited to that dance there's some carry-over from this poor performance today. This loss is on me. Not those players. It's a players game. The coach did a bad job today. But the players, they deserve more credit.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Tournament Notes
- The last time Creighton and Providence met in the BIG EAST Tournament was in the 2014 Championship Game, where the Friars took the title with a 65-58 victory. (Creighton's first year in the league).
- Providence is only the second team this season to hold Creighton to its lowest-scoring first half (27 points). Georgetown held the Bluejays to 27 points in the first half (Jan.25).
- Creighton only had one assist at halftime. The dish came from Marcus Foster
- Marcus Foster scored 15 points for his 15-consecutive double-figures game.
- Creighton's 10 steals broke its six-steal tournament record, which the Bluejays set against DePaul in 2015.
- With the win over Providence, Creighton is 4-0 in neutral sites this season.
- The win against the Friars, gives Creighton its second win of the season after trailing at the half. Creighton is 2-5 when trailing at the half this season.
- Creighton is now 2-2 in the BIG EAST Quarterfinals and 4-3 overall in tournament play.
- PC dropped to 15-4 on the season when leading at halftime. The Friars were ahead 30-27 at the break.
- The Friars' streak of consecutive BIG EAST Tournament semifinal appearances was halted at three.
- Providence committed 22 turnovers, which the Bluejays turned into 26 points.
- The Friars' 22 turnovers tied the team's BIG EAST Tournament record. PC had 22 turnovers March 6, 1986 in a quarterfinal loss to Villanova.
- Providence logged just one assist and shot 1-for-10 from the 3-point line in the second half.
- Kyron Cartwright set a BIG EAST Tournament career high with 15 points and seven rebounds in the loss. Emmitt Holt and Alpha Diallo added 14 points and 10 points, respectively, in their BIG EAST Tournament debuts.
- Last time the semis were 1 vs. 5 and 6 vs. 7: 2008
- First 6 vs 7 semifinal since 2009. 6 Syracuse topped 7 WVU in OT
The win improves Creighton to 24-8 on the year, while Providence is now 20-12. With the win, Creighton advances to Friday's 8 p.m. Central semifinal against seventh-seeded Xavier. The Musketeers eliminated second-seeded Butler by a 62-57 score earlier on Thursday.
Both teams battled through foul trouble in the first half. Creighton's starting point guard Davion Mintz picked up two fouls in the first 2:30 and played just six minutes in the first half. CU's leading scorer, Marcus Foster, had nine of CU's first 17 points, only to be relegated to a spectator's role after two fouls in a 46-second span and be forced to sit the rest of the half.
PC led 30-27 at the break, led by six points from Jalen Lindsey. CU was led by nine points by Foster and eight from Khyri Thomas at the break. CU shot 37.9 percent in the first 20 minutes despite 1-of-11 long-range marksmanship. Creighton led the rebound battle 22-18.
Creighton opened the second half on a 7-0 run, taking its largest lead to that point at 35-30. Free throws from Mintz and Thomas preceded a Cole Huff trey and a Thomas hoop to force a timeout. Justin Patton then threw down a dunk after the break as CU went up by seven.
Mintz continued to push the pace, extending the run to 17-4 to open the half as Creighton went up 44-34 with 11:41 to play. The Bluejays would not see their lead dip below four (44-40) the rest of the evening.
Thomas led Creighton with 19 points, while Foster had 15 and Huff contributed 10 points. Foster's 15 points give him 589 on the year, breaking Doug McDermott's mark (581) for points by a newcomer. The Bluejays shot 42.6 percent from the floor, including 4-of-20 from three-point range, and were also 20-of-33 at the line. Creighton picked up 10 steals, including three each by Mintz and Thomas.
Kyron Cartwright, who buried a three-pointer in the final seconds of Providence's win in Omaha on Feb. 22nd, led the Friars with 15 points, seven rebounds and four assists before fouling out in the final minute. Emmitt Holt added 14 points and Alpha Diallo scored 10 points. The Friars were 20-of-50 from the field and 4-of-21 from long-range, sinking 14-of-26 foul shots. PC won the rebound battle 39-38, but committed 22 turnovers.
The quarterfinal culminated a wild day at the World's Most Famous Arena that saw the No. 5 (Marquette), No. 6 (Creighton) and No. 7 (Xavier) seeds advance, in addition to No. 1 seed Villanova.
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Friday, March 10, 2017
Greg McDermott
Khyri Thomas
Davion Mintz
Creighton - 70, Providence - 58COACH MCDERMOTT: I'm extremely proud of our team. We kind of won a rock fight tonight. Neither team shot free throws well. Particularly in the first half neither team shot well. But I talked to the team at halftime. They had scored 30 points in 36 possessions the first half, and I felt like if we continue with that defense, that things would loosen up a little for us offensively.
And we were able to force some turnovers -- Khyri was terrific defensively. And I thought Davion, after maybe having some freshman jitters playing in this tournament the first time in the first half, I thought he really settled in and was great on both ends of the floor the second half.
So extremely proud of the team to get back to the semifinals, to have an opportunity to play in another championship game.
Q. Really the first time you dominated a great team since losing Watson. You have a sophomore and freshman there but did it a different way. Only seven assists but both had three steals. This man did great from the line. Is the team learning to win a different way than you did with that 18-1 start when you had the senior passer to run things?
COACH MCDERMOTT: While we've scored some games, we probably don't have the spreadability that we had prior to Maurice's injury. But we've had to reinvent ourselves. And I've said it many times, Khyri and Marcus, in particular, the first 20 games of the season they were secondary bought in, secondary decision makers. And the last 12 or 13 they're primary decision makers and ball handlers.
And that's quite a change to make 20 games into a season. And there's been some peaks and valleys to that. There's been games they've been terrific. There's been games where they turned it over a little bit too much.
But they've gotten better. Davion went from not playing much to playing a significant role. Isaiah is playing some point guard he wasn't before. Tyler Clement is playing a bit. We've had to move pieces around but they've stayed together. That's a credit to the leadership in our locker room and these young guys. As you said I've got a freshman and sophomore up here. They've grown up fast.
Q. Khyri, you didn't guard Cartwright much in Omaha the last meeting, but tonight you were switching off him and Bullock. And Bullock goes 1-for-8. Khyri turns the ball over six times. What were you doing tonight to make things chaotic for both of them?
KHYRI THOMAS: For Bullock, I wasn't really doing a whole lot. I don't think he was being as aggressive the first two times we played him. And Cartwright he's super quick. He blew by me every time. But with him I just kind of laid off his shot and laid back off the 3-point line and made him drive. And he kind of made some tough shots and missed some as well.
Q. What does it say about your team that you were able to win this game when your leading scorer was on the bench with foul trouble and really not on the court when you made that big game-changing run early in the second half?
COACH MCDERMOTT: Well, you bring a guy like Isaiah Zierden, who's in his fifth year off the bench. Isaiah has played every role we've asked him to play. He's dealt with three major injuries during the course of his career. He's led us in minutes last year. He's coming off the bench. He just does what he does.
He was instrumental in that run. He brings a calmness to our team. But we had to balance a lot of foul trouble. And while Marcus was in foul trouble, he was our best cheerleader over there on the bench, talking to the guys at every timeout and never became unengaged in the game while he was sitting on the bench with foul trouble. And that's the sign of a pretty mature player.
Q. You had eight free throws in the first half, jumped up to 25 in the second half. Was being aggressive and getting to the line one of your points of emphasis in the second half?
COACH MCDERMOTT: When you're not shooting 3s well you better do something different. Obviously the threat of our ability to shoot the 3, because we've been one of the better teams in the country all season, opens things up and allows us to maybe get to the rim a little bit more than some teams. But Khyri was terrific. Justin was active, slipping out of some ball screens and getting to the rim and putting pressure on the rim. But without question, getting into the bonus early was really critical for us that second half.
Q. Davion, coach just mentioned you got some turnovers to start the second half, but looked like you were just playing with a little bit more energy as a team. I guess, did you notice that? And why do you think you got off to such a good start in the second half?
DAVION MINTZ: I want to say I have best teammates in the nation because the first half it was ugly for me. When I came into the locker room they uplifted me and calmed me down. I came out a little anxious, just ready and excited. But once I calmed down and got my groove, that's when I could hype myself up and it started with them. I thank them and the coaching staff for sticking with me.
Q. What does it say about the league the same day that the 2, 3, 4 seeds get knocked off?
COACH MCDERMOTT: I said it a long time ago, when we lost Maurice and Xavier lost Edmond, you could take -- obviously Villanova separated themselves on the top, and DePaul, while they got a lot better, didn't win a lot on the bottom. But you could take the other eight and put us all in the hat and pick us out any night. There's not much difference and any given night anything could happen. I think that's what you've seen happen in the league over the course since those two injuries have taken place.
But there's great basketball in this league. And I think that's going to be evident when Selection Sunday rolls around.
Q. You talked leading up to this about 50/50 balls and wondering why not everybody is kind of sacrificing their bodies. And I think at one point in the second half there was a possession where all five of your guys touched a loose ball at half court. You pushed it to 10. Did you feel like that was when the game switched in your favor, and what's changed in the days leading up to that?
COACH MCDERMOTT: We've talked about it after the last game. And those guys that made those hustle plays at Marquette fueled something that in everybody in the program -- and that possession was a great microcosm of the game for us.
We talked about, really simple before the game, you don't have a lot of time to talk to your team when they have 20 minutes to get ready. So we talked about intelligence and toughness, shot selection, being in the right spot, communication, and then winning the 50/50 plays. And for the most part tonight we were able to do that.
Q. You've alluded to this a little bit, but in a game like this, where you don't play your best, to find a way, just how important is that, and what does it say about your team that you were able to get this win?
COACH MCDERMOTT: This time of year you try to survive. You're trying to get to the next day. And that's going to be the case this weekend and then next week the NCAA Tournament is the same way.
You see what you've got that night. Do you have your A game? Do you have your B game, shooting the basketball? And you just adjust and you try to find a way to win.
But our guys really competed tonight. And we were playing a team, Ed's done an unbelievable job especially these last three, three and a half weeks of the season to take a team that was 4-8 and get them into the NCAA Tournament. They're the hottest team in the league. And for us to be able to frustrate them with some of our defense is really a credit to our team.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Friday, March 10, 2017
Ed Cooley
Providence
Creighton - 70, Providence - 58
COACH COOLEY: Well, that was a masterpiece there. We just didn't play well. I give Creighton a lot of credit. That was, pick who played worse in that game. That probably wasn't one of Mac's (Greg McDermott) better games as a team. 26 points on turnovers, uncharacteristic turnovers for us. I thought we were lackadaisical. Just we didn'tplay well. We picked a bad time to play our worst game in pobably five or six weeks.If you would have told me that they would be 4-for-20 and miss those free throws and have seven assists I'd like to say we have a chance to win the game.
Again, give them credit; they advance. In tournament play you can't play poorly and expect to win. So hopefully we have another game left in us in the NCAA Tournament. I think we've done some good things as of late. We just picked a bad time to play poor. Proud of our kids, very, very proud of our team finishing the regular season well.
Unfortunately, we didn't play well in our tournament here in Madison Square Garden. But our league shows how tough it is night in night out and hopefully we get invited to this party on Sunday.
Q. Talking about uncharacteristic turnovers, is it just sloppy, mental mistakes?
COACH COOLEY: I think a lot of them were mental mistakes, they really were. For whatever reason, guys, it happens. You get games that -- normally games like that in November and December. But come March you've got to try to play as clean as you can and we just didn't play clean. I thought we played tough. I thought we were really, really tough we just didn't execute at all. It was really poor.
Q. Your team shot almost 50 percent from the line tonight, how concerning is that?
COACH COOLEY: It's been -- we've been struggling all year from the line. I don't have an answer for that. We practice it as much as we can. Hopefully if we have another game, hopefully we shoot 90
percent. It happens sometimes.
Q. The team's putting a lot of pressure on themselves defensively when they're missing shots. Do you think that's also the effort they're expending on defense is affecting the free-throw shooting?
COACH COOLEY: No, I mean, come on, these kids are 18 to 22 years old. As my pop says, they should be able to touch the sky two out of three times. They're young, energetic. No, it's what you play for.Who cannot play in this building and be excited you know what I mean? That's what you're playing for. You want to get stops, which we did. We got some unbelievable stops but we gave it right back to them on six different occasions. We took the ball, we got the stop and threw it right away to them. So I don't think it was us focusing on defense, it's just we played bad.
Q. Quick perspective, you were 4-8, you would have taken this 10-9 conference in the end. Is this a game you throw away the tape, say, hey, guys we're on a roll, hopefully looking forward to things next weekend?
COACH COOLEY: I think your question is great. We definitely don't need to see this. I saw it once. Right now -- what I just talked to the team about is anytime you have a chance to control your own
destiny, not just in basketball, in life, when you have a chance to control what you want to do and you don't take advantage of it, don't complain. We had an opportunity to cement ourselves clearly and we didn't take advantage of that. It's a great learning point for my kids. It's a great learning point for me as a coach and hopefully if we get invited to that dance there's some carry-over from this poor performance today. This loss is on me. Not those players. It's a players game. The coach did a bad job today. But the players, they deserve more credit.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
Tournament Notes
- The last time Creighton and Providence met in the BIG EAST Tournament was in the 2014 Championship Game, where the Friars took the title with a 65-58 victory. (Creighton's first year in the league).
- Providence is only the second team this season to hold Creighton to its lowest-scoring first half (27 points). Georgetown held the Bluejays to 27 points in the first half (Jan.25).
- Creighton only had one assist at halftime. The dish came from Marcus Foster
- Marcus Foster scored 15 points for his 15-consecutive double-figures game.
- Creighton's 10 steals broke its six-steal tournament record, which the Bluejays set against DePaul in 2015.
- With the win over Providence, Creighton is 4-0 in neutral sites this season.
- The win against the Friars, gives Creighton its second win of the season after trailing at the half. Creighton is 2-5 when trailing at the half this season.
- Creighton is now 2-2 in the BIG EAST Quarterfinals and 4-3 overall in tournament play.
- PC dropped to 15-4 on the season when leading at halftime. The Friars were ahead 30-27 at the break.
- The Friars' streak of consecutive BIG EAST Tournament semifinal appearances was halted at three.
- Providence committed 22 turnovers, which the Bluejays turned into 26 points.
- The Friars' 22 turnovers tied the team's BIG EAST Tournament record. PC had 22 turnovers March 6, 1986 in a quarterfinal loss to Villanova.
- Providence logged just one assist and shot 1-for-10 from the 3-point line in the second half.
- Kyron Cartwright set a BIG EAST Tournament career high with 15 points and seven rebounds in the loss. Emmitt Holt and Alpha Diallo added 14 points and 10 points, respectively, in their BIG EAST Tournament debuts.
- Last time the semis were 1 vs. 5 and 6 vs. 7: 2008
- First 6 vs 7 semifinal since 2009. 6 Syracuse topped 7 WVU in OT
Team Stats
CU
PC
FG%
.426
.400
3FG%
.200
.190
FT%
.606
.538
RB
38
39
TO
14
22
STL
10
5
Game Leaders
Scoring
Pts
19
FGM
5
3FGM
1
FTM
8
Pts
15
FGM
6
3FGM
1
FTM
2
Pts
9
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
1
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballC
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballMeet the Jays - MBB Blake Harper
Friday, August 15
Meet the Jays - MBB Austin Swartz
Friday, August 15
Meet the Jays - MBB Jasen Green
Friday, August 15
Meet the Jays - MBB Ty Davis
Friday, August 15
