Creighton University
Wichita State
Men's Basketball Tops Shockers, 57-56
1/16/2010 7:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
OMAHA, Neb. -- Creighton men's basketball won its second straight game and moved to .500 for the first time since Thanksgiving with a 57-56 win over rival Wichita State before 16,955 fans and an national television audience on Saturday afternoon at Qwest Center Omaha. It was Creighton's 17th straight home win over the Shockers.
Creighton is now 9-9 on the season and 4-3 in the MVC, while Wichita State fell to 16-3 overall and 5-2 in league play.
Creighton missed its first seven shots from the floor before a P'Allen Stinnett slam snapped an 0-for-7 drought that lasted more than seven minutes. Despite that early drought, CU trailed just 9-7 after the Stinnett's jam.
Wichita State took its biggest lead of the game at 24-18 with 3:05 left on a three-pointer by Garrett Stutz, then watched as CU applied some pressure and ended the half on an 8-0 surge. That include 6-of-6 shooting at the line and a pull-up jumper from Cavel Witter that gave CU a 28-26 halftime lead.
The Jays led at the break despite being outrebounded 23-15 and shooting just 27 percent in the opening stanza.
Creighton would push its lead into double-digits and still lead 47-35 with 7:10 play. WSU would get a trey from Graham Hatch and a basket from JT Durley inside to trim the deficit to seven, only to see CU answer with a Justin Carter trifecta to move the lead to 10.
The Shox trimmed the deficit to six at the five minute mark, but the Jays answered with a Witter free throw. WSU then had three cracks down the floor the next time, with David Kyles making a nifty reverse lay-in in traffic to make it a five-point game at 51-46 with 3:59 remaining.
Wichita State closed within two points when Durley drained at three-pointer from the top of the key. CU would answer when Lawson followed a Witter miss with a stickback.
After a Shocker timeout, Stinnett picked off a Durley pass with 1:25 left. Lawson would make 1-of-2 at the line to put CU up five points. WSU answered when Toure' Murry threw down a dunk in traffic, bringing the Shox within three points.
Carter split two shots at the line to put CU up 57-53 with 23.8 seconds left, but Clevin Hannah came back down and drained a triple with 13.1 seconds left to make it a 57-56 Bluejay edge. As CU was bringing the ball upcourt, WSU would knock the ball out of bounds with 9.4 seconds left. CU would inbound the ball to Stinnett, would combined with Witter to play keep away until time expired as an anticipated foul from the Shockers never came.
Stinnett led CU with 14 points off the bench, in the process moving over 1,000 career points and passing Anthony Tolliver for 32nd in CU history in scoring (1,010). Lawson had 11 points and a team-best seven rebounds while Witter scored 10 points in the victory. Creighton shot 32.6 percent from the floor (15-46), 29.4 percent from downtown (5-17) and 73.3 percent at the line (22-30).
WSU was led by 16 points and nine rebounds from Murry, while Hannah had 12 points in 19 minutes while being saddled with foul trouble all afternoon. WSU shot 36.5 percent from the field (19-52), 7-of-21 from three-point range (33.3 percent) and 11-of-16 from the line (61.1 percent).
Creighton returns to the court on Wednesday when it visits Illinois State. That game will begin at 7:05 pm and be televised in Omaha on KMTV.
NOTES: Clevin Hannah made all six of his free throw attempts to break the WSU school record with 40 straight makes at the line, four more than the mark originally set by Ron Mendel in 1967-68 ...P'Allen Stinnett became the 33rd member of CU's 1,000 point club with two free throws with 1:54 left in the first half ...It took Stinnett 85 games to reach 1,000 points, CU's quickest to reach that milsteone since Kyle Korver needed just 81 ...Each of Creighton's last two wins over Wichita State have been by one point ...Creighton is now 4-0 in "White-Out" games where it asks fans to wear white, including one-point wins today as well as last year vs. Southern Illinois (Jan. 14, 2009) ...Dana Altman is now 28-2 against Wichita State (25-2 at CU, 3-0 at Kansas State) when holding the Shockers under 70 points ...Altman's 30 wins over Wichita State are six more than any other school he's beaten ...Altman is now 14-2 in his career against Wichita State in games decided by four points or fewer (13-2 at CU, 1-0 at K-State) ...Wichita State was attempting its first regular-season series sweep of Creighton since 1988 ...Each of Creighton's previous 47 wins had come in games in which it had scored 60 or more points ...The six-point deficit that Creighton overcame (18-24) was CU's largest of the year in a game it eventually won ...Creighton is now 8-1 at home this season ...Creighton's bench outscored WSU's 30-9.
