Undermanned and out of gas Hoyas fall at Creighton
The Georgetown Hoyas put up a good fight Sunday afternoon in Omaha, but ultimately lost to the Creighton Blue Jays, 80-69. The Hoyas were once again without Thomas Sorber and Caleb Williams and, despite putting up a very strong effort early in the game, could not overcome the depth and size of the Blue Jays over the course of 40 minutes. This isn't the time in the season for moral victories, but even the most starry-eyed Hoya optimist (including yours truly) would've been hard-pressed to expect the Hoyas to win this game.
The Hoyas started the game extremely well with Micah Peavy once again leading the way. Peavy hit three of his first four 3-point attempts and Malik Mack added a three of his own and a pair of free throws as the Hoyas jumped out to a 14-9 lead. The Hoyas eventually extended the lead to 10 points at 36-26 with just over 7 minutes to play in the first half. They carried over their strong shooting from the Providence game, hitting 8 of their first 14 shots from deep, and played solid defense on the other end, shutting down both Steven Ashworth and Ryan Kalkbrenner early.
They could not maintain the fast start however. As the shots stopped falling, Creighton was able to get out in transition and score more easily, which then allowed them to get their defense better set to further slow the Hoya attack. The Blue Jays ended the half on an 18-6 run to take a two point lead into the break. It was a disappointing end to a really strong half of basketball for the undermanned Hoyas. Micah Peavy had 18 first half points and the Hoyas had held a potent Creighton attack in check, particularly in the half court, for the bulk of the half, but they still went in down at the half.
The second half started very poorly for the Hoyas as they yielded the first seven points of the half and looked lost and tired on offense in particular. Micah Peavy and Drew Fielder both committed their third fouls early in the half and the Hoyas really struggled to offer the same resistance that they were able to mount in the first half as Ryan Kalkbrenner established his presence against a thin Hoyas front court with 8 points in the first 5 minutes of the second half. Creighton eventually pushed the lead to 14 before Jayden Epps helped drive a really nice 8-0 run for the Hoyas to cut the lead to 5 with just under 10 minutes to play in the game. The Hoyas used a zone defense to stifle Creighton's offense and get them out of rhythm and Epps had one of his patented microwave-style hot streaks to give the Hoyas life for the first time in the second half.
It didn't hold. Creighton called a good time out and came out with a really nice zone busting play drawn up to get Ryan Kalkbrenner a dunk that also included Micah Peavy picking up his 4th foul. The Hoyas followed that with a missed jumper from Micah Peavy and two missed free throws from Epps and Creighton answered with a three-pointer to push the lead back to 10 and that was essentially the ballgame. The Hoyas never fully went away, fighting right up to the end, but down two regulars - and really only playing 6 guys in this game after Drew McKenna got pulled early in the second half and didn't return - they simply didn't have the legs or the firepower to keep up with a good team on the road.
After starting the game 8-14 from deep, the Hoyas shot a very-bad-but-not-unusual-for-this-season 4-19 the rest of the way. Micah Peavy had 18 points in the first half on 7-12 shooting, but was 1-9 in the second half with only 2 points. He was blocked at the rim three times by Ryan Kalkbrenner, twice on dunk attempts and - between that and likely some tired legs - started settling for jumpers that just didn't fall in the second half. Creighton hit just enough three pointers to force the Hoyas out of the zone that worked and, predictably, controlled the glass en route to a comfortable-if-not-all-that-convincing win over the undermanned Hoyas.
The Hoyas have three opportunities remaining this season to pick up quality wins: at UConn on Wednesday (Quad 1 opportunity), home for Marquette on Saturday (Quad 1 opportunity), and home against Villanova next Tuesday (Quad 2). But, even if the Hoyas win out, they are looking at needing to win the Big East tournament in order to make the NCAA tournament. This is hardly unexpected given their non-conference schedule and performance, and how far down they were after last season. We'll have time for season retrospectives later, but for this game, there isn't a whole lot to truly takeaway. The Hoyas battled for 40 minutes and certainly showed flashes of really good basketball, but simply weren't able to overcome the absence of Caleb Williams and, in particular, Thomas Sorber and played too inconsistently to really hang with Creighton over 40 minutes of game time.
The biggest takeaway from this game in the humble opinion(s) of Section 104 (Patrick excepted) is probably that Drew McKenna, Curtis Williams, and Jordan Burks should have been getting more consistent minutes throughout the conference season. We've beaten this drum early and often all year, but it's really come into focus over the last two games. Against Providence, all three contributed meaningful minutes, with Burks and McKenna in particular really shining on both ends. Against Creighton, Burks played generally fine (some fairly typical defensive lapses, but competent enough on offense and pesky and active throughout) but McKenna and Williams both struggled and didn't play nearly as much as Georgetown's depth issues would suggest that they should have. The Providence game, and in the case of Burks and Williams other games throughout the year (Marquette comes top of mind here), showed that these guys are college basketball players, good ones even. The Creighton game really showed that they need more game action to build any consistency and they just didn't get that.
Running seven guys out there pretty consistently in Big East play was never going to work for the full season. There was going to be foul trouble. There were going to be injuries and knocks. Not giving these guys consistent game action throughout the conference season only served to limit what they were able to deliver when the Hoyas really needed them to contribute. Drew McKenna took and missed (badly) three open three pointers in this game. These were looks that the offense is designed to get and shots that a) were in rhythm and b) he should be taking. He's had no chance to shoot at game speed however and it showed in how badly he missed the shots. It's hard to get a feel for how the speed of in-game situations will affect your shot if you're not getting playing time to build that feel. For us, this feels like one of the big missed opportunities of the season, particularly if any of these three guys aren't on the team next year or doesn't show improvement going into next season.
The Hoyas are back in action Wednesday against UConn in Storrs. UConn hasn't been the same team this year that they've been in years past, but still present a really stiff challenge, particularly as they fight for tournament seeding against a young and likely again undermanned Hoya team.
