Creighton University
4-3,0-0Big East
#20 Texas A&M
5-2,0-0SEC
Men's Basketball Falls to #20 Aggies, 77-73
11/27/2024 7:58:00 PM | Men's Basketball
Pop Isaacs scores 25 and Steven Ashworth scores 14 in his return
Creighton is now 4-3 on the year, while Texas A&M improved to 5-2.
Creighton started quickly, scoring the game's first eight points. Jackson McAndrew opened the floodgates with an offensive stick back, then sank three free throws when he was fouled the next trip down. The Bluejays went up 8-0 when Steven Ashworth banked in a three-pointer from the top of the key to beat the shot clock just 80 seconds into the game.
CU never trailed in the first half, leading by as much as nine (25-16) in the opening stanza before settling for a 31-27 lead at the break. Ashworth led CU with nine points and McAndrew added seven at the break, while Texas A&M was paced by 11 points from All-American Wade Taylor IV. CU shot 32.4 percent (11-34) in the opening half, including 6-of-22 (.273) from three-point range, while Texas A&M shot 29.6 percent from the floor (8-27) and made 3-of-12 three-pointers (25 percent).
The Aggies took their first lead of the game on a three-ball from Washington to move in front 34-33 with 17:45 left, only to have CU counter with 10 of the next 13 points to regain a 43-36 lead. Texas A&M quickly erased that deficit, tying the game at 47-all and moving in front 49-47 on a pull-up jumper by Taylor with just over 11 minutes to play.
A pair of three-pointers by Pop Isaacs, and another triple form McAndrew in a two-minute span helped the Bluejays gain some momentum and take a 56-53 advantage. Those two men scored 16 straight points for the Bluejays as CU moved in front 61-57, but the Aggies scored seven in a row leading into the final media timeout with 3:35 left.
Down 68-63, back-to-back lay-ups by Jamiya Neal and Isaacs trimmed the margin to one (68-67) with 1:33 left. Andersson Garcia converted a free throw with 1:16 left to put A&M up two. But McAndrew buried a triple from the top of the key with 57.0 left as Creighton went up 70-69. Texas A&M regained the lead on a three-point play by Washington with 35.0 left.
Down two, Isaacs fed Ryan Kalkbrenner in the post and the-center was fouled with 22.0 left. He drained the second to halve the deficit. Texas A&M beat CU's pressure defense and found Coleman for a dunk in transition with 15.9 left. CU worked the ball up court and took its final timeout with 10.5 left but could not inbound the ball and was called for a five-second violation. Coleman made a free throw with 9.4 left and after a backcourt turnover Washington made a layup to give Texas A&M its largest lead of the game. Two free throws by Isaacs with 0.5 left accounted for the final margin.
Isaacs led Creighton with 25 points and six assists as the junior from Las Vegas made 5-of-10 three-pointers. McAndrew had a season-high 16 points and Ashworth had 14 after missing Tuesday's contest due to injury. Kalkbrenner topped all players with 10 rebounds and five blocked shots. Creighton made 13 three-pointers and shot 38.3 percent from the line and 87.5 percent at the line.
Texas A&M was led by 18 points from Taylor and 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting by Coleman. The Aggies won the rebound battle 48-37 and converted 21 offensive rebounds into 23 second-chance points. The Aggies made 39.4 percent of their shots overall.
Creighton returns to the court on Saturday, Nov. 30 for a 12:00 p.m.. Central game on truTV against an opponent that will be determined later tonight after the completion of play in the Impact Division.
NOTES: Ryan Kalkbrenner blocked a shot in his 21st straight game, the nation's longest active streak. He is the nation's only player since 2005-06 with at least three streaks of 20 or longer ... Creighton beat Texas A&M by a 100-77 margin in 1971 the only previous time the Bluejays and Aggies met ...Pop Isaacs went over 900 career points with a three-pointer with 8:31 left in the first half ... Ryan Kalkbrenner reached 900 career rebounds when he grabbed the first board of the second half ... Ryan Kalkbrenner had at least five blocked shots in back-to-back games for the fifth time in his career. No other Bluejay has done that even once since 2005-06 ... Steven Ashworth's streak of 41 straight free throws was snapped with a second half miss. It was four shy of the school-record set by Doug McDermott ... Creighton fell to 18-24 all-time in games between Top 25 teams ... Creighton is now 56-170 all-time against Top 25 teams, and 38-54 under Greg McDermott ... Creighton did not have a player foul out for the 60th straight game, the nation's longest streak since at least 2005-06.
Players Era Power College Basketball Tournament
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
MGM Grand Garden Arena
Creighton Bluejays
Coach Greg McDermott
Steven Ashworth
Postgame Press Conference
Texas A&M - 77, Creighton - 73
GREG MCDERMOTT: It was a really good game against two good teams, a very physical game. I thought our inability to keep them off the foul line the first half, I thought we could have had some separation had we not fouled.
Now, having said that, they're hard to guard without fouling. I mean, they're so physical in what they do. We knew offensive rebounds were going to be a big part of the game. We were able to hang in there the first half but not the second half. They really flipped the script on us the second half from an offensive rebounding standpoint.
Q. How did you feel out there after the injury?
STEVEN ASHWORTH: It felt good. There was obviously some things that I felt like I couldn't quite do, but coming off an ankle sprain as severe as I've had, just grateful to God for all the prayers and grateful to Bluejay nation. It's cool to be part of a university that has a lot of faith. I have a strong faith, and I definitely know without God and obviously all the help with all the trainers and the amount of work we've been working on I wouldn't be able to play today. I was just glad to be back out there with my teammates.
Q. What do you see on that, when you get the 5-second call on the inbound, what did you see on that play?
GREG MCDERMOTT: They did a good job -- without looking at the film I can't say for sure. There was a lot of physicality there on stopping some of our cuts. But they blew it up. And unfortunately we didn't have a timeout left. But until I watch it on film, I don't know.
Q. You mentioned offensive rebounds there. What do you think changed in the second half especially through the final 10 minutes that let them clean up that area?
GREG MCDERMOTT: There were a few times where Kalk rotated to help and didn't get the block. And then we got caught with a bad match-up on the backside. And then there were a few times we didn't do what we were supposed to do with the physicality.
I've got some freshmen out there against some pretty physical guys that have played a lot of college basketball and we lost that match-up a few times.
But I like the fact we didn't quit. We played through it and we had some golden opportunities throughout the game. And for the most part we executed some stuff late until that side out-of-bounds play.
Q. Didn't get the win, but what did you see from Jackson and what do you think his ceiling could be?
GREG MCDERMOTT: Yeah, I think his ceiling is ridiculously high. He hasn't even scratched the surface yet. And he goes and gets 14 rebounds yesterday against San Diego State. And today, whatever -- what was he, 1-for-7, and then hits back-to-back 3s at a critical point in the game.
That's just a young man who trusts his work, that's put in the amount of repetition that you have to be to be a great shooter.
And his teammates, Jamiya made a great extra pass to him on that extra possession to give us the one-point lead. And unfortunately we weren't able to get a stop when we needed to. We led the game for 35 minutes. We just couldn't finish the darn thing.
Q. You guys obviously played two freshmen quite a bit today. Stevens kind of played on half an ankle. How do you close out in those situations when you guys have led? And what's the key to finishing?
GREG MCDERMOTT: You can't it's not nine out of nine it has be 10 out of 10 where everybody is connected, is hooked up and everybody understands what their responsibilities are. And it's one thing to understand; it's another thing that you have to execute them when the lights are the brightest.
We were definitely a better team today than we were yesterday. We had some guys log some pretty big minutes. And obviously he's not fully healthy, but I thought he gave a really gutsy effort.
Q. Steven, you obviously watched yesterday from the bench. What did you see how much of the offense changed today when you were in there? And I think you kind of touched on it a little bit ago but how did it feel to be back in a game after missing yesterday?
STEVEN ASHWORTH: Obviously our offense is different with the different rotations we can throw in. I think a big element I'm bringing to the floor is just the spacing and the gravity when I'm coming off screens or ball screens or off ball screens, I feel like there's some awareness there that also then opens up things for other guys.
Being my second year on the offense, understanding the pace and tempo we want to play with, and I think yesterday we were a little slow with our tempo at times and I felt like I was able to bring some of that back today. But I was just really grateful to be able to be back and my teammates have been encouraging me all week and coach encouraging me, was talking to me throughout the game how it all felt. Jeremy and Ben were doing a great job monitoring that as well. It was good.
Q. I know you said yesterday you didn't want them to start pointing fingers just because you guys lost back-to-back games, is that the same thing you tell them now after three straight?
GREG MCDERMOTT: Same thing I've told my teams for 36 years, teams who point fingers lose. And we're not going to do that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
150977-2-2151 2024-11-28 02:57:00 GMT
Players Era Power College Basketball Tournament
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
MGM Grand Garden Arena
Texas A&M Aggies
Wade Taylor IV
Henry Coleman III
Postgame Press Conference
Texas A&M - 77, Creighton - 73
Q. The way your team finished, what's it say about the resilience in a moment like that?
WADE TAYLOR IV: Coach always talked to us all year about being grimy because we're at our best when we're grimy. It's a tug-of-war match. So for us to come out there and compete as hard as we did because Creighton is an amazing team, shout-out to them, just shows how much we believe in each other and how much we want to make sure when it get tight that we continue to make sure we pull it out.
Q. Henry, how did you guys approach guarding Kalkbrenner?
HENRY COLEMAN III: An unbelievable player. Probably one of the best bigs in the country. Amazing shot blocker, finishes really well around the rim.
For us, we just wanted to have crazy ball pressure. I thought the guards were unbelievable at that tonight. And just being physical with him. He's an unbelievable player. But when we were physical with him, I think it kind of gave them problems. I think just being physical, having great ball pressure really helped us a ton tonight.
Q. Has there been much talk about your guys' starts in the last couple years, November, December haven't been the strongest and you've got better as the season goes along. Has there been any discussions about that? And why do you guys think that hadn't started as well as you finished?
WADE TAYLOR IV: Yeah, we definitely have talked about it because of course me and him has been through all of it -- the eight-game losing streak, the five-game losing streaks.
We just try to make sure we can avoid that as much as we possibly can. Typically normally we get comfortable and we kind of don't have that same edge at the beginning as we do in the end, we kind of get complacent.
But we just try to make sure that we keep that edge throughout the whole year because that's who we are. And I think that we keep that the whole year then at the end of the year may have a different outcome than it has been since we've been here.
Q. Wade, seems like when the game gets physical like that you all are even more comfortable. How does that help the team in these moments?
WADE TAYLOR IV: It starts with how we practice. We have two refs in practice that are, don't tell them I said this, but are unbelievably terrible. One is a grad assistant and one is an assistant coach. And they don't call anything.
We just go about it every day being physical because that's who we want to be; we want to be the most physical team. Once teams continue to be physical with us, we kind of gravitate to it. That just makes us play harder. I think that starts with how hard we play in practice because how you play is how you practice.
Q. How many of these events have you guys been in your careers, do you think? You've both been around for a while.
HENRY COLEMAN III: Every single year. Yes.
Q. Combined like seven or something? What's this one like compared to the other ones you've been to?
HENRY COLEMAN III: I think NIL is awesome. I think we're super fortunate. I think how it's been run has been unbelievable. I just think when you're able to pay players and when you're able to use the NIL for a good reason and have people come out here and crazy competition, Hall of Fame coaches, All-American players, this is the best place to be right now. I know there's Maui and stuff going on, but I think right here is the best place to be. We're fortunate and blessed to be here.
Q. Is it because of the NIL -- obviously that's a difference maker. Is there anything else that would lend you to say it's the best?
HENRY COLEMAN III: Just how it's run, the competition right now. You have Hall of Fame coaches in the building right now. You have all of American players. Wade's one of them. And many on the other team. I think the competition -- we talked about it amongst the team. If there was no money involved we'd still play in this tournament just because we love the competition and love playing the best and the best. Just to have it in one sitting is a blessing.
Q. When you think about AAU ball, many players, if not most of you all, come to Vegas before you get to college. When you get to college and hear that you're going to have a tournament in Vegas at the next level, does even add more to that enticement?
WADE TAYLOR IV: I was definitely excited to come back to Vegas. I came my freshman year for the Maui tournament. Vegas AAU, it's amazing. To come to Vegas as a collegiate player is great. I'm excited we were able to participate in the tournament, just being in Vegas because Vegas is always a good time.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
150978-3-2151 2024-11-28 03:07:00 GMT
