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We won't know until after this season whether Doug McDermott will be back for one more year as a Bluejay. However, we now know that his current season has been extended by a game after a strong performance against the Bearcats to advance to the Round of 32.
Cincinnati did a number of things right, solving their biggest concern by getting double-digit points from four players. Cashmere Wright, Shaquille Thomas, and Titus Rubles all cracked that line to assist Sean Kilpatrick and the unsurprising 19 points he tallied for the Bearcats. So what went awry? And no, I'm not including those hideous Adidas uniforms, we already knew those would make an appearance.
- They missed more free throws (5) than they made (4), while Creighton went to the line a whopping 25 times and only missed three, including 11-of-12 in the last two minutes.
- They were held scoreless for the final four minutes of the first half, followed by a second half stretch of five minutes with only one made basket.
- They allowed Ethan Wragge to do what he does best, which is shoot nothing but threes - and he made four of his five attempts; they themselves only made five of their 20 atttempts.
I mean to take nothing from Creighton - McDermott certainly busted his hump to put up the ridiculous 27 points and 11 rebounds that he finished with. This was an all-around team effort by the Jays, which is exactly what they had to have in order to beat a Cincinnati team who got the offense they needed, even if it wasn't the most efficient.
The Jays now move up the competitive food chain to take on Duke, and it may not mean a whole lot, but if Albany can hang with the Blue Devils as long as they did, there's certainly hope for Creighton.