Field Level Media
Feb 14, 2022
Alex O'Connell scored 19 of his 27 points in the first half and Ryan Hawkins added 14 points and 12 rebounds as Creighton built a 23-point lead and held off struggling Georgetown, 88-77 in Omaha, Neb. on Monday night, keeping the Hoyas winless in the Big East Conference.
Ryan Kalkbrenner scored 13 points, Ryan Nembhard had 12 points and six assists and KeyShawn Feazell added 12 points for the Bluejays (16-8, 8-5), who have won three consecutive games.
Aminu Mohammed scored 27 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and Dante Harris had 23 points for Georgetown (6-18, 0-13). No Big East team has failed to win at least one regular-season game since DePaul went 0-18 in 2008-09.
Donald Carey had 12 points for the Hoyas.
The game had an unusual incident in the first half when Georgetown coach Patrick Ewing inadvertently interfered with the Creighton offense when he stepped onto the court while the ball was in play and was hit with a technical foul. The Bluejays scored four points on that possession.
Georgetown trailed 56-33 early in the second half. However, after Kalkbrenner's alley-oop dunk off a pass from Nembhard gave Creighton a 77-61 lead with 8:15 to go, the Bluejays' offense became stagnant. Also, Georgetown's full-court press began taking a toll.
The Hoyas went on a 14-4 run and cut the deficit to 81-75 on a driving layup by Harris with 2:45 left. Creighton had five turnovers during that span.
Georgetown had a chance to cut the deficit to three after O'Connell missed a three, but Kaiden Rice missed a three-point attempt. Creighton then scored six straight points to seal the win.
The Bluejays shot 17-for 31 (54.8%) and 8-for-18 (44.4%) from three-point range in the first half, which ended with them ahead, 48-31.
With Creighton leading 20-19 with 10:49 left in the first half, O'Connell was trying to gather in a pass near the Georgetown bench and was inadvertently tripped by Ewing, who had stepped onto the court to make room while Georgetown subs were getting up from the bench to go to the scorer's table.
The ball went out of bounds but the apparent turnover was quickly nullified after the officials huddled. Ewing was assessed an administrative technical foul, good for one free throw. O'Connell sank it, and then drained a three from the left side, making it a four-point play and a 24-19 Creighton lead with 10:37 to go.
-Field Level Media