Creighton hasn't forgotten last year's Elite Eight. It's one step closer to redemption
Last year's crushing loss to San Diego State in the regional final has been a motivation for the team all season. Creighton is one step closer to redemption after last year's Elite Eight loss to San Diego State, which ended their season in a tie game with 1.2 seconds left in the Elite Eight. The Bluejays, led by Baylor Scheierman, Trey Alexander and Ryan Kalkbrenner, are now in the Sweet 16 for their third time in four years and will face No. 2 seed Tennessee in the Midwest Regional on Friday. Despite not exactly the same team, Creighton's stars have been instrumental in their success this season. The team's coach, Greg McDermott, emphasized the importance of avoiding repeating the loss that last year.
Published : a month ago by Kyle Tucker in Sports
PITTSBURGH — There is no more painful NCAA Tournament round to lose in than a regional final. One more win, and you’re in the Final Four. Worse still, and maybe the worst way for a season to die, is the way Creighton’s did last season, on a controversial foul call in a tie game with 1.2 seconds left in the Elite Eight. A single San Diego State free throw sent the Bluejays home and canceled the school’s first trip to a Final Four. Afterward, coach Greg McDermott delivered a powerful speech to his team in the locker room.
“We were able to climb a mountain nobody that’s ever worn this uniform has climbed. We can hurt. We can be disappointed. But you damn well better be proud,” he said amid the sound of sobs and sniffles. “What happened out there is not renting space in our head and our heart, because then we gotta go through it over and over and over again. We went through it once, and it’s over. We’ll be back in this game. I promise you that.”
And now here they are, almost. The Bluejays are back in the Sweet 16 for a third time in four years and will play No. 2 seed Tennessee in the Midwest Regional on Friday. This close to their chance at redemption. It’s not exactly the same team, but it has been propelled by a trio of stars — Baylor Scheierman, Trey Alexander and Ryan Kalkbrenner — who suffered the sting of that near-miss and came back to finish the job. They try not to think of it in those terms, heeding McDermott’s words about letting a nightmare take up residency in their minds. But it’s inescapable now, this close to a do-over.
“It doesn’t really happen like this very often in this day and age of college basketball, to have three guys the caliber we do all deciding to run it back together,” Scheierman says. “But that was a really hard way to lose, because you lost on something that’s not really in your control. We know what that feels like now, and we want to get back there and get over the hump.”
Kalkbrenner’s approach is a little different. He prefers to flush it, forget about last year, refuse to even consider the possibility it could happen again, or that this year is connected to last year beyond the usefulness of so much returning postseason experience.
“But for me, it’s been healthy to think about it,” Alexander says. “It’s helped me to find a reason to set a higher goal for myself and this team — and something to look back on and check yourself, make sure you’re not complacent about winning two or three games in the tournament. We can’t relax. We have to do everything we can to get back to that point and have a different outcome.”
He’s right about relaxing. Do that and, blink, it’s over. In the second round last week, 11th-seeded Oregon led third-seeded Creighton by four points with less than 30 seconds left in regulation. But Scheierman made up those four points in short order; his tying jump shot with eight ticks to go sent it to overtime. The Bluejays needed two overtimes to escape, finally, when the 7-foot-1 Kalkbrenner buried a 3-pointer and Alexander scored the final five points.
Creighton’s Big Three combined for 57 points and 30 rebounds in that game.
“You get to the end of games like that when you’re young, you kind of speed up, and when you speed up, you make a bad decision,” Kalkbrenner says. “In these situations, you’ve got to be super laser-focused, but also be able to play loose and free, to the best of your abilities. So I think the experience really gives us that ability to not speed up so much and really stay in the moment and do what we know how to do.”
The other star of that game — and this season — for the Bluejays was point guard Steven Ashworth. He had 21 points, five made 3s, four assists, two steals and only one turnover in 42 minutes against Oregon. Ashworth is the former Utah State star, an All-Mountain West sharpshooter, who stepped into the void left when Ryan Nembhard transferred to Gonzaga after last season. Ashworth wasn’t even planning to hit the portal until his coach took a new job — and when he watched Creighton lose and saw McDermott’s locker room speech online last year. He thought: I could play for that guy.
“Then when they lost their point guard and I lost my coach, it became a perfect fit,” Ashworth says. “That’s something you dream of, coming into a situation where you’ve got all these guys who can score, pass and play together, and you just get to do what you wish with it. That was a huge selling point to me, and it’s been everything I dreamed of. There’s a vibe around this group that there’s something unfinished, that there’s something more they want that’s out there. When I decided to transfer, I just thought back to that locker room speech and it was like, yeah, I too want a part in this unfinished business that Creighton’s got.”
The three stars who returned have all had huge seasons. Scheierman is averaging 18.3 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.0 assists; Alexander 17.7, 5.7 and 4.7; Kalkbrenner 17.4, 7.6 and 3.1 blocks. Both Alexander and Kalkbrenner went through the NBA Draft process before announcing their return to school in late May, but Scheierman said he was coming back almost immediately after the season. The jump in competition from South Dakota State to the Big East last year was a big adjustment and he knew there was work to be done.
“Last year, transferring in and being talked about as the guy who’s going to put Creighton over the top is a lot of pressure,” Scheierman says. “I thought I handled it decently, for the most part, but this year I was able to just put my head down and mentally be more locked in and just play free. I had a lot of talks with Mac at the end of the season, about improvements I needed to make and what the coaches and my teammates expect of me. I’m more comfortable with all that now than ever. When I first came, I didn’t really get an offseason to adjust to how they play and all those things, but by staying here all spring and summer, I was ready for Year 2.”
That’s not to say this season has been without hiccups — the Bluejays lost nine games, after all — but there have been big, blinking signs that anything is possible. They beat Alabama, Marquette and Connecticut, all top-four seeds still dancing in the Sweet 16. The home win over the defending national champion and No. 1 overall seed Huskies on Feb. 20, an 85-66 shellacking that is one of just three losses for UConn and the only one in which UConn was fully healthy, especially validated Creighton’s audacious, out-loud preseason goal.
“National championship,” Kalkbrenner says. “For some teams, that’s not super realistic. But for this program that’s been building and building, it’s finally time that we can start talking about those things. We gotta go out there and do it, obviously, but the win against UConn showed we can play with any team in the country. That was the goal for us at the beginning of the year, and now we’re in a really good position to do that.”
Topics: March Madness