History will refer to the 2007 MVC Semifinal as "The Nate Funk Game". In a game where his Jays and Missouri State were playing what some pundits called an "elimination" game for an NCAA Tourney at-large berth, he came up with his greatest game as a Jay, putting the team on his back and carrying them to a blowout win.
Just look at the box score:
That's just an amazing performance by a senior who wasn't going to allow his team to lose. Still not convinced? In this morning's World-Herald, Dana Altman -- not usually one to lavish praise on his players -- had this to say: ""We've had a lot of good performances here but I'm not sure we've ever had a better one. Everybody is going to look at the scoring, but he also had eight rebounds, defensively he didn't lose his focus and he handled the ball all night and didn't give it up much."
Combine it with what Nick Porter and Anthony Tolliver contributed, and you had the ingredients for something special.
The Jays blasted out of the gate to a 9-2 lead, with the three seniors providing all the points. Problem was, Tolliver was fired up to play his old hometown team, and picked up two quick fouls on aggressive defensive plays. Had he stayed in the game, CU might very well have been able to put the foot on the accelerator and zoom past the Bears. As it was, the Bears crept closer and closer with Tolliver on the bench, and by the 5:02 mark, they had tied it up at 26.
Altman called for a 30 second timeout to stem the run, something he has done with increasing regularity over the last couple of weeks much to my delight. I can count the number of disagreements I have with him on one hand, but allowing the other team to make a run without calling timeout to slow down their momentum is something I've never understood. But anyway...
Missouri State would tie it once more 28-28, but that would be that last time they would be that close. They never took the lead (and never led for even a second during the entire game, actually), and over the last 3 minutes of the half, the Jays built a 39-34 lead to go into the locker room. Think that was going to be a happy halftime? Not so fast my friend.
The defense had a breakdown with 90 seconds left allowing an uncontested layup by Dale Lamberth, and then another that led to an uncontested dunk with just 37 seconds left. This led to a hilarious halftime interview by FSN's sideline reporter, "Not Scott Schumacher". But it might as well have been our boy Scott, because Dana lit into him.
"Oh, I don't know, we played OK defensively but we had a couple of EMBARASSING breakdowns there towards the end that we'll have to get cleaned up if we want to win." And then he walks away, not waiting for the follow up question. Love it.
Creighton's seconds halves go one of two ways when they have a lead: they stumble, fail to build the lead, and eventually lose; or they come out firing, and blow the other team out of the gym. Friday night was the latter, and Saturday followed the same script. The Jays built a commanding 50-38 lead by the 12:26 mark, holding the Bears without a field goal for 9 minutes.
This begs the question: with the opponent going scoreless for long stretches on a second consecutive night, is it the suckiness of the other team, or is it the Jays defense? Altman seems to think its the defense. Again from the World-Herald: "I'm really excited and proud of our second-half defensive effort. I thought the first 12 minutes of the second half was the turning point in the game. We had given up some easy baskets in the first half. I thought the second half we did a much better job."
Not often you hear that. Usually he's brutally honest, but on the negative, "We have a lot of things to get better at" side of honesty. He was genuinely pleased with the effort, and why wouldn't he be? After allowing him to get 15 first half points, they completely denied Blake Ahearn from even touching the ball in the first 12 minutes of the second half. No shot was uncontested, every rebound was battled for, and there was no doubt who wanted the game more.
Meanwhile, Funk was continuing his ridiculous night, adding 16 second-half points to the 17 he scored in the first frame. One shot, a three-ball from the wing shot sideways as he was falling out of bounds, was one of the greatest shots I've ever seen. That's the sort of shot a shooter hits when he's on.
Its easy to overlook what Nick Porter contributed, what with Funk going off and breaking Bob Harstad's school and MVC Tourney record for points in a tourney game. Porter had 19 points and 13 rebounds. 13 REBOUNDS! And he consistently drove the ball inside, drawing contact and getting the MSU post players in foul trouble. He was 9-10 from the line -- combined with Funk's 10-10 day, they were 19-20 from the line. Nice.
For the tournament, opponents are shooting just 29% against the Jays stingy defense. I have nothing to say to that other than AWESOME.
You bet.
I've done a lot of screwing around with my picks for Player of the Game, because lets be honest, my niche is not in serious game analysis. Picking people like Manny Gakou is guaranteed to get me at least 4-5 bemused emails. But anyone who tells you Nate Funk wasn't the player of the game in this contest is even more insane than I tend to be at times. 33 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists in 38 minutes. 10-15 shooting, 3-6 from long range, 10-10 from the line. A new Creighton and MVC record for points scored in a tournament game. Folks, I hate to use this cliche but its so true in this instance: if those aren't Player of the Game numbers, I don't know what are.
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