MBB Falls in Second Round to Creighton

Sunday, March 19

Denver, Colo.

6:10 p.m.

Baylor

23-11,11-7Big 12

Creighton

23-12,14-6Big East

Creighton

Baylor

MBB Falls in Second Round to Creighton

3/19/2023 8:27:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score (PDF)

Cryer scores career-high 30 points against Bluejays

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            STORRS, Conn. – After watching Ryan Kalkbrenner go off for a career-high 31 points in an NCAA Tournament first-round win over North Carolina State, Baylor's defensive game plan was to make everything hard on Creighton's 7-foot-1 junior center.
            The third-seeded Bears did just that, holding Kalkbrenner to just 10 points and seven rebounds in Sunday's second-round matchup at Ball Arena.
            But two days after shooting a dismal 3-for-20 from 3-point range, the sixth-seeded Bluejays (23-12) beat Baylor (23-11) at its own game, knocking down 11 treys and getting a career-high 30 points from sophomore guard Ryan Nembhard to pull off an 85-76 win and advance to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years.
            "It's pick your poison when you've got a good inside/outside," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, whose team lost in the second round for the second-consecutive year after winning the 2021 national championship.
            "Credit them for doing a good job. Our bigs did a great job (on Kalkbrenner), but we had a lot of help, which led to some opportunities for them from 3. We kept changing what we did, and they were just a really good offensive team. They did a good job adjusting as well."
            While Creighton started hot and stayed hot, especially from outside the arc, the Bears hit just 2-of-15 from 3-point range in the first half and finished 5-of-22, getting outscored by 18 points.
            Baylor did outscore the 'Jays, 38-16, on points in the paint and had six fewer turnovers (16-10), but that wasn't enough to cool off a Creighton team that had five different players hit 3-pointers. Nembhard was 8-of-13 overall and 4-of-6 from 3-point range, while TCU transfer Francisco Farabello scored nine points on three 3-pointers.
            "As you saw, they were getting a lot of easy shots," said junior guard LJ Cryer, who matched Nembhard's career night with a career-high 30 points of his own. "We put a lot of emphasis on (Kalkbrenner), and something was going to give, either the big or the guards. We just had to scramble, and they did a good job moving the ball."
            After limiting UC Santa Barbara to 20 points and 30.4% shooting in the second half of Friday's 74-56 first-round win, Baylor's defensive issues resurfaced as Creighton hit nine of its first 15 shots and took a double-digit lead, 27-17, with 7:51 left in the first half when Trey Alexander drained a 3-pointer.
            "Normally, the second game, you have tired legs," Drew said, "and (Creighton's 11-for-24 shooting from 3) definitely didn't show that. So, credit them for making shots. . . . Take the free-throw line, for instance. For them to go 22-for-22, felt kind of like their night tonight. Farabello had been struggling from the field, gave them a big lift. It wasn't like we lost because we lost. They beat us today."
            Every time the Bears seemed to gain momentum, the 'Jays had the answer. Baylor twice cut the deficit to seven in the last 2 ½ minutes of the first half, but Baylor Scheierman hit a 3-pointer that gave Creighton the 10-point halftime lead, 39-29.
            Junior forward Jalen Bridges gave the Bears a huge lift early in the second half, scoring seven of his 12 points in a two-minute stretch on a step-back jumper, a 3-pointer and a driving layup. And then Cryer got hot, knocking down a jumper and a corner trey that made it a five-point game, 50-45.
            But Creighton quickly pushed it back to a double-digit lead and then threw what seemed to be the knockout punch when Farabello and Nembhard drained back-to-back transition 3-pointers to take the biggest lead of the night, 77-59, with under six minutes to play.
            To their credit, the Bears didn't go away and got it back to single digits, 79-70, with an 11-2 run capped by an Adam Flagler driving layup with 3:01 left in the game.
            "There were moments throughout the season where things weren't going our way," said Flagler, who finished with 15 points. "But as a group, we collectively just wanted to continue to fight for one another. And credit to God at the end of the day for allowing us to even be in this March Madness and be able to play. I'm just thankful for these guys. I'll go to war with them any day of the week."
            Creighton missed its last eight shots, but the 'Jays clinched it with six free throws in the last minute.
            Avenging 30-point loss to Baylor in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2014, Creighton also got 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists from Alexander. Arthur Kaluma chipped in with 11 points and seven rebounds, helping the Bluejays win a tight rebounding battle, 34-29, with 10 offensive boards.
            Likely playing his last game in a Baylor uniform as a projected NBA Draft lottery pick, freshman Keyonte George was just 1-of-10 from the floor, finishing with seven points, three rebounds, three assists, two steals and a block in 25 minutes.
            "I think he's really grown," Drew said of George. "When you come in as a freshman, you grow a lot off the court as well as on the court. And having LJ, Adam and great big brothers for him has really helped him. And Key is a fun teammate. The guys all really like him, and he wanted to learn from them. Really credit his growth, too, all around on and off the court because of the teammates he had and his willingness to grow."
            Advancing to the region semifinals in Louisville, Ky., Creighton will face 15^th-seeded Princeton (23-8), which knocked off second-seeded Arizona and No. 7 Missouri. The Tigers' only other Sweet 16 appearance was in 1967 when there were only 23 teams in the tournament. Two years ago, when Baylor won the program's first national championship, the Bluejays lost to eventual runner-up Gonzaga, 83-65, in the region semifinals.