The Muskies gave it a game effort before getting buried under an avalanche of threes.
Games like these make you wonder.
You wonder what might have happened if, shortly after Ryan Kalkbrenner had been called for his first foul just after the first media timeout of the game, the officials would have adjudged the contact he made on an overzealous closeout of Zach Freemantle to be another violation of the rules. On another night it might have been, though you’ve also seen them let go. Instead another 10 minutes of game time passed by before he got his second foul. He was unstoppable in the first half, scoring 13 on 6-9 shooting.
You wonder if that might have impacted Xavier’s offense. They struggled in the first half and committed some sloppy turnovers. Sean Miller was clearly trying to steal minutes of rest for Zach Freemantle, who only played 14 minutes in the first half. Maybe less Kalkbrenner means more Freemantle, who had 9/5/2 on 4-8 shooting in those 14 minutes of play.
You wonder how that might have come together differently if Xavier could have taken advantage of Creighton’s poor shooting in the first half. On another night, they wouldn’t have been down 5 at the break.
You wonder what might have happened if Ryan Conwell hadn’t waited until halftime to show up. He had 17 in the second half on 6-10 shooting. He only had 3 in the first half and was vacillating between anonymous and a negative contributor.
You wonder what would have happened if some cheap calls early hadn’t added up to give Zach Freemantle his fourth foul with 12 minutes to play.
You wonder what the offense might have looked like if Dayvion McKnight hadn’t spent so much energy on the defensive end, harrying Steven Ashworth into 3-11 shooting and 7 turnovers.
You wonder what Xavier could have done in the last war if they hadn’t seen layups from Marcus Foster and Dailyn Swain fall off the rim and John Hugley IV go 0-2 from the line.
Xavier battled the whole way. After getting down 10 late in the first half, they cobbled together a 5-0 run through Swain and Maddox to trail by just 5 at the break. Creighton kept trying to drive nails, but every run was answered by a Xavier hand pushing up through the dirt the Bluejays tried to pile on the grave.
Creighton pushed the lead to 51-42 with 15 to play. Marcus Foster drew a foul on Kalkbrenner and converted both FT, spurring a 10-2 capped by a Freemantle three. Creighton pushed the lead back to 5. Conwell and Hugley IV – playing his best game as a Musketeer – went on a 5-0 run to tie it with 8 to play.
Creighton kept pushing it to two possessions. Xavier kept cutting it to one. Crucially, Xavier never got the ball with the chance to go ahead.
When Jamiya Neal hit consecutive threes to push the lead to 8, it looked like Xavier was dead and buried. Ryan Conwell and Dayvion McKnight scored on consecutive possessions to drag the lead back to 4. One more stop and X would once again be within touching distance come winning time.
It wasn’t to be. Fresh of Neal’s consecutive made threes, Isaac Traudt pulled the same trick. Dailyn Swain gamely brought the deficit back to 8, but then Xavier converted three straight stops on defense into a missed layup by Swain, two missed FT by Hugley IV, and a missed jumper in the lane by Marcus Foster. On different nights, Swain and Foster convert and maybe even get the calls, but tonight, the deficit that could have been shaved to 2 remained at 8. One Steven Ashworth three later, the game was sealed.
I’ve mentioned a couple of times that there were calls that could have gone different ways, but they really were just that. Creighton might have gotten a little bit of home cooking, but it really was a game where the officials were a footnote to a footnote, not the headline story.
The bottom line is that sometimes you get beaten, and that’s what happened tonight. Playing in his 154th career D1 game, Ryan Kalkbrenner was unstoppable, going for 29 and 9 and even hitting a couple of threes. Creighton shot 8-10 from behind the arc in the second half, most notably punctuated by the 2:20 stretch where Neal and Traudt went 4-4 to seal the game. You tip your cap and move on.
Xavier’s schedule eases up a bit down the stretch, but their margin for error is gone. They’ll get a shot at a Q1 that they basically have to have against Nova, and Creighton may be Q1 when they visit. Every other game is Q2 or Q3. The gauntlet is over; it’s time for Xavier to make hay while the sun yet shines.