Creighton 86, Indiana State 69

The Good Kind of “Sick”

Chad Millard was sick last night, but not the good kind of “sick”.

Not “sick” as in “man, P’Allen’s dunk over that 6-10 Chinese dude from Nebraska was sick.” Not “sick” as in “Drake won again last night?! That’s sick.” Nope, the kind of sick that involves puking and IVs and exactly what you expect sick to mean in the middle of January.

Creighton’s last game against Indiana State made a lot of people sick, and a small part of that was Millard’s play. The only thing he accomplished during his 10 minutes of play in that 62-54 loss was throwing a flagrant elbow in the direction of a Sycamore player, which resulted in a technical foul against the Jays and effectively ended his time as a starter for Dana Altman this season.

He’s been steadily improving his hustle and level of play (and, as a result, his minutes) during the past couple of games. It is too bad he was sick last night. If the rest of the team’s actions and intensity were any indication, Millard might have posted the best game of his relatively young Creighton career.

Millard's shot wasn't what he was throwing up during the Jays' win vs. ISU

After being embarrassed in Terre Haute earlier in the month, the Jays were firing on all cylinders in the home rematch with (and homecoming of) Kevin McKenna and his Indiana State squad. Led by the potent scoring duo of junior Booker Woodfox and sophomore Cavel Witter and the shot-blocking ability of freshman Kenny Lawson Jr., Creighton led from start to finish and won their fifth straight MVC game since starting 0-2 after dropping the road game with ISU.

The Jays shot 57% from the field for the game, including 52% from three-point range (they hit 12 three-pointers), and 82% from the free-throw line. In fact, for an entire 40-minute stretch, last night marked the Jays’ highest shooting percentage this season. And the shots were falling from everywhere. Almost half of Creighton’s 15 first-half field goals came from long range, led by Woodfox’s 3 three-pointers and 2 each from Witter and Nick Bahe. In fact, those three Jays outscored Indiana State by themselves for the first 20 minutes.

Woodfox puts the "jump" in jumpshot

And Witter and Woodfox didn’t stop at halftime. Woodfox was actually better in the second half, at least based on percentages. He was a perfect 3 for 3 from the field — all three-pointers — and tallied a career-high 20 points on the night. Witter spent a lot of his time in the second half at the free-throw line, going 6 for 8 from the charity stripe and finishing with a career-high 21 points.

Woodfox has tallied 36 points against the Sycamores in two games this year. Think those numbers make McKenna a little queasy?

He was a lot happier when he got the job than he was last night doing the job

But it wasn’t just Booker and Cavel chopping down the trees last night. Lawson, the young but talented pivot who is steadily increasing his production, swatted a career-high 5 shots last night, to go with his 8 points and 8 rebounds (7 defensive) in 22 minutes of action. Couple those numbers with Walker’s 4 points, 4 rebounds, and 1 block in 13 minutes of play, and you’ve got yourself a center posting a dozen points, a dozen rebounds, and half a dozen blocked shots in 35 minutes. That’s the good kind of “sick”.

Lawson continues to improve on defense and when crashing the boards

Two familiar names usually responsible for a decent number of the Jays’ points each game, Dane Watts and Stinnett, didn’t play as well as CU fans have come to expect of the senior and freshman. Stinnett picked up a couple of quick fouls (déjà vu to the last game he played against ISU) and scored 6 points in just 18 minutes. Watts hit the boards hard, cleaning up 8 rebounds, but made just 2 of 6 field goals and finished with 7 points. On a night when two of the top 15 scorers in the league posted about half of their season averages, it had to make McKenna sick that his Sycamores could get no closer than 10 points for the last 30 minutes of the game.

Want to know a few other numbers that are causing some upset stomachs among the other MVC coaches?

• Woodfox’s three-point shooting percentage has catapulted during the last 7 games, placing him among the top five most accurate long-range shooters in the conference. He’s knocking down trifectas at a 47% clip for the season, including an eye-popping 63% during MVC games. Among players with 20 or more three-point attempts in conference play, he is the best statistical three-point shooter by more than 10 percentage points than the next closest player (Illinois State’s Levi Dyer, who hit 5 of his 12 long-range shots in conference play against the Jays in one game). Simply put, Booker is scorching hot from outside the arc.
  
  
• The Jays have won 5 straight MVC games, including 3 conference road games. Four of their next 6 games are at home, including Tuesday night’s showdown against league-leading Drake (7-0 in Valley play). In fact, the Jays get the Bulldogs twice in 8 days, and will face another set of nasty canines (the Southern Illinois Salukis) in between match-ups with DU. Drake’s the only team in the Valley with as much momentum as Creighton right now, and the Jays have a chance to disrupt the Bulldogs’ rhythm twice in a week.
  
  
• Creighton leads the Valley in blocked shots during conference play. For a team that had absolutely no proven defensive presence in the low post coming into this year, Creighton’s young pivots have been learning on the fly during the first half of the season. But beginning with Lawson’s first career start (in the third conference game) and through the first one-third of the MVC slate, Lawson, Walker, Watts, and Millard have continued to swat shots away at an accelerating rate. Lawson’s 1.43 blocks per game, Walker’s 1.33, and Watts’ 1.14 are good enough to rank third, fourth, and seventh, respectively, during MVC play.
  

The Jays were standing at 0-2 after two conference contests, and a sickening feeling was setting in among diehard Bluejays fans. But Altman had a remedy, and the Jays have posted a nice winning streak that keeps them in contention for a regular season championship. They’re looking up at two teams in the standings, and they’ve got two chances to take out the Lead Dog (literally) in the next 8 days.

These things won’t cure Millard’s illness, but hopefully they’ll make him feel a little bit better. The 17,300-plus people in attendance last night felt a bit better, and I’m sure Altman does too.