LAS VEGAS, Nev. ? The Creighton men's basketball team extended its win streak to six games with an 84-65 win over Fresno State late Monday night before a sparse crowd at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. The triumph was Creighton's sixth straight double-digit victory, the first time CU has accomplished that since February 2-22, 1965.
Creighton is now 9-2, while Fresno State is 6-6. Creighton plays DePaul in Tuesday's championship game of the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic, while Fresno State meets up with Saint Louis in the third-place game.
The first half featured 23 fouls, including six by both teams in the opening seven minutes. Creighton took an early 16-8 lead before Fresno State answered with a 15-2 run to go ahead 23-18. CU would end the first half tied at 38 all thanks to a jumper by Casey Harriman just before the halftime buzzer.
CU opened the second half with an early 12-3 run to build a 50-41 lead. The run featured an alley-oop to P'Allen Stinnett, as well as a missed dunk on a breakway one possession later by Stinnett, and was capped by a lay-up by Chad Milllard. Fresno State answered on a putback by Paul George, but the freshman phenom would leave the game seconds later with an injury to his arm and would score only five more points the rest of the night.
The Bluejays offense kept pouring it on, extending the lead to 70-54 at the 7:22 mark. The Jays got three-pointers from Stinnett and Booker Woodfox, as well as an emphatic slam dunk by Kenny Lawson Jr. Creighton's lead reached as large as 21 twice in the final three minutes before settling for a 19-point victory.
Woodfox led CU in scoring with 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting, including 4-for-6 from downtown. Lawson tied his career-best with 15 points while Justin Carter and Stinnett each scored 11. Cavel Witter had his best floor game as a Bluejay, finishing with career-highs in assists (9), rebounds (6) and steals (5) while producing six points. CU shot 47.5 percent for the game (28-59), including 8-of-20 from three-point range (40 percent), and hit 20-of-25 free-throws (80 percent). CU owned a 36-28 lead on the glass against a taller Bulldogs squad. Creighton finished with just 10 turnovers for the game, with all but one coming in the first half.
Fresno State was paced by 21 points from George and Dwight O'Neil, who scored 16 points. Both men would foul out. Sylvester Seay tallied 17 points as well as that trio scored 54 of Fresno State's 65 points. The Bulldogs shot 48.9 percent from the floor (22-45), including 7-of-15 from long-distance (46.7 percent), but also had 21 turnovers while struggling against CU's pressure defense.
Creighton concludes play in the Findlay Toyota Las Vegas Classic on Tuesday night with a 7 pm (9 pm Central) game against DePaul in the championship game. The game can be heard on KXSP (Big Sports 590 AM) as well as gocreighton.com, with a pay-per-view video webcast available at http://b2tv.com/partner_members.asp?id=218. DePaul defeated Saint Louis, 65-61, in the first semifinal.
NOTES: Among those in attendance at Orleans Arena were Bluejay recruit Andrew Bock, as well as former Bluejays Al Huss, Brody Deren, Brett Angner and Nick Porter ...Creighton used 12 different players in the first half, including Dustin Sitzmann as a late defensive substitution ...Creighton has played in the championship game of six straight regular-season tournaments ...Booker Woodfox surpassed 500 career points in his 44th game as a Bluejay, tied with Doug Swenson for third-quickest under Dana Altman ...Booker Woodfox has led CU in scoring in five straight games after claiming the team scoring lead just six times in his first 37 games as a Bluejay.
