Jays

WOWT Mobile Web >> Sports Headlines >> Jays

Overtime Win Sends Creighton To NCAA Tournament

Posted: $util.date("h:mm a MMM d, yyyy",$story.contentLiveDate,$timeZone)
Reporter: The Associated Press

Creighton-Illinois St. Basketball
Bluejays Win MVC Tournament Championship
"We Got It Done"

Doug McDermott had 33 points and Antoine Young scored eight of his 14 in overtime as Creighton survived an upset bid in the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament final with an 83-79 victory over Illinois State Sunday afternoon in St. Louis.

Grant Gibbs added a career-high 20 points for second-seeded Creighton (28-5), which won the conference tournament for the seventh time in 14 seasons and earned its first NCAA bid since 2007.

"I knew my stroke was there," Gibbs said. "Coach told me they're probably going to sag off you so step up and make some shots."

CU coach Greg McDermott, Doug's father, became the first Valley coach to win the tournament at two schools. He won in 2004 with Northern Iowa. "I remember like it was yesterday when I was a fourth-grade kid with my dad on that stage," Doug McDermott said. "Now, I got to win one as a player."

The Bluejays were 3-0 against fourth-seeded Illinois State (20-13), which beat top-seeded and 15th-ranked Wichita State Saturday in the semifinals, the first two wins by nine and 28 points.

Freshman Nic Moore had 20 points for Illinois State and drove the length of the court for a layup with :06.5 to go in regulation that forced overtime.

Young tried to duplicate that feat on the other end, but missed with :02 left and Gregory Echenique missed a tip-in at the buzzer.

Jackie Carmichael added 17 points and nine rebounds for Illinois State, which hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 1998. Tyler Brown had 16 points and John Ekey added 13. "If you couldn't tell how badly this team wanted to win this tournament, you must have been eating a lot of popcorn," coach Tim Jankovich said. "To fall that short of an NCAA bid is painful beyond words."

The Valley expects to get two NCAA bids, ending a four-year slump in which the conference got one bid each time with regular season champion Wichita State among the top teams in the nation in the RPI. Illinois State likely will settle for an NIT bid. "The NIT being the next biggest one, we'll take it," Ekey said. "These last couple days, hopefully we showed everybody that we deserved to be in it."

McDermott, the conference player of the year, was potent inside and out, making 12-of-18 shots with three three-pointers while exhausting an assortment of defenders. He broke the school's season scoring record set in 1968-69 in the first half and put Creighton on his back much of the second half, scoring 17 of the Bluejays' 19 points in one stretch.

"We are a team," said Doug McDermott," who was selected tournament MVP after scoring the most points ever in the championship game. "No single individual brought us to this day. I will remember this season forever."

Young was 6-for-8 at the free throw line in overtime after going just 2-for-6 in regulation. "You've got to step up and make plays, you've got to do it. They're a dangerous team, but we just stuck with it. We just kept fighting and we got it done."