Greg McDermott, head coach of Creighton, is impressed with the Auburn Tigers, who are ranked first.
The Creighton Bluejays were hot in the first half in their 82-70 loss to the Auburn Tigers on Saturday evening. They canned nine 3-point shots in the first half as they took a 37-35 lead into halftime.
However, they finished just 12-27 from behind the arc as Auburn’s perimeter defense cranked it up a notch and set up the Tigers for points in transition.
Creighton head coach Greg McDermott had to admit his team was simply outmatched by the team that held the No. 1 spot in the country most of the season. He felt the Bluejays did enough to win most games, but tipped his cap to Auburn who isn’t like most teams.
“We lost to an outstanding team,” said McDermott. “We recognized we were going to have to play a pretty perfect game if we expected to win. While we weren’t perfect, I certainly applaud our effort. We came into the game trying to make it tough for Broome and I think we did that. We didn’t want Kelly to get a lot of clean looks, and we were able to accomplish that.”
Auburn guard Miles Kelly had the hot hand in the Tigers’ first-round win over Alabama State. He led all scorers with 23 points, but he had just five points on 1-8 shooting against Creighton.
But despite having one of the leading candidates for national player of the year in forward Johni Broome, Auburn hasn’t been about one or even two players this season. What has made the Tigers so good is their ability to win in a variety of ways with a variety of players.
McDermott saw that first hand on Saturday.
“Baker-Mazara, Denver Jones and Pettiford absolutely got us, got us in space,” said McDermott. “If you had told me before the game that Kelly was going to have 5 and Broome was going to have 8 and we were going to shoot almost 50% from the field and 45% from the three-point line, I would have probably told you that we would have won, especially the fact that we assisted on 17 out of 25 baskets and held them to only 11 assists on 30 baskets.”
The lack of ball movement hurt Auburn in the first half as it appeared Creighton was hitting open jumpers, and the Tigers were settling for contested shots without passing.
But with improved perimeter defense, there was more space off the dribble after Bluejays’ misses.
“Their ability to do things off the dribble was very, very effective,” said McDermott. Really proud of this group. Proud of these four seniors. They’ve been selfless. They’ve done so much for this program in their own ways, and it’s absolutely been a pleasure to coach this team. This has been a great ride that they’ve taken us on. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
Auburn moved to 30-5 on the year while the Bluejays season came to an end. The Tigers take on a hot Michigan Wolverines squad in the Sweet 16 on Friday, and we’ll see who Auburn’s hero is if they’re able to advance to the Elite 8 with a win.