Rutgers vs. Creighton recap: Bluejays defeat Scarlet Knights to advance to championship game

How much of a Rutgers man are you, anyways?

Let's get all of the basketball stuff out of the way. Creighton trailed by three entering the second half. The first half was really quite bizarre, neither team really playing defense and sort of shooting at will. There were a lot of strange foul calls throughout making the pace unbearable to keep up with. Add the fact that it's late at night and the arena is practically empty, save a hundred or so Creighton fans, and you've got something straight out of a fever dream. Cole Huff managed to get it going for the Jays early and often, leading the 'home' team with 14 points on 6-12 shooting (including 2-6 from 3). Mo Watson still had 4 assists and everything looked pretty even keeled at half. Creighton ended up shooting 4-13 from behind the arc and were subject to 10 fouls, 2 of which were called on Groselle which limited his time on the court.

Then halftime happened. I sat and goofed around for a while, poking around on my phone and banging out my halftime notes.

Rutgers shot 4-7 from 3 in the first half. They haven't been so good in that particular statistical category so far this year. That's good for 55% from deep. Rutgers finished the game shooting 37.5% from 3. If you know basic math and averages or whatever, you know that something bad happened to Rutgers. They reverted back to their norm.

Creighton did the same. After shooting a lousy 31% from deep in the first half, the Bluejays remembered that they were good at putting in the deep ball so they started doing it in the second half and shot 50% from beyond the arc (5-10). Cole Huff continued his eventful day in the same state as his former university and dumped in 12 more points and finished with 26 points on the day. Mo Watson finished with a double-double, getting 6 assists and 10 points in the second half. A relatively quiet game from Zierden and Thomas turned into huge games for the new transfers from Creighton. This is good news, folks!

Rutgers utilized a very desperate offense once they got into a 9-point hole. They began launching the ball from seemingly anywhere past the half court line, begging the basketball Gods to will the orange orb into the hoop, but their desperate pleas were met with silence.

From the outset it appeared as if Creighton was going to struggle in this one. There was no sync in the offense and the defense was playing with such lackadaisy that it was maddening to sit behind a screen and think that this was an acceptable way to approach a bounceback game after the Tom Crean debacle. Then, as McDermott's teams usually do, they found themselves and got into a nice rhythm. The Bluejays are now 3-1 on the year and Rutgers is being delegated to Division II.

Now for the fun stuff: it's 1:15am and I'm tired and have to go to work in the morning. I hope you're enjoying your coffee after a nice night of rest. I hope the sun is shining and there's no snow on the ground. I hope your boss doesn't chew you out for something silly and petty. I hope your car has a full tank of gas.

Enjoy your Tuesday!