Creighton 77, Northern Iowa 71

Con“text”

Mrs. Creighton Otter spent the past weekend in Chicago, where warm winds and old college friends kept her company until late Sunday evening. She wasn’t able to tune into the ESPN Full Court transmission of Travis Justice and Nick Bahe’s broadcast of the CU-UNI game, and was busy stretching her legs (and the family credit card) on the Magnificent Mile. (We’re in an economic downturn, people! Who else is going to step up and stimulate the economy?!?)

My wife is as big a Jays fan as I, yet she is a realist and helps keep me as close to level-headed during basketball season as humanly possible. Indebted as I am to her for this and many other of her wonderful qualities, I could think of no better way to keep her informed of the game than the timeless method of text messaging.

Seriously. What did we ever do without texting? How else did we hold passive aggressive conversations? How else did we hone our typing skills in a way that utilized tiny keys and completely bucked the traditional “asdf … jkl;” home-row key system? I didn’t have time to answer those rhetorical questions on Sunday; I was too busy texting score updates and random musing to my beautiful wife.

Looking back at those messages, as well as the box score, I can imagine how the thoughts were rushing through her head while on Rush Street. The key to understanding is the context, I guess.

“31-30 Jays at half.”

Mrs. Creighton Otter’s response to that text was something like, “wow that’s great!” And it was, don’t get me wrong. But how did it happen? The Jays got outrebounded by 6 in the first 20 minutes, committed 7 turnovers to Northern Iowa’s 5, and the Panthers were 10-11 from the free throw line (while the Jays were just 3-4). Plus, both teams were 2-9 from 3-point range. P’Allen Stinnett, Booker Woodfox, Cavel Witter, Casey Harriman, and Josh Dotzler all went scoreless in the first frame, too.

The answer lies in the inside efforts of Kenny Lawson (12 points and 3 rebounds in 12 minutes), the renewed outside shot of Kaleb Korver (2 3-pointers in the half), and the steady play of Justin Carter (6 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, and a steal). Add to that concoction a 22-10 advantage in points scored in the paint, and the Jays outshot UNI 43% to 32% in the first half.

“Jays up 11 with 8 to play.”

The Panthers pounced on the Jays to start the second half; actually, it was just one UNI player. Adam Koch was outstanding again for Northern Iowa, scoring 23 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in the loss. He went on his own little 5-0 run to start the second stanza, with a layup and a 3-point play situation, as UNI opened its largest lead of the game. In fact he scored the first 7 UNI points in the second half.

But from the 19:13 mark (after Koch’s and-one situation) to the 8:14 mark, CU went on a 27-12 run ignited by Carter. After turning the ball over to start the half, Carter blocked a shot, hit a 3-pointer, had another block that led to a Woodfox 3-pointer, assisted on another Woodfox jumper, assisted on a layup by Kenton Walker — took a breather — and then came back on the court to grab a defensive rebound, knock down a couple of free throws after strong move to the hoop, and then capped off the run with two extremely athletic, strong drives to the basket.

Meanwhile, the Panthers were in a precarious situation; they couldn’t hit the side of the McCleod Center. After it didn’t look like the league’s best shooting team couldn’t have a worse half offensively from the field than the first 20 minutes, they did just that — to the tune of 26.5% from the field in the second 20.

“Up 5 with 5 to go.”

That’s right. Just as a home team should, UNI battled back by doing the only thing that was going right for them on Sunday — going to the free throw line. Amidst a couple of 3-pointers by Ali Farokmanesh, the Panthers hit 5 free throws and cut CU’s lead to 5 at the 5-minute mark. And then came a series of plays that I couldn’t capture via text message fast enough; they had to wait until the ride home from the airport Sunday night.

• Wife: How’d Josh play?
  


• Me: Funny you should ask. He had both the best and worst shots of the day … in the same possession.
  


• Wife: Whaaa?
  


• Me: Yep. UNI missed a free throw, and with the lead at 5 the Jays looked to kill some clock (aside: my wife hates this). With the shot clock winding down and just about 3 minutes left, Josh misses badly on a 3-pointer; so badly, in fact, the ball comes screaming off the front of the rim and right back to him for an offensive board.
  


• Wife: Nice.
  


• Me: Um, yeah. So after they take the clock down under the 3-minute mark, Dotzler’s left with the ball wide open again. And he shoots another 3. And he drills it.
  


• Wife: [insert a look that was one part quizzical, one part relief, one part humor, and one part disbelief].
  


• Me: I know.

Josh's 3-pointer touched off a smiliar celebration on the CU bench

“Jays win”

After Dotzler’s clutch 3, P’Allen and Cavel hit some free throws for really their only points of the game. Carter missed two free throws that would have allowed him a new career scoring high, but he had to settle for another outstanding stat line of 17 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal in 29 minutes.

Again, if you look at most of the stats you’ll be left with the same look Mrs. Creighton Otter displayed after hearing of Josh’s 3-pointer. The Jays got killed on the glass to the tune of a 49-29 rebounding margin. UNI shot 30-32 from the free-throw line. While CU got to the line 33 times for the game, the majority of those trips happened in the last 8 minutes when the Panthers were trying to claw their way back.

It is all about context, though, and Creighton’s 2-3 matchup zone was enough to send UNI into an extended cold streak from the field — in fact, the 29% shooting effort was Northern Iowa’s worst of the season. Stats don’t always tell the full story — that’s what context is for — and the only number that matters right now is 4. The Jays have won 4 straight, sit all alone in 2nd place in the MVC, and are 2 games back of UNI with 4 conference games to play.

OMG.