Thursday, March 8
New York, N.Y.
1:30 PM
Creighton University
21-11
68
vs
72
Providence
20-12
1
2
OT 1
F
Providence
26
33
13
72
Creighton
30
29
9
68
Creighton dropped an overtime game to Providence on Thursday afternoon.
Photo by: Joe Willman
Men's Basketball Falls in Overtime in BIG EAST Quarterfinals, 72-68
3/8/2018 4:02:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Jays will await NCAA Tournament fate on Sunday
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Fourth-seeded Creighton fell to fifth-seeded Providence, 72-68, in overtime on Thursday afternoon in quarterfinal round action of the BIG EAST Tournament.
Providence improved to 20-12 with the victory while avenging a 2017 quarterfinal loss to the Bluejays (21-11).
Creighton surged to an 8-3 lead in the opening minutes after a dunk by Khyri Thomas, only to see the Friars return the favor with a 12-2 run as Providence took a 15-10 advantage. PC stayed in front until the Bluejay freshmen keyed an 11-2 surge to end the first half, with Mitch Ballock and Jacob Epperson contributing the final nine points of that flurry.
Epperson, Ballock and Marcus Foster each scored seven points by the intermission, and CU dished 10 assists on 12 baskets. PC was paced by six points from Jalen Lindsey.
Creighton took its largest lead as Foster drained a three-pointer to put CU up 33-26 on the first trip of the second half, but Providence rallied and retook the lead at 51-49 on a trey by Isaiah Jackson with 7:19 left. Davion Mintz countered for CU with a three-point play, the fifth lead change of the game.
Foster gave Creighton a 58-56 lead with 1:20 left in regulation on a nifty spin move got him to the rim. After Alpha Diallo hit 1-of-2 free throws, Foster did the same with 37.9 let to put CU up by two. Diallo would miss his initial shot, but his stickback with 12.9 left tied the game. Creighton didn't get a good look at the end of regulation after Foster lost control of the ball.
Providence never trailed in the extra session. Davion Mintz made two foul shots with 1:47 left to tie the game at 64 before Kyron Cartwright and Isaiah Jackson hit two free throws to put PC up four with 56.7 left. Mintz hit a baseline jumper with 45.4 left, only to see Cartwright spin for a jumper with 15.9 left to return the margin to four. Mintz made two free throws with 12.0 to go, halving the deficit to two.
Diallo would be fouled with 8.8 seconds to go and make the second one to put PC up by three, 71-68. After a timeout Ballock would miss from three-point range and CU was forced to foul with 0.5 left. Isaiah Jackson made 1-of-2 foul shots with to ice the victory.
Foster finished with a team-high 19 points, adding five rebounds and three assists. Mintz scored 14 points and supplied five assists and four rebounds before fouling out, and Ballock tallied 12 points in his Madison Square Garden debut. The Bluejays shot 42.4 percent for the game and had 16 assists.
Diallo led PC with 19 points and contributed nine rebounds, while Lindsey had 11 points and 10 rebounds for his second career double-double. Cartwright added 13 points and was limited to two assists. PC won the rebound battle 45-39, turning 16 offensive rebounds into 12 second-chance points.
Creighton will learn its postseason fate on Sunday evening. The NCAA Tournament Selection Show begins at 5 p.m. Central and will air on TBS.
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
COACH COOLEY: There's a reason I brought all the seniors here. Alpha played well. This senior class has been an amazing group for us to coach, to see these young men grow up, up and down year with some injuries and more importantly our health. But I thought that was a great team win.
You can't say enough about the Big East, you really can't, and the competitive nature of our game. The spirit that's always in this building, great, great atmosphere. It's a credit to Val and what she's doing with our league.
But today was a win that I thought our players went out and earned. We made a lot of mistakes but I thought we were good when we needed to be.
Coach McDermott does an unbelievable job. They had a wide open shot to tie the game. But today divine Providence was on our side. It really was. And that word is engrained in my soul; divine Providence goes a long way.
And I couldn't be more proud of these guys. They made timely plays, timely shots and free throws across the board. I thought the entire team played well. But we have our four seniors here for a reason.
This is going to be the first time in history of Providence College that a recruited class goes to four consecutive tournaments, and I can't be more proud of this group for doing so, which is really, really hard to do given where we took this program from to where we're trying to go. It's a credit to what these young men have done.
I'm proud of them. They'll all be college graduates. And at the end as much as we want to win my job is to build them up as men and make sure they're educated so many of you out there that own your companies can hire them. So they've got a free interview right now.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. You missed a lot of free throws through the second half -- second half one-on-ones and two-shot fouls. Then overtime you started making free throws. Talk about timely shots. How did the guys respond to the pressure?
COACH COOLEY: You know, I mean, they're older guys. We've missed some free throws. I think we made the ones we had to make. As much as we want to make all of them it's part of the game. You encourage them to make the next one. You don't beat them up for missing.
Today -- I was the free throw coach, so I'll penalize myself -- but we made enough to win the game. Hopefully tomorrow against a really talented Xavier team we're better.
Q. Creighton only attempted nine 3s in the second half. What did you do defensively to maybe limit some of their open looks limit, limit some of the chances they normally would have taken from that area?
COACH COOLEY: Since the launch of our great league, I think we've played Creighton more than anybody. We're used to the style of play each other. Very competitive games, all of our games are very competitive especially in this wonderful building.
High alert. We both scout really well. And if you take away their 3s and make it tough 2s you're going to position yourself to have an opportunity to win, because I think they have one of the most explosive scores in college basketball in Foster.
Q. You've talked to us several times about the atmosphere out there. Today it was almost like you were either playing in Omaha or Providence. What does that feel like? If any of the guys want to talk about on a Thursday afternoon, quarterfinals. It was really something out there.
COACH COOLEY: I'll let them answer first because I'd like to answer that.
KYRON CARTWRIGHT: Playing in the Garden, play here a lot. It's like, feels like our second home sometimes. We got a lot of great alumni who come out, a lot of great fans, a lot of students here from the New York area.
They always come out. They support us. They're really loud out there and we feed off their energy. They're a part of the team, just like we are. We're on the court but they also helped us to get that win.
Q. What was your defensive idea was both at the end of regulation and that Ballock shot, you could have chose to foul there?
COACH COOLEY: We talked about it. We talked about it several times. 8.8 seconds left, the length of the court, do we want to foul. At first I wanted to, and then the players told me no. And sometimes you gotta listen to the players. They play a game. We see the game.
They got open, whether it was miscommunication, we didn't switch the right way. At the end of the day they missed a shot. They got a great look, wide open look, maybe the look they wanted, but again divine Providence.
Q. Alpha, can you talk about the last run in regulation? Foster lost the ball.
ALPHA DIALLO: It was tie game.
COACH COOLEY: We're slow, not dumb.
ALPHA DIALLO: I tried to stay in front of him. Tried to contest the shot, if he was to pull up or don't allow him to get an easy drive right to the basket.
COACH COOLEY: I do want to reflect on the question you had with respect to Omaha and Providence. I think it's a credit to the Big East. Again, I go back to where we came from and where we're trying to go, all the naysayers saying the old Big East.
Our Big East is as dominant as any conference in the country. And I think the product on the floor, when people come out to support us -- the fan base coming from Omaha, coming from Butler, coming from Ohio -- tells you the brand and the product that's on the floor and people are excited to see it. And I think it's a credit to the leadership of the conference.
Q. Coach mentioned that you made the NCAA Tournament four straight years now. Coming in on the bubble, is that a motivation to kind of control your own destiny?
COACH COOLEY: Whose bubble?
Q. I guess you didn't feel like you had any pressure, the added pressure then to make the tournament.
KYRON CARTWRIGHT: I'll take that one. We never were thinking about that coming in here. It's our senior class. These guys up here, it's our last chance to play in this building like this. And we just want to play hard and leave it all on the floor. Our goal at the beginning of the year, we say it every year, is just to get to the tournament and try to win every day.
You gotta focus on the data that's at hand. You can't look past anybody because everybody in this league is so great. And we did that today. We're looking forward to getting back on that court tomorrow.
Q. Alpha, for you to have the second half that you did and force overtime, being from New York and from this area, what does that mean for you to help your team get to the tournament, like Coach said, doing it in this building? Must be special to you.
ALPHA DIALLO: It's very special because I have family and everyone, they come down to support. And they all -- they make it up to Providence some games, but when I'm home they're always here. So it was great to play in front of that crowd and my family was there. So it was also good.
Q. Rodney and Alpha, Creighton is a team that doesn't foul a lot, but you really forced them to foul; I think you played more physical. Was that part of the mentality? What did you guys try to do to get inside and attack their defense?
RODNEY BULLOCK: Coach emphasized earlier during the week in practice to tell us just to post these guys up. We had a lot of mismatches, and we ran a lot of plays for us to get the balls in the post and play off the post.
We knew a few guys would get double teamed, he told us, and we just made a play out of that. And we happened to get them in foul trouble.
Q. There's nothing like playing at Madison Square Garden. And it's obvious that you have the fans on your side. Do you feel that's an advantage to you against a very strong Xavier team tomorrow?
JALEN LINDSEY: Yeah, definitely. Like Kyron said before we played here many, many times, so we have a great feel of the court. And obviously being so close to home, from Providence, we have a bunch of fans and alumni who actually moved to New York and come to see us play. We have fans who travel across the country to watch us and stuff like that.
We're playing against a really, really good team in Xavier, and I think it is an advantage, but I think it's more of how we play than just the crowd.
Q. Xavier shoots a very high -- they're one of the best free-throw shooting teams in the country, where you guys were shooting in the 60s today, which means that -- the question, though, is let me go back to the 8.8 seconds and you made the decision you took it on your backs to not foul in that situation. It's a double bonus, and you foul and how many free throws do they get? They're getting from any point on the court. Was the team, like, bone-on-bone kind of thing, we're going to win this? Is that correct from you guys?
KYRON CARTWRIGHT: When you step on the court playing for Coach Cooley he instills a lot of confidence in us. And we came to each other in the huddle before we saw Coach, and we looked in each other's eyes and it was, like, we've got to get this stop, we're going to get that stop.
We had that look in our face. As soon as Coach asked us, we all knew at the same time we wanted to say no. And we just wanted to gut it out and we were going to leave it all out on the floor.
Â
COACH MCDERMOTT: I felt coming into this game that it was going to be kind of a rock fight. It usually is when we play Providence, and today certainly fit into that category.
You know, they went small. Our metric said they do it about 20, 22 percent of the time on the year. Probably wasn't anticipating 90 percent of the time today.
And I thought our guys adjusted to it pretty well. We had some lineups out there that have not been out there together all season. And we just kind of had to figure it out.
And as I told the team, there's some things in the game you can control. You can control your execution. Can't always control whether the shot goes in. And we executed some stuff great. Marcus got a great look at a 3 when we were down two in overtime.
Obviously Mitch got a wide-open look at the end to tie it. And we missed some free throws from guys that normally make them that are good foul shooters.
So obviously they bullied us a little bit right at the end of regulation with a couple of offensive rebounds that turned out to, end up being the difference in the game. But we were really small out there at that point.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?
Q. Alpha was a big matchup problem out in the second match against Providence and today with Ronnie a little kind of coming back and Mitch having to play the 4, how did you go about kind of trying to at least limit that as much as possible?
COACH MCDERMOTT: Well, we were trying to shrink the floor a little, at least make the driving lanes difficult. And at times we did a good job at that. At times we were a little bit late with our post front or a little late with the help, I think we got beat over the top one time for a layup.
He's a hard matchup. Hard matchup for anybody, especially hard matchup for us when we're forced to play five guards. Somebody has to guard Bullock. And obviously you don't ever want to let Cartwright get going, because when Cartwright gets going, they win. Period.
That's why when they made the change in the starting lineup, we went Taz on Cartwright and moved Marcus around and late, when we put Khyri on Bullock, Marcus did a great job on Cartwright. So defensively they thought 36 percent for the game. So we played well enough defensively to win.
Q. Could you go a little bit deeper in that, with five guards, obviously you might be giving up some size inside --
COACH MCDERMOTT: Might be?
Q. Yeah. (Laughter). How did you work through that decision. Why did you feel the need to go five guards?
COACH MCDERMOTT: They really started to attack that matchup. They were driving Jake or Toby, kind of whoever was in there. And I didn't feel like we were -- the first half we got enough out of Jake on the offensive end to roll the dice on the defensive end.
Second half, they did a better job on some of their switches and some of their help. It was almost like we were trying too hard to get him a touch down there. As a result we turned it over a couple times.
I thought Davion was doing good things. I thought Ty-Shon made some great reads. We decided to go small so we could switch more stuff. If you're leaving Toby and Jake out there, obviously you're not switching the screen and putting them on Cartwright. So our options were limited if we stayed with that lineup.
Q. Marcus and Coach, the final couple of minutes, and especially, Marcus, the final try at the buzzer in regulation, can you go back through those last minute or two; you scored every point I think for Creighton, and also what you were trying to do on that last shot.
MARCUS FOSTER: Yeah, Coach has been telling us all week just keep driving, get in the paint, set our feet, and we could get what we wanted.
I was just focusing on getting in the paint, trying to hesitate them a little bit, just to get them off so they could rise on my shot and get the easy layup. The last play is something that I always work on. And I was doing too much, trying to dribble too much into my shot. But I was looking for the step-back 3 like I always do and I just lost it and we ended up going overtime.
COACH MCDERMOTT: Marcus made some really good plays to get us to that point. And if you take a timeout, you run the risk of them being able to keep the ball out of your best player's hands. When we're coming down with nine seconds left and the ball is in our best player's hands, that's about as comfortable as I can get in that situation.
He's made a lot of great plays during the course of the season and, frankly, during the course of his career in those situations.
Just a fluke deal. He lost the ball. Diallo is a good defender. But he didn't get a hand on it or anything. Marcus just lost it. And, like I said, sometimes that happens.
Q. Did either of you guys say anything to Mitch after the game. It seemed like he was, obviously, pretty -- understandably -- down about missing that shot?
COACH MCDERMOTT: All you can control is your preparation. I work in the same building where we practice. So I know how much time this guy spends in there working on those situations. And I know how much time Mitch spends in there. Usually because the music he plays is a little different than everybody else's, so I know it's him, him or Tyler Clement.
So they're in there, working at it, preparing themselves for that moment. As long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and say: You know what, I prepared myself, I just missed it.
And I'm confident, I think Marcus would agree with me, that we're very comfortable with Mitch taking that shot in that situation. It was a great read. And we got the shot we wanted. We just missed it.
Q. Since you mentioned the music, what kind of music does he listen to?
COACH MCDERMOTT: His has a little bit more country flare to it maybe than what Marcus listens to. (Laughter). I actually enjoy Mitch's playlist a little bit more than Marcus'.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
#5 PROVIDENCE 72, #4 CREIGHTON 68 (OT)
MARCH 8, 2018 – QUARTERFINAL
POSTGAME NOTES
Â
Providence Notes
Creighton Notes
Providence improved to 20-12 with the victory while avenging a 2017 quarterfinal loss to the Bluejays (21-11).
Creighton surged to an 8-3 lead in the opening minutes after a dunk by Khyri Thomas, only to see the Friars return the favor with a 12-2 run as Providence took a 15-10 advantage. PC stayed in front until the Bluejay freshmen keyed an 11-2 surge to end the first half, with Mitch Ballock and Jacob Epperson contributing the final nine points of that flurry.
Epperson, Ballock and Marcus Foster each scored seven points by the intermission, and CU dished 10 assists on 12 baskets. PC was paced by six points from Jalen Lindsey.
Creighton took its largest lead as Foster drained a three-pointer to put CU up 33-26 on the first trip of the second half, but Providence rallied and retook the lead at 51-49 on a trey by Isaiah Jackson with 7:19 left. Davion Mintz countered for CU with a three-point play, the fifth lead change of the game.
Foster gave Creighton a 58-56 lead with 1:20 left in regulation on a nifty spin move got him to the rim. After Alpha Diallo hit 1-of-2 free throws, Foster did the same with 37.9 let to put CU up by two. Diallo would miss his initial shot, but his stickback with 12.9 left tied the game. Creighton didn't get a good look at the end of regulation after Foster lost control of the ball.
Providence never trailed in the extra session. Davion Mintz made two foul shots with 1:47 left to tie the game at 64 before Kyron Cartwright and Isaiah Jackson hit two free throws to put PC up four with 56.7 left. Mintz hit a baseline jumper with 45.4 left, only to see Cartwright spin for a jumper with 15.9 left to return the margin to four. Mintz made two free throws with 12.0 to go, halving the deficit to two.
Diallo would be fouled with 8.8 seconds to go and make the second one to put PC up by three, 71-68. After a timeout Ballock would miss from three-point range and CU was forced to foul with 0.5 left. Isaiah Jackson made 1-of-2 foul shots with to ice the victory.
Foster finished with a team-high 19 points, adding five rebounds and three assists. Mintz scored 14 points and supplied five assists and four rebounds before fouling out, and Ballock tallied 12 points in his Madison Square Garden debut. The Bluejays shot 42.4 percent for the game and had 16 assists.
Diallo led PC with 19 points and contributed nine rebounds, while Lindsey had 11 points and 10 rebounds for his second career double-double. Cartwright added 13 points and was limited to two assists. PC won the rebound battle 45-39, turning 16 offensive rebounds into 12 second-chance points.
Creighton will learn its postseason fate on Sunday evening. The NCAA Tournament Selection Show begins at 5 p.m. Central and will air on TBS.
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Ed Cooley
Jalen Lindsey
Kyron Cartwright
Alpha Diallo
Rodney Bullock
Providence Friars
Providence - 72, Creighton - 68 (OT)COACH COOLEY: There's a reason I brought all the seniors here. Alpha played well. This senior class has been an amazing group for us to coach, to see these young men grow up, up and down year with some injuries and more importantly our health. But I thought that was a great team win.
You can't say enough about the Big East, you really can't, and the competitive nature of our game. The spirit that's always in this building, great, great atmosphere. It's a credit to Val and what she's doing with our league.
But today was a win that I thought our players went out and earned. We made a lot of mistakes but I thought we were good when we needed to be.
Coach McDermott does an unbelievable job. They had a wide open shot to tie the game. But today divine Providence was on our side. It really was. And that word is engrained in my soul; divine Providence goes a long way.
And I couldn't be more proud of these guys. They made timely plays, timely shots and free throws across the board. I thought the entire team played well. But we have our four seniors here for a reason.
This is going to be the first time in history of Providence College that a recruited class goes to four consecutive tournaments, and I can't be more proud of this group for doing so, which is really, really hard to do given where we took this program from to where we're trying to go. It's a credit to what these young men have done.
I'm proud of them. They'll all be college graduates. And at the end as much as we want to win my job is to build them up as men and make sure they're educated so many of you out there that own your companies can hire them. So they've got a free interview right now.
THE MODERATOR: Questions.
Q. You missed a lot of free throws through the second half -- second half one-on-ones and two-shot fouls. Then overtime you started making free throws. Talk about timely shots. How did the guys respond to the pressure?
COACH COOLEY: You know, I mean, they're older guys. We've missed some free throws. I think we made the ones we had to make. As much as we want to make all of them it's part of the game. You encourage them to make the next one. You don't beat them up for missing.
Today -- I was the free throw coach, so I'll penalize myself -- but we made enough to win the game. Hopefully tomorrow against a really talented Xavier team we're better.
Q. Creighton only attempted nine 3s in the second half. What did you do defensively to maybe limit some of their open looks limit, limit some of the chances they normally would have taken from that area?
COACH COOLEY: Since the launch of our great league, I think we've played Creighton more than anybody. We're used to the style of play each other. Very competitive games, all of our games are very competitive especially in this wonderful building.
High alert. We both scout really well. And if you take away their 3s and make it tough 2s you're going to position yourself to have an opportunity to win, because I think they have one of the most explosive scores in college basketball in Foster.
Q. You've talked to us several times about the atmosphere out there. Today it was almost like you were either playing in Omaha or Providence. What does that feel like? If any of the guys want to talk about on a Thursday afternoon, quarterfinals. It was really something out there.
COACH COOLEY: I'll let them answer first because I'd like to answer that.
KYRON CARTWRIGHT: Playing in the Garden, play here a lot. It's like, feels like our second home sometimes. We got a lot of great alumni who come out, a lot of great fans, a lot of students here from the New York area.
They always come out. They support us. They're really loud out there and we feed off their energy. They're a part of the team, just like we are. We're on the court but they also helped us to get that win.
Q. What was your defensive idea was both at the end of regulation and that Ballock shot, you could have chose to foul there?
COACH COOLEY: We talked about it. We talked about it several times. 8.8 seconds left, the length of the court, do we want to foul. At first I wanted to, and then the players told me no. And sometimes you gotta listen to the players. They play a game. We see the game.
They got open, whether it was miscommunication, we didn't switch the right way. At the end of the day they missed a shot. They got a great look, wide open look, maybe the look they wanted, but again divine Providence.
Q. Alpha, can you talk about the last run in regulation? Foster lost the ball.
ALPHA DIALLO: It was tie game.
COACH COOLEY: We're slow, not dumb.
ALPHA DIALLO: I tried to stay in front of him. Tried to contest the shot, if he was to pull up or don't allow him to get an easy drive right to the basket.
COACH COOLEY: I do want to reflect on the question you had with respect to Omaha and Providence. I think it's a credit to the Big East. Again, I go back to where we came from and where we're trying to go, all the naysayers saying the old Big East.
Our Big East is as dominant as any conference in the country. And I think the product on the floor, when people come out to support us -- the fan base coming from Omaha, coming from Butler, coming from Ohio -- tells you the brand and the product that's on the floor and people are excited to see it. And I think it's a credit to the leadership of the conference.
Q. Coach mentioned that you made the NCAA Tournament four straight years now. Coming in on the bubble, is that a motivation to kind of control your own destiny?
COACH COOLEY: Whose bubble?
Q. I guess you didn't feel like you had any pressure, the added pressure then to make the tournament.
KYRON CARTWRIGHT: I'll take that one. We never were thinking about that coming in here. It's our senior class. These guys up here, it's our last chance to play in this building like this. And we just want to play hard and leave it all on the floor. Our goal at the beginning of the year, we say it every year, is just to get to the tournament and try to win every day.
You gotta focus on the data that's at hand. You can't look past anybody because everybody in this league is so great. And we did that today. We're looking forward to getting back on that court tomorrow.
Q. Alpha, for you to have the second half that you did and force overtime, being from New York and from this area, what does that mean for you to help your team get to the tournament, like Coach said, doing it in this building? Must be special to you.
ALPHA DIALLO: It's very special because I have family and everyone, they come down to support. And they all -- they make it up to Providence some games, but when I'm home they're always here. So it was great to play in front of that crowd and my family was there. So it was also good.
Q. Rodney and Alpha, Creighton is a team that doesn't foul a lot, but you really forced them to foul; I think you played more physical. Was that part of the mentality? What did you guys try to do to get inside and attack their defense?
RODNEY BULLOCK: Coach emphasized earlier during the week in practice to tell us just to post these guys up. We had a lot of mismatches, and we ran a lot of plays for us to get the balls in the post and play off the post.
We knew a few guys would get double teamed, he told us, and we just made a play out of that. And we happened to get them in foul trouble.
Q. There's nothing like playing at Madison Square Garden. And it's obvious that you have the fans on your side. Do you feel that's an advantage to you against a very strong Xavier team tomorrow?
JALEN LINDSEY: Yeah, definitely. Like Kyron said before we played here many, many times, so we have a great feel of the court. And obviously being so close to home, from Providence, we have a bunch of fans and alumni who actually moved to New York and come to see us play. We have fans who travel across the country to watch us and stuff like that.
We're playing against a really, really good team in Xavier, and I think it is an advantage, but I think it's more of how we play than just the crowd.
Q. Xavier shoots a very high -- they're one of the best free-throw shooting teams in the country, where you guys were shooting in the 60s today, which means that -- the question, though, is let me go back to the 8.8 seconds and you made the decision you took it on your backs to not foul in that situation. It's a double bonus, and you foul and how many free throws do they get? They're getting from any point on the court. Was the team, like, bone-on-bone kind of thing, we're going to win this? Is that correct from you guys?
KYRON CARTWRIGHT: When you step on the court playing for Coach Cooley he instills a lot of confidence in us. And we came to each other in the huddle before we saw Coach, and we looked in each other's eyes and it was, like, we've got to get this stop, we're going to get that stop.
We had that look in our face. As soon as Coach asked us, we all knew at the same time we wanted to say no. And we just wanted to gut it out and we were going to leave it all out on the floor.
Â
Big East Conference Men's Basketball Tournament
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Greg McDermott
Marcus Foster
Creighton Bluejays
Providence -72, Creighton - 68 (OT)COACH MCDERMOTT: I felt coming into this game that it was going to be kind of a rock fight. It usually is when we play Providence, and today certainly fit into that category.
You know, they went small. Our metric said they do it about 20, 22 percent of the time on the year. Probably wasn't anticipating 90 percent of the time today.
And I thought our guys adjusted to it pretty well. We had some lineups out there that have not been out there together all season. And we just kind of had to figure it out.
And as I told the team, there's some things in the game you can control. You can control your execution. Can't always control whether the shot goes in. And we executed some stuff great. Marcus got a great look at a 3 when we were down two in overtime.
Obviously Mitch got a wide-open look at the end to tie it. And we missed some free throws from guys that normally make them that are good foul shooters.
So obviously they bullied us a little bit right at the end of regulation with a couple of offensive rebounds that turned out to, end up being the difference in the game. But we were really small out there at that point.
THE MODERATOR: Questions?
Q. Alpha was a big matchup problem out in the second match against Providence and today with Ronnie a little kind of coming back and Mitch having to play the 4, how did you go about kind of trying to at least limit that as much as possible?
COACH MCDERMOTT: Well, we were trying to shrink the floor a little, at least make the driving lanes difficult. And at times we did a good job at that. At times we were a little bit late with our post front or a little late with the help, I think we got beat over the top one time for a layup.
He's a hard matchup. Hard matchup for anybody, especially hard matchup for us when we're forced to play five guards. Somebody has to guard Bullock. And obviously you don't ever want to let Cartwright get going, because when Cartwright gets going, they win. Period.
That's why when they made the change in the starting lineup, we went Taz on Cartwright and moved Marcus around and late, when we put Khyri on Bullock, Marcus did a great job on Cartwright. So defensively they thought 36 percent for the game. So we played well enough defensively to win.
Q. Could you go a little bit deeper in that, with five guards, obviously you might be giving up some size inside --
COACH MCDERMOTT: Might be?
Q. Yeah. (Laughter). How did you work through that decision. Why did you feel the need to go five guards?
COACH MCDERMOTT: They really started to attack that matchup. They were driving Jake or Toby, kind of whoever was in there. And I didn't feel like we were -- the first half we got enough out of Jake on the offensive end to roll the dice on the defensive end.
Second half, they did a better job on some of their switches and some of their help. It was almost like we were trying too hard to get him a touch down there. As a result we turned it over a couple times.
I thought Davion was doing good things. I thought Ty-Shon made some great reads. We decided to go small so we could switch more stuff. If you're leaving Toby and Jake out there, obviously you're not switching the screen and putting them on Cartwright. So our options were limited if we stayed with that lineup.
Q. Marcus and Coach, the final couple of minutes, and especially, Marcus, the final try at the buzzer in regulation, can you go back through those last minute or two; you scored every point I think for Creighton, and also what you were trying to do on that last shot.
MARCUS FOSTER: Yeah, Coach has been telling us all week just keep driving, get in the paint, set our feet, and we could get what we wanted.
I was just focusing on getting in the paint, trying to hesitate them a little bit, just to get them off so they could rise on my shot and get the easy layup. The last play is something that I always work on. And I was doing too much, trying to dribble too much into my shot. But I was looking for the step-back 3 like I always do and I just lost it and we ended up going overtime.
COACH MCDERMOTT: Marcus made some really good plays to get us to that point. And if you take a timeout, you run the risk of them being able to keep the ball out of your best player's hands. When we're coming down with nine seconds left and the ball is in our best player's hands, that's about as comfortable as I can get in that situation.
He's made a lot of great plays during the course of the season and, frankly, during the course of his career in those situations.
Just a fluke deal. He lost the ball. Diallo is a good defender. But he didn't get a hand on it or anything. Marcus just lost it. And, like I said, sometimes that happens.
Q. Did either of you guys say anything to Mitch after the game. It seemed like he was, obviously, pretty -- understandably -- down about missing that shot?
COACH MCDERMOTT: All you can control is your preparation. I work in the same building where we practice. So I know how much time this guy spends in there working on those situations. And I know how much time Mitch spends in there. Usually because the music he plays is a little different than everybody else's, so I know it's him, him or Tyler Clement.
So they're in there, working at it, preparing themselves for that moment. As long as you can look at yourself in the mirror and say: You know what, I prepared myself, I just missed it.
And I'm confident, I think Marcus would agree with me, that we're very comfortable with Mitch taking that shot in that situation. It was a great read. And we got the shot we wanted. We just missed it.
Q. Since you mentioned the music, what kind of music does he listen to?
COACH MCDERMOTT: His has a little bit more country flare to it maybe than what Marcus listens to. (Laughter). I actually enjoy Mitch's playlist a little bit more than Marcus'.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.
#5 PROVIDENCE 72, #4 CREIGHTON 68 (OT)
MARCH 8, 2018 – QUARTERFINAL
POSTGAME NOTES
Â
- First overtime game in the BIG EAST Tournament since Xavier defeated Butler 67-61 in the 2015 Quarterfinals.
- Providence improves to 3-1 all-time in BIG EAST Tournament overtime games. Today was Creighton's first BIG EAST Tournament overtime game.
Providence Notes
- Providence improves to 8-8 this season when trailing at the half (PC was down 30-26).
- The Friars are on to the BIG EAST Tournament Semifinals for the 11th time and will make their fourth appearance in five years.
- Friday night's semifinal battle will be PC's first BIG EAST Tournament meeting with Xavier. The Friars split with the Musketeers during the regular season, winning 81-72 in Providence (Jan. 6) while Xavier took the rematch 84-74 in Cincinnati on Feb. 28.
- Alpha Diallo (19 points) and Jalen Lindsey (11) both set personal bests for the BIG EAST Tournament. Lindsey was averaging 6.2 points in five previous Tournament outings, while Diallo netted 10 in last year's Quarterfinal loss to Creighton.
- It was Diallo's third game this season with at least 19 points, and he finished six shy of his career and season best. Diallo has scored at least 10 points in 29 of 33 games this season and in seven straight.
- Lindsey paired his offensive output with 10 rebounds, giving him his second career double-double. His only other came when he scored 13 points with 13 rebounds against Rider on Dec. 19, 2015, during his sophomore season. It was Lindsey's third career double-digit rebound performance.
- After scoring just four points in his first three career BIG EAST Tournament games, Kyron Cartwright (13 points) is averaging 14 ppg., in his last three dating back to the 2016 Tournament Semifinals.
Creighton Notes
- After hitting a pair of shots from beyond the arc, Marcus Foster has knocked down at least one 3-pointer in 19 consecutive games. Foster (19 points) has scored in double-figures in 16 consecutive games, dating back to Jan. 9, 2018.
- Marcus Foster passed legendary baseball pitcher Bob Gibson for 21st on Creighton's all-time scoring list with his second bucket of the game.
- Freshman center Jacob Epperson blocked a career-high five shots, matching his collegiate total heading into the contest.
- Jacob Epperson also drained a three-point attempt, and is now 4-for-4 from long-range in his career.
- Creighton had won 12 straight conference tournament games decided by four points or less.
- Creighton pulled down 39 rebounds, setting a new program BIG EAST Tournament high, surpassing last season's total of 38 against Providence in the 2017 Quarterfinals.
- After scoring a combined 10 points in his first three BIG EAST Tournament appearances, Davion Mintz set a new personal BET high with 14 points and six assists.
- Creighton's last overtime conference tournament game took place on March 4, 2012 in the Missouri Valley Conference Championship game, when the Bluejays defeated Illinois State 83-79.
- Creighton falls to 10-1 this season when holding its opponent to under 40% from the field.
- The Bluejays failed to reach 70 points for just the third time this season, falling to 1-2 in those contests.
- Creighton fell to 5-5 all-time in BIG EAST Tournament play, 3-3 in the quarterfinal round and 1-2 against Providence.
- Creighton now owns 2,697 points this season, fifth-most in program history. Last year's team scored a record 2,864 points.
- Creighton had six dunks on the afternoon.
Team Stats
PC
CU
FG%
.369
.424
3FG%
.227
.261
FT%
.613
.667
RB
45
39
TO
11
13
STL
8
6
Game Leaders
Pts
19
FGM
8
3FGM
2
FTM
1
Pts
14
FGM
4
3FGM
0
FTM
6
Pts
12
FGM
4
3FGM
2
FTM
2
Pts
9
FGM
4
3FGM
1
FTM
0
Players Mentioned
G
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballC
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's BasketballG
/ Men's Basketball
G
/ Men's BasketballCreighton Men's Basketball vs. Colorado State Press Conference - 10/25/25
Saturday, October 25
MBB: Creighton vs. Iowa State Exhibition
Friday, October 17
Creighton Men's Basketball vs. Iowa State. Press Conference - 10/17/25
Tuesday, October 14
Creighton Men's Basketball Availability - 9/24/25
Wednesday, September 24
