MVC Quarters: Jays 59, Indiana State 38

In a tournament where you must play three games in three days to win, getting a blowout win in the first game and keeping the minutes for your stars to a minimum is HUGE. Dane Watts played 20 minutes, Anthony Tolliver played 26, Isacc Miles played 24, Nick Porter played 24 and Nate Funk played just 26. This is the first game since before the first of the year that those players -- the five starters -- have not averaged 31 minutes or more as a group. You could look it up.

Missouri State and Wichita State played a closely contested, down-to-the-wire game which ended just after 10:00 central. MSU's starters played until the end, and will have around 18 hours to rest up before Saturday's tip. Meanwhile, the Jays starters were out of the game at 7:30 central time, and played on average 10 fewer minutes than they had most of the year. And the bench guys got solid minutes and even contributed -- I like Manny Gakou, but if you counted on him giving the Jays FOURTEEN MINUTES in a Tourney game, you're nuts. That's 14 minutes that Tolliver didn't have to play, bang in the paint, and expend energy. Warrants mentioning.

So this was a best-case scenario for the Jays. Against the 10th seeded Sycamores, you blow them out, get your starters some rest, and show the NCAA committee that you mean business.

The game didn't start out looking like a blow-out, however. Indiana State came out firing threes, and led for much of the first 15 minutes. Their largest lead -- five points, 12-7 and 15-10. At the 7:37 mark, a jumper by Nate Funk tied it at 17, and this is where the game turned. On the next possession, Funk hit a three to put the Jays up 20-18, and the Jays would never relinquish the lead.

At the 3:09 mark, it was 22-20 Jays. Indiana State wouldn't score again until the 18:22 mark of the second half, and didn't get a field goal until almost three minutes after that -- a three pointer by Russell Trudeau which made it 42-25.

Now, I'm not terribly strong when it comes to mathematics, but I learned enough from Dr. Fong at Creighton to tell you that's a 20-5 run over a nearly 7-minute span covering two halves. You got the sense that the game was practically over at the under-16 timeout: the Indiana State players were fatigued from playing just 20 hours prior, their shots weren't falling, their defense was a step short, and the look of dejection seemed to signal the end.

The 38 points allowed set a new all-time record for the MVC Tourney. There were a lot of head-turning stats in the aftermath of this game, though:

    * Indiana State scored just THREE two-point baskets in the entire game, and CU held them to a 23.3% field goal percentage, best-ever for a Dana Altman Jays squad

    * The 38 points allowed are the fewest by a Jays team in 21 years (Illinois State lost 35-34 to the Jays on January 13, 1986)

    * The Jays have won 10 straight games as the #2 seed in Arch Madness, and are 14-2 all-time

    * Dana Altman is 39-0 all-time when holding opponents to 50 points or less

    * Creighton has now won 32 games all-time in Arch Madness, the most by any school, and Dana Altman has 17 of them

Now, I'm not one for Nostradamus-esque predictions, but the winner of the last six Creighton-Indiana State MVC Tourney matchups has gone on to win the entire tournament. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

What's the big picture look like? The Jays are now 20-10, and are that much closer to sowing up an NCAA Tourney bid. They're not yet what you'd call a "lock", but one more win oughtta do it. I still think there are scenarios, depending on how other tournaments shake out, where the MVC gets just 2 bids. If Missouri State beats the Jays on Saturday (they won't, but if they did) its not outside the realm of possibility to see them get a bid and the Jays getting left out. Beat the Bears and, as the super-annoying White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson says, "You can put it on the boarrrrd, YES!"

Well, for this first game in St. Louis, I'm giving the Heee-Haw Player of the Game to Brice Nengsu. Now, the guy hasn't played in two months, hasn't scored a basket since January 9, and in this game, he played 8 minutes with 2 rebounds and 2 boards. I'm giving the award to him not so much for what he did on the court, but for what his extended minutes are indicative of. A blowout win, rest for The Big Guns, and an appetizer for getting Dustin Sitzmann into the game, which everybody loves to see.

You bet.