Creighton earns win over Seton Hall after furious rally

With 11:30 remaining in the second half, Seton Hall led Creighton 68-52. The 16-point lead the Pirates held over the Bluejays appeared to have them destined for their biggest win of the season yet. But as fate would have it, it was not to be for The Hall.

Creighton roared back and picked up an 85-81 win. The thief by the Bluejays was done in part thanks to a ridiculous 33-13 run to end the game. Creighton knocked down seven 3-pointers in the final 11:30 of the game, as the Pirates just had no answers for the furious flurry of buckets that Creighton dropped on them.

14 of the 33 points scored on this comeback run were dealt by Mitch Ballock. Ballock also hit four of the seven 3-pointers that the Bluejays hit the Pirates with, proving to be an abominable force that Seton Hall couldn’t handle. Ballock finished with a game-high 29 points and seven 3-pointers on the night off 12 attempts. It was a ridiculous performance, and one that will certainly earn him recognition.

Marcus Zegarowski, Damien Jefferson and Denzel Mahoney joined Ballock in double figures. Zegarowski scored 18 points, while Jefferson and Mahoney added 14 and 13. The quartet were also responsible for 16 of the 17 3-pointers made by the Jays in the win, the other coming from Alex O’Connell.

Two 20-point performances from Bryce Aiken (21) and Myles Cale (20) unfortunately got lost in the crumble. Aiken and Cale were joined in double figures by Jared Rhoden (13) and Sandro Mamukelashvili (13). It was truly a tale of two halves for Seton Hall, as they shot 65.5 percent from the field in the first half, 58.3 percent on 3-pointers on 12 attempts and 75 percent on FTs on 12 attempts. In the second half, The numbers were significantly worse in the second half, as they went for 33.3 percent from the field, 15.4 percent on 3-pointers (13 attempts) and while they shot better on FTs (83.3 percent) they did so on exactly half of the attempts (6).

Seton Hall is currently scheduled to play Villanova on Saturday, while Creighton is currently slated to face DePaul.