Creighton-UConn ends with scuffle, but there's plenty layered beneath players' actions

Fox Sports

15-03-2025

NEW YORK — The black-and-white details of a late-game fracas in the second Big East Tournament semifinal on Friday night were as follows: Creighton's Jamiya Neal, who had ripped Connecticut for 19 points, eschewed the sportsmanlike act of draining the clock so he could windmill home a meaningless dunk that pushed the final score to 71-62 in favor of the second-seeded Bluejays. At which point, UConn's Hassan Diarra, a proud member of the last two national championship teams, shoved Neal in the chest with both hands before momentarily squaring up and clenching his fists — ultimately deciding against any trading of blows. A seemingly heated exchange between Creighton head coach Doug McDermott and UConn assistant Luke Murray unfolded near midcourt, though tempers eventually fizzled. Jaden Ross was ejected for leaving the Huskies' bench.
"I got caught up in the emotions of the game," Neal said. "Just a lot of emotions going on. So I would like to apologize for that. I respect Coach [Dan] Hurley and those guys over there. They have a great, great program. Obviously they're two-time national champs. I apologize. Just got caught up in the moment, and I shouldn't have done it."
But layered beneath the actions of both players and both teams was an undercurrent of seasonal disparateness that had permeated the game itself. For Creighton, which advances to play St. John's on Saturday night, a triumph over the Huskies was proof of how successful this season has already been, regardless of what happens in the next few weeks. The Bluejays lost their second-best player, Texas Tech transfer Pop Isaacs, after only eight games and still found a formula to win 15 conference games and score victories over the Red Storm, the Huskies (twice) and the Golden Eagles of Marquette. This trip to the Big East title game will be their fifth in the last 11 tournaments since joining the league, though McDermott is still looking for his first victory on that stage.
For UConn, which now appears destined for an 8-seed or 9-seed in the NCAA Tournament, a lackluster defensive effort in the first half demonstrated yet again how flawed and inconsistent this team really is and how unlikely any hope of a three-peat has become. The same issues that have plagued the Huskies since their season-opening losing streak at the Maui Invitational — shoddy decision-making, limited physicality, an inability to guard without fouling — were still on display four months later, at Madison Square Garden, during the most critical time of the year when elite teams are often rounding into form. That Diarra reacted the way he did to Neal's slight felt emblematic of a campaign ready to run aground.
"I think the two teams that are deserving to play for the championship are going to play," Hurley said. "We were the third-best team, I guess, in the regular season. The third-best team doesn't deserve to play for a championship. Obviously, that first half defensive performance was, you know, not worthy of having a chance to play on Saturday night at MSG against a team like St. John's this year. We got exactly what we deserved."
A last-ditch perimeter jumper from backup guard Aidan Mahaney had barely passed through the net when Hurley, incensed by the sieve-like defense in the opening 20 minutes, literally chased his players off the court. "Run! Run!" he shouted as the Huskies filed through a mass of bodies to reach the underbelly of Madison Square Garden. Everything else Hurley yelled amid the exodus — and one can imagine almost all of it contained expletives — was obscured by a smartly placed hand over his mouth, shielding both cameramen and amateur lip readers alike from whatever vitriol he spewed. Reporters near UConn's locker room described hearing one of the coaches screaming at decibel levels that turned the heads of any and all passersby.
The source of Hurley's apoplexy was obvious: One night after the Huskies had stuffed Villanova into a straightjacket by only surrendering five field goals in the second half, the defensive performance against Creighton resembled a water balloon being gored by a pitchfork, hemorrhaging its contents across the floor. Even with stars Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth combining for just nine points in the opening stanza, the Bluejays still piled up 46 points while shooting a staggering 75% from the floor. Neal, who averages 11.2 points per game, scored nine before the first media timeout. Small forward Jasen Green, who contributes just 4.3 points per game, made his first seven field goal attempts to notch a season-high 15 points before halftime. A string of eight consecutive makes extended Creighton's advantage to 46-32.
"It's hard to fix your defense at this point of the year," Hurley said. "And there were so many one-on-one battles lost. I mean, just an inability to guard the ball. Just the way that Neal started the game, just scoring one-on-one in a variety of fashions, and we were just so weak guarding the ball. They were shooting shots in the restricted area without much [resistance]. We've had an inability to guard the ball the whole year. Part of it is strength. Obviously this team doesn't have the physicality in the Big East to be able to win a lot of those one-on-one matchups."
All of which seemed even worse when juxtaposed with the unflinching discipline from Creighton's defense, a top-40 unit nationally that commits fewer fouls per game (11) than any team in the country and was only dinged for nine against UConn. A staunch commitment to employing the principle of verticality, which begins with the 7-foot-1, 270-pound Kalkbrenner exhibiting supreme body control around the rim, tormented whichever player dared attack the basket. Small forward Liam McNeeley, who torched the Bluejays for 38 points earlier this season, missed 14 of the 20 shots he attempted on Friday night, many of which originated near the hoop. For the Huskies to only attempt four free-throws despite scoring 34 points in the paint speaks to the discipline with which McDermott's team defended.
The optical imbalance between a UConn team that has never been able to defend without fouling and a Creighton team that always defends without fouling left Hurley to spar with the officials on what felt like a possession-by-possession basis. He removed his glasses and ran onto the court following a questionable blocking call against Ross in the first half, spending most of the timeout bickering before an interview with sideline reporter Kristina Pink. He made a show of turning his back on the referees after consecutive borderline decisions went against the Huskies during their most promising attempt at a comeback. He called timeout shortly thereafter and got face-to-face with referee Lamar Simpson to ask "Are you serious?" four times before staffers finally dragged him away.
Only Hurley knows how much of that was pent-up frustration from a season gone awry. But for McDermott and the Bluejays, who are aiming to capture their first Big East Tournament title on Saturday night, the disciplined defense was exactly what they preach.
"I got news for you," McDemott said, "I got some tough dudes in my locker room. It takes toughness to execute the defense the way we execute it. But we're trying to win the analytic game at the free-throw line, and that takes mental toughness as well to understand and be disciplined. You don't beat UConn a couple of times in a season if you don't have tough dudes.
"No, we don't force a bunch of turnovers. No, we don't get up under you. But there's a method to our madness and what we're doing, and this group of guys has executed it extremely well all season long."
Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13.
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