Trailing by three points with 20 seconds left in the game, the UConn men’s basketball team had three chances to score.
James Bouknight 3-pointer. Miss.
Bouknight layup. Miss.
Tyler Polley 3-pointer. Miss.
Time expired, and Creighton escaped Madison Square Garden with a 59-56 win in the Big East Tournament semifinals. The Bluejays will face No. 8 seed Georgetown in the championship game on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. UConn, still likely an NCAA Tournament team, will await its fate on Selection Sunday.
Here’s how it went down:
Keys to the game
The Huskies opened the game on a 13-2 run, but Creighton’s elite offense could only be held down for so long. The Bluejays, who are second in the conference in scoring and first in field-goal percentage, went on a 23-11 run to take its first lead of the game on a Marcus Zegarowski 3-pointer with 2:12 left in the half, and finished the period on a 28-13 run to take a four-point lead into halftime.
Adama Sanogo, who scored eight points in the first five and a half minutes of the game, went to the bench at the 8:47 mark after picking up his second foul. With the Huskies’ impressive freshman big man — and best source of offense early — out of the game, Creighton responded with a 17-9 run.
Sanogo was a plus 10 in the first half. Every other Husky was a minus.
Turning point
The Huskies took the lead with 15:19 left in the second half on an Isaiah Whaley layup, and remained ahead or tied for the next 11 minutes, but never led by more than five.
It felt as though Creighton, which tied the game five times in the span, still had more to offer offensively. Eventually, it did.
Christian Bishop sank a layup with 3:19 left in the game to give the Bluejays their first lead in nearly 12 minutes. Zegarowski followed with a jumper to give Creighton a 57-53 lead with 2:36 to go.
The Huskies pulled within one, on free throws from Whaley and Bouknight, but Mitch Ballock hit a pair of free throws for Creighton with 20 seconds left, and the Huskies couldn’t tie it on three shots in the final moments of the game.
Player of the game
When Sanogo was on the floor, good things happened for UConn. The keyword there is “when,” though, as Sanogo struggled with fouls midway through the first half, but still led the Huskies in scoring for the first period, and had to sit late in the second half with his fourth foul, and a Creighton run ensued.
He keyed an early run for UConn, scoring eight of the team’s first 13 points, and finished the game with 13 points, five rebounds and a block.
Damien Jefferson led Creighton with 14 points.
Stats of the game
UConn leads the Big East in defensive rebounding and is second in offensive, but Creighton dominated on the boards, 49-31. The Bluejays turned the ball over 13 times, though UConn scored only six points off of those turnovers.
