In my Gameday preview, I openly wondered what the crowd would look like in Des Moines. Would it be 30-40% Creighton fans, as it has been in recent years, or would it be representative of a Top 20 team? Well, it was most certainly the latter. In fact, I'd peg the Jays' percentage at somewhere around 5%. That place was a zoo, and it was almost entirely pro-Drake. Good for them.
I am pissed that I didn't get my free "Unleashed!" t-shirt. Because I totally don't have enough t-shirts. Actually, I'm about 18 shirts beyond the point where I needed a bigger dresser to house them, but still. I wanted my free t-shirt!
Our seats were awfully nice, courtesy of my college roommate who used some connections within the Drake athletic department to score us complimentary seats at midcourt. Upside to that is you have great seats. Downside is...there is no downside. You bet.
Did I mention I want my damn free t-shirt? Frankly, its not too late. Feel free to drop one in the mail to me.
***
Its been many years since I've seen a shooting display like Drake put on last night. In fact, I'm not sure I would have believed it had I listened to the game on the radio back in Omaha. But having seen it with my own two eyes, it may have been believable but it was still amazing. Time after time, Drake's players would pull up and shoot, FROM ANYWHERE. Josh Young was 6-8 and Jonathan Cox was 4-7, and their range...they had no range. That is to say, there was no such thing as "range" in their vocabulary. They shot from anywhere and everywhere.
More than once, Young shot from the paint...AT MIDCOURT! Granted, Drake's midcourt logo is rather obnoxious in size, but still, some of these shots were five steps behind an NBA three. Defenses don't even guard people that far out! And they were not only shooting from there, they were making them! Guarding that far from the basket spreads out your defense, creates giant passing lanes, and just generally wreaks havoc.
Those two players, Young and Cox, were a combined 10-15 from behind the arc. That's amazing stuff.
And yet despite that, Creighton was right there. Booker Woodfox matched Young almost point-for-point, and was 3-7 on his own from three. P'Allen Stinnett, back in his role of sixth man, was 3-5 from the arc and Casey Harriman was 2-3. So Creighton had some guys shooting well too.
A 16-6 Creighton run mid-way through the second half tied the game up, and for the next eight minutes, the teams played a really exciting back-and-forth contest, exchanging blow for blow and shot for shot. And then with the game tied at 65, Cox hit two big free throws. On Creighton's ensuing possession, Kenny Lawson was called for an illegal screen, and Leonard Houston responded with a dagger of a three-pointer. And then with the score 70-65 Drake, with all hope seemingly lost, P'Allen Stinnett got a fantastic steal and led a fastbreak. Adam Emmenecker was the only Drake defender, and he had four fouls. This was going to be a mammoth dunk. No way it wasn't going to be epic. And then...
The ball got stuck between the rim and the backboard. Seriously.
Has that ever happened in an actual game? I mean, its happened to me in the driveway before, but I stink so you expect these things to happen. Unbelievable.
Eighteen straight wins for Drake. Wow.
***
I must say, its about damn time Drake took down those purple decorative banners that hung from the rafters of the Knapp Center since it opened. At no point has purple, much less the floral violet shade of purple that those banners were, been in the Drake color palette. Some designer obviously thought they were appropriate in the early 1990s when the building opened, but to me it always just exhibited an embarrassing reminder of someone who "didn't get it". And yes, these are things that only bother me. Such is my life.
You bet.
***
All in all, last night was a great effort from the Jays. Drake is rated #17 for a reason, because they're an awfully good ballclub, and the Jays played with them for 38 minutes. A couple of breaks here and there in the last 90 seconds and that's a different outcome. Drake was the better team and they made those breaks happen for them.
The Jays have five home games in February, a roadie at Evansville, and hopefully a winnable Bracket Buster game. Time to make a run, boys.
You bet.
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