What's this? A Dana Altman coached team, improving as the year goes along? No! A Dana Altman coached team showing steady improvement as January rolls around, and appearing headed for a peak in late February and March? You don't say! I'm calling Shenanigans here, because that never happens.
All the Debbie Downers and Negative Nancies who appeared to be turning on the team after a sputtering start are now seeing the same things I am: a team finally playing as a team, finally playing solid defense, and finally shooting the ball well. And, there is this too: an 11-5 overall record and a stellar 5-1 in-conference record.
The roll continued Friday night in Cedar Falls, where the Jays led wire-to-wire and beat Northern Iowa 62-54.
Coming out of the gates playing zone -- supposedly a no-no against Northern -- the Jays blitzed out to a 20-4 lead ten minutes into the game. By the time the Panthers figured out ways to scheme the Jays out of the zone, an insurmountable lead had already been built. Northern would get as close as 2 at one point in the second half, but never tied it and never led.
I watched the game at my brother's house, where the party-goers tilted slightly in Northern Iowa's favor. He and his wife are UNI grads, as are his wife's brother and his wife. But, their neighbors are both CU grads, and of course, there was me. Pizza, beer, and a room split almost 50/50 of fans from both teams -- that's good times.
Particularly when your team jumps out to a 20-4 lead. Particularly then. You bet.
Early on, the UNI Four decided on their whipping boy when one of the girls asked an innocent question. "Wait, who's the guy that looks like Tweak (from South Park)?"
I nearly shot beverage liquid out of my nose. "Oh, you mean Pierce Hibma?"
And then my brother, not missing a beat, yelled out, "Ah! Too much pressure!" in a perfect impression of Tweak. Maybe it was only funny because Creighton was winning, but I doubt it -- I've thought Hibma bore a resemblance to Tweak for a couple of years now, and my brother and I have even laughed about it several times while watching the Jays play. To hear someone else with the same thought was pretty hilarious.
Up 20-4, the Jays hit their customary wall, not scoring for minutes on end. Luckily for them, the Panthers were only shooting marginally better, and the resulting 11-4 was not as bad as it should/could have been -- it only sliced the lead to 24-15. Funk hit a three at the end of the half to make the margin 28-15 at the break.
A 13-point lead in a hostile environment, in a game for possession of first place in the Valley? I'll take that. I'll take another beverage too, while we're talking about things I'll take. You bet.
At the half, FSN showed their customary 143 "The Valley Has Been Awesome For A Long Time" historical segments, sandwiched around 6 airings of the "Old Recipe Ice Cream" commercial with that annoying little girl. Seriously, this commercial is Valley Television's version of Sellout Mellencamp's "This Is Our Country", except its been on for years and shows no signs of slowing.
"Why can't Iiiiiii come up and play?"
"Sorry, no girls allowed!"
"Not even girls with Old Recipe Ice Cream?"
This commercial wore out its welcome two years ago, yet still it airs, haunting me, mocking me, slowly robbing me of my sanity and eventually, of my life precious.
Lucky for me, good ol' Ed Rust, Jr. and his Gene Keady-esque combover made an appearance in the "Just Read!" promo. From his pronunciation of "Mizzorah Valley Conference" to his disheveled combover, Ed Rust Jr. never disappoints. I do miss the old ads from the late '90s where Ed Rust Jr. looked like he'd walked through a wind storm before entering the studio, the ones where his suit was wrinkled and his combover stood up like a rooster's mane, but these are still pretty good.
While I'm complaining, can someone turn up Charlie Spoonhour's microphone? The man is so softspoken you can scarcely hear a word he says, and unlike most commentators, he seems to be worth listening to. Thank you.
***
In the second half, UNI rattled off an 8-0 run to immediately trim the lead to 28-23, and I got a little worried. You knew that at home they weren't going to continue shooting 30%, and it looked like here they came with their run. The Jays would respond, though, and except for one stretch mid-way through the half where UNI cut the lead to 2, Creighton was in pretty firm control of the game the rest of the way.
According to my brother, the refs were terrible. Eddie Hightower, a member of Southern Illinois' Board of Trustees (Conflict of Interest? Nah!) and his crew called a good game, I thought, but he disagreed vehemently. The griping reached a crescendo when the Jays took 9 seconds to get the ball across half court, and for some strange reason, were not whistled for a 10 second call...
See, the Jays inbounded the ball, and got trapped in the backcourt by a full-court press. They got the ball across half-court as the shot clock changed from "25" to "24", but nothing was called, and The Tolliver went up strong and dunked over, well, no defenders (they were all pressing).
This is where TiVo stinks. My brother immediately hit the rewind button, wanting a slow-mo replay of this so-called egregious misscall. Even though you can clearly see the ref running down court counting only to "9", he believed because the shot clock was at 25, it was a 10-second call. Not so -- the shot clock is not used in that instance -- its the refs count that matters, and he was at 9. This was of course no consolation to him, and he watched the rest of the game upset.
So did I, because his TiVo rewinding left us behind in the game broadcast, meaning we watched the remainder on tape-delay. But I don't ever stay surly for long, especially when the Jays were on the verge of getting a HUGE road win at a place where not many road teams will prevail. You bet.
***
For the second consecutive game, The Tolliver takes the Heee-Haw POTG award. His 17 points and 6 boards against tough, TOUGH big men from UNI were huge, but his defense against Grant Stout and Eric Coleman was bigger. Stout was scoreless in the first half, when Creighton essentially won the game, and Coleman was not the force he usually is allowed to be. Keep it up, buddy, because a trip to Wichita is next up.
You bet.
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