Dana Altman’s return to Omaha didn’t quite go according to plan Monday night as the Oregon men’s basketball team fell 84-76 to the Creighton Bluejays in game one of the best-of-three championship series for the 2011 College Basketball Invitational.
The Ducks (19-18) could not overcome a stellar shooting night on Creighton’s part in front of 12,381 fans in attendance, and they will return to Eugene for the second game of the series on Wednesday night, which will be held at Matthew Knight Arena.
For Altman’s part, the return to the school he helped bring into the limelight of college basketball was expected to be awkward at the very least, but the first-year Oregon man didn’t seem fazed by the outside distractions.
The numbers Altman posted during his 16-year tenure at the Bluejays helm speak for themselves (327 wins, nine Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles, seven NCAA tournament appearances, and two NCAA wins), but on Monday night it was current Creighton head coach Greg McDermott, and his son, Doug, who stole the show.
Doug McDermott, a 6-foot-7 freshman forward, scored the first five points of the game for Creighton to help the Bluejays establish an early lead. Creighton went on to make six of its first seven three-point attempts, and shot 90 percent from the floor over the first nine minutes of action en route to a 44-point first half.
After they trailed 44-37 at intermission, a pair of made buckets from Oregon’s Malcolm Armstead and Joevan Catron appeared to breathe some life back into the Ducks, but a 12-0 run over the next 3:59 gave the Bluejays a comfortable cushion to work with.
McDermott scored nine consecutive points for Creighton during that stretch, and finished with a game-high 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting, to go along with four rebounds and one assist.
With the Bluejays ahead by 17 points after the big surge, Oregon went on a 12-3 run of its own to narrow the margin to eight and swung the momentum back in its favor.
A made three-pointer by Garrett Sim, his third of the night, a pair of jumpers from Catron, and a three-point play by freshman guard Johnathan Loyd brought the score to 76-72 with 2:34 remaining in regulation.
Gregory Echenique and Antoine Young combined to hit three free throws and extend Creighton’s lead to seven, but senior Jay-R Strowbridge nailed a three-pointer with 1:31 on the clock to get the lead back down to four.
After the teams traded timeouts, Creighton sophomore Josh Jones put the dagger in Oregon’s comeback with another three-pointer early in the possession to seal the Bluejays’ fourth consecutive victory.
Catron led five Oregon players that finished in double figures with 15 points and nine rebounds, while E.J. Singler tallied a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards. Sim and Strowbridge finished with 14 points each on a combined 6-for-10 from behind the three-point line, and Loyd chipped in 10 points and five assists.
Echenique (15), Jahenns Manigat (11), and Jones (11) each finished in double digits for Creighton.
Oregon will be back in action Wednesday night, with tipoff scheduled for 7 p.m.
Sim, Fearn earn All-Academic honors
Junior guards Nicholas Fearn and Garrett Sim represented the Oregon men’s basketball team on the second-team Pac-10 All-Academic squad, the league announced Monday.
Fearn, a Seattle native, earned a 3.14 grade-point average as a business administration major, while Sim, a Portland native, tallied a 3.08 GPA as an accounting major.
To be eligible for selection to the academic team, a student-athlete must have a minimum 3.0 overall GPA and be either a starter or significant contributor.
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Ducks fall to Bluejays in first game of CBI Championship Series
Daily Emerald
March 28, 2011
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