Korver Shoots #17 Creighton Past Fresno State, 67-66
2/22/2003 7:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Omaha, Neb. — Senior Kyle Korver had 27 points, including seven three-pointers, as #17 Creighton (24-3) downed Fresno State (19-6) 67-66 in the opening match-up of Bracket Buster Saturday. With its 24th win of the year, Creighton tied its single-season record for wins, last done in 2000-01.
Creighton fell behind 12-5 early before consecutive three-pointers by Korver brought CU within one and started a 12-2 Bluejay run that was capped by a Korver pass to Michael Lindeman. Korver’s fifth and final trey of the opening half broke a 31-31 tie and provided the impetus for CU’s 35-33 lead at intermission.
The Bulldogs came out strong after half, scoring on 6-of-7 possessions to take a 45-37 lead with 16:10 to play. A three-point play by Mike Grimes started a 15-2 run for Creighton. CU would build its lead as large as 59-51 with 6:31 left. In the decisive spurt, FSU missed eight shots and had four turnovers while going 8:56 between field goal attempts.
Creighton went up 67-62 on Grimes’ basket underneath with 2:01 left, but did not score the rest of the way. A pair of Renaldo Major free throws made it a three-point game, after which CU’s Tyler McKinney missed a three-point attempt with 1:18 left. After a Fresno State miss with just under a minute to play, McKinney then turned it over with 23 seconds to go to set the stage for Creighton’s biggest defensive series of the season.
Fresno State sharpshooter Damon Jackson, who had made four game-winning shots earlier this season, missed a contested three-pointer only to have Korver stop out of bounds while scrambling for the rebound with 5.2 seconds left to give the Bulldogs the ball back. Jackson’s three-point attempt in the final seconds fell short, though Jonathan Woods tossed in the rebound putback at the final horn. Jackson had entered the game third in the WAC in three-point shooting, only to go 0-for-5 from long-range.
The nation’s top shooting team, Creighton made just 40.4 percent for the game while opening each half 1-for-9 from the field. Korver paced CU with 27 points while taking a career-high 20 points. In addition, his 7-for-15 three-point shooting tied the school record for three-point attempts in a game. Korver did break one school record though, as he has now made 105 trey’s this year to break the mark he set two years ago.
In addition to Korver, Grimes had 11 points and five rebounds off the bench, while Brody Deren contributed 10 points and six rebounds.
Fresno State was led by 17 points from Terry Pettis, 16 from Noel Felix and 12 points each from Major and Woods. Woods led all players with 11 rebounds. For the game, FSU shot 47.2 percent and outrebounded the Jays 38-33.
Creighton returns to Missouri Valley Conference play Wednesday when they travel to Springfield, Mo. to play SMS. Tip time is set for 7:05 p.m. at the Hammons Student Center.
Post-Game Quotes, Feb. 22, 2003
Fresno State at #17 Creighton
Creighton forward #25 Kyle Korver:
On Fresno’s pressure: “They were being real physical and stuff. I kind of see that a lot this year. I just try to stay low and fight through it. They (the referees) called some fouls and got some free throws.”
On playing out of conference: “I mean I think it was good for us. To play against a team like that. They were obviously big and athletic. Just kind of come out and see what we have to do to win a game like that. I think it was good for us. We’ve been saying a bunch of times that we have teams like Southwest (Missouri State) is athletic. Southern (Illinois) is athletic. Those are two of our next games.”
On coming out in big games (Notre Dame, Xavier, and Fresno State): “I don’t know. I like to play in big games. I don’t know who doesn’t. We’ve got a crowd like that. It was awesome. And it’s just fun.”
Creighton center #43 Brody Deren:
On stepping out of the conference for the Bracket Buster game: “It was nice to get a quality opponent like this. They’ve got a higher RPI than most teams in our conference. It was nice a good test for us in the season.”
On Fresno’s athleticism: “It was about what I expected. I actually didn’t expect them to play quite as hard as they did. Just because they flew in from California. They are playing at 9 a.m. their time here. I thought some of the fatigue would take over but they really fought hard.”
Creighton Head Coach Dana Altman:
“Well, first of all, Fresno is a really athletic team. Their athleticism gave us a lot of problems. It was very good to see our team on a day we didn’t shoot the ball well and when we got down in the second half to pick up our defense, pick up our rebounding and find another way to win a game. We’ve been so used to shooting the ball. Tyler (McKinney), DeAnthony (Bowden), Nate Funk, those guys had some open looks that didn’t go down. Those are usually shots that we hit and usually depend on. I really thought that when we got down six or eight (points) during the second half we turned our defense up and gave ourselves an opportunity to get back in the game. On a day where offensively we did not play well, during the stretch where we came back and took the lead, defensively and on the boards we had a good stretch. For our team that is a big accomplishment. I’d like to see those two parts of our game come together a little bit more, so we aren’t just depending on shooting the ball well every night.”
Fresno State Head Coach Ray Lopes:
On getting what was expected from Creighton: “Yeah I knew they’re a heck of a ball club. You don’t get into the top-20 unless you earn it and deserve it. They deserve every bit of it. I thought we fought hard against a very good team tonight, in a very hard place to play. We couldn’t contain Korver. He’s a heck of a player. That is why he is the great player he is. We did everything we could defensively. We executed our game plan the best we could on him, but great players just do that. I was proud of our effort. We had a good effort tonight against this team. We competed hard and we had a chance. That is all you can ask for when you are on the road. Is to put yourself in a position to win a game. I was proud of kids effort. We defended well. Rebounded well. But Creighton was the best team today. They’re a good basketball team.”
Fresno State guard Terry Pettis:
On Kyle Korver: “Kyle Korver is a very good player. Probably one of the Missouri Valley’s best. Top-15 player in the draft I feel. Kyle Korver is a great player because he can shoot the ball. One thing his team really did, they really looked for him when they looked for him to finish setting those screens. But we tried to stay in him as much as possible and limit his touches as much as possible. Which we couldn’t limit his touches as possible because they set a lot of screens for him.”
Fresno State forward Noel Felix:
On Creighton doing anything surprising: “No they didn’t do anything to surprise us. We stuck with our game plan and we were able to do things defensively to get our stops. We had slouches, offensively and defensively, in the game that hurt us.”
On a seeing a better shooter than Kyle Korver this year: “No. The closest to him is Carl English (Hawai’i). But he shoots the ball and he’s always moving offensively. He’s always reading screens. He hurt our ball club at the beginning of the first half, he continued to play well in the second half. He got to the line. So he’s a good player.”
