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No. 15 Creighton stuns top-ranked UConn to grab dominant 19-point win

Creighton rolled to a 85-66 win over No. 1 UConn on Tuesday night in Omaha

ryan young
Staff writer
·4 min read
90
Creighton handed No. 1 UConn its first loss since Dec. 20 on Tuesday night in Omaha.
Creighton handed No. 1 UConn its first loss since Dec. 20 on Tuesday night in Omaha. (Steven Branscombe/USA Today)

UConn’s run atop the college basketball world has finally come to an end.

No. 15 Creighton absolutely stunned the top-ranked Huskies on Tuesday night at the CHI Health Center in Omaha, Nebraska. The Bluejays rolled to a dominant 85-66 upset win over UConn in a huge statement win in the Big East.

Naturally, as the win was the program’s first over a No. 1 team in history, it led to a massive celebration on the court.

"It's a historic game for our program," Creighton coach Greg McDermott said, via The Associated Press. "I told the team in the locker room, it's really a culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people over a long period of time to give these guys the opportunity to wear this uniform and play in front of the crowd we were able to play in front of tonight.

"We played a really good game and we beat an incredible team, a team that has a legitimate chance to win a national championship. But we're pretty good as well."

The win came after what has been several months of domination for UConn, which quickly separated itself from the rest of the pack as the clear best team in the country. The Huskies entered Tuesday night with a 24-2 record and fresh off a 28-point blowout win over then-No. 4 Marquette. They hadn't lost since Dec. 20, either, when Seton Hall stunned them by 15 points to open conference play. They easily handled Creighton the first time the two schools met in Storrs, and had compiled a 14-game win streak, which was the longest in the country.

Yet Tuesday night was completely different. Creighton just couldn’t miss early on.

Creighton stormed ahead at the end of the first half to take a dominant 14-point lead into the locker room. The Bluejays ended the period on a 22-6 run that spanned more than eight minutes while holding UConn to just 1-of-7 from behind the arc. Steven Ashworth had 16 points in the first 20 minutes on four 3-pointers.

Creighton then opened the second half on an 8-2 burst, which suddenly pushed their lead to 20 points. Though UConn rallied briefly late — the Huskies used an 18-5 burst to cut the lead back to 10 points just before the under-4 timeout — it was too late. Creighton held on in the final minutes to grab the 19-point win.

"It kind of felt like we just ran into a buzz saw there," UConn coach Dan Hurley said.

Tristen Newton led UConn with 27 points and 12 rebounds. Donovan Clingan, who fell into foul trouble early, had 12 points and seven rebounds. They were the only two UConn players to hit double figures. The Huskies went just 3-of-16 from behind the arc as a team, too.

Ashworth, though he cooled off in the second half, led the Bluejays with 20 points. Ryan Kalkbrenner added 15 points and six rebounds, and Trey Alexander finished with 16 points. Creighton shot nearly 55% from the field as a team and went 14-of-28 from the 3-point line.

Creighton now holds a 20-7 record with four games to play in the regular season. Though the win helps significantly, it may be too late for the BlueJays to overtake UConn and claim the top seed in the Big East before the tournament kicks off.

While Tuesday’s loss is shocking, UConn is still in a prime position to claim a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. The Huskies have four games left before the Big East tournament, and they can bounce back with another big win over Marquette on March 6. But Creighton’s win reminded the country that the Huskies cutting down the nets once again in April isn’t inevitable.