Drake brought their cheerleaders and their mascot, Spike, with them to the game, and they roamed the court in front of my section. At times they blocked my view, and at times it was annoying when Spike walked up the aisle to talk smack. But it was kinda cool to have them there, if only because it made the game seem like a bigger event.
My dad, the Drake alum, used their presence as an excuse to exhibit carte blanche in cheering for the Bulldogs. I explained to him that such behavior was not cool in the lower bowl, and told him the tragic story the night his other son was banished to the upper bowl because of his obnoxious cheering for Northern Iowa. I didn't demand he cheer for Creighton, I just asked him to behave himself. Polite clapping is fine. Yelling is not. Telling me things like "If this gets into a free-throw contest, there's going to be a lot of sad people in this building." is not cool.
I reconcile his presence with the fact that he's come to every Drake-CU game in Omaha with me for going on 10 years, and that Creighton has won almost all of them. That and the fact that all of the food and beer was on his tab. Buy me free beer and food and you can pretty much cheer for anyone you want to.
***
Add one more item to the list of "Ways Drake has won games" from my Gameday post: Winning ugly. Pick your favorite cliche about ugliness and apply it to this game; I'll do so right now.
This game looked like it had been beaten with an ugly stick.
Whether it was Drake playing tight because of the hostile environment, the #22 ranking, it was just a bad night, or some combination of the three, they didn't play well. And the Jays played like a young team that had never played a big conference game before. The result was a game that looked like it had been beaten with an ugly stick.
My prediction of a close game that went back-and-forth proved prescient; I just picked the wrong team to make plays down the stretch. I thought the home crowd would carry the Jays; I was wrong. Drake has senior players who made plays late, they showed a lot of guts in fighting from behind, and they made every big free throw. In short, they're a good team. I don't want to hear any whining about refs or bad calls or any of that. The Jays got beat by a better team last night, period. Could they have won? Sure. It was right there for them to take, they just didn't do it. If they'd won, would they have been the better team? I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect we'll find out next week in Des Moines.
***
My biggest gripe is that the Jays allowed Drake to dictate the style of play -- namely, they abandoned the inside game because Drake's matchup zone was making it difficult to get open looks in the paint. Altman admitted on the post game show that he made a mistake in not demanding his post players call for the ball. When you're at home, don't surrender the style of play to the visitor just because early on they make things difficult.
Actually, that's not entirely fair. Early in the game, the Jays were hitting over half their shots from beyond the perimeter, and when they tried to get the ball inside, Drake shifted players to double team the ball. Because the shots were falling from outside, they gradually stopped going inside. And then when the shots stopped falling in the second half, they failed to adjust and go back inside. Frustrating, but its one of those things you accept with a young team.
***
P'Allen Stinnett has to play more than 11 minutes. He got a couple of cheap fouls early (cheap in the sense that he picked them up 50+ feet from the basket, not cheap in the sense that they were bad calls). He was really psyched for the game, and he played out of control, leading to the cheap fouls.
With him fouled out, the Jays were without arguably their best player -- and certainly their best playmaker -- for the stretch run in regulation and all of overtime. If you think Chad Millard is option #1 for a game-winning shot from the corner with Stinnett in the game, well, we're going to have a quarrel because I respectfully disagree with you.
He has to learn to play with foul trouble. When you pick up two early fouls, you have to stop taking chances on defense and stay on the court. The Jays really need him, so I hope he takes something away from the experience.
***
How about Drake converting EVERY big free throw, and the Jays missing two crucial ones down the stretch? That's the sign of a good team, right there: making your tough free throws. 17-18 is insanity on the road, but they hit 'em.
Meanwhile, Chad Millard and Kaleb Korver missed key free throws in the last minute, either of which would have made Drake's road to victory much tougher.
***
Despite all of that, the Jays were in the game and had an excellent chance to win against a team that has won 16 straight and is 8-0 in the MVC. The argument could be made that the Jays SHOULD have won, frankly, and that they pissed the opportunity away. That's the silver lining of this game: the Jays are a talented team, and as long as they learn from it, they'll be fine.
This is what young teams do: two steps forward, one step back. Drake is more experienced and it showed last night. The better team won.
Good news is they get another crack at the Bulldogs in one week. Lets hope they put what they learned on Tuesday to good use, and can exact revenge.
You bet.
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