• Box Score: Wichita State 89, Creighton 68
• Photo Showcase: CU men's basketball, Feb. 11
• Video: Postgame press conference with Greg McDermott, Grant Gibbs and Gregory Echenique

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Gregg Marshall needed but five words Saturday to sum up his Wichita State team's 89-68 dissection of No. 17 Creighton.

“It was a no-doubter,'' Marshall said.

And now there is little doubt which team will win the Missouri Valley regular-season title. The victory, before the largest crowd ever to see a Creighton home game, left the Shockers with a two-game lead with three to play.

Wichita State dominated all facets of play in handing Creighton its worst home loss since Nebraska also won by 21 points in December 1995. It also was the Bluejays' worst loss at home to the Shockers since a 22-point setback in 1953.

“This is an embarrassing loss,” Creighton forward Doug McDermott said. “This one hurts a lot.”

It was the Bluejays' third straight defeat in a 21-5 season, and what made it particularly galling to coach Greg McDermott was his team's effort — or lack of it — that allowed Wichita State to shoot 58.2 percent from the field, outrebound the Bluejays by 14 and turn the announced crowd of 18,735 into silent observers.

“There has always been some defensive deficiencies,” Greg McDermott said. “I thought at times there was a lack of communication that led to some breakdowns, and at times there was a lack of effort.

“That's concerning to me. There are a lot of things that you can't control in this game. You can't control the bounce of the ball, a referee's whistle or if your shot is going to fall, but you can control your effort and your communication. I thought we did it for the first three minutes, and then it gradually disappeared.”

At the same time, McDermott conceded that maximum effort by his team might not have been good enough.

“The way they played, I'm not sure if we had played our best that it would have been good enough,” he said. “Wichita was really, really good this afternoon. We did not have an answer for anything they did.”

Especially the play of guards Ben Smith and Joe Ragland. Smith scored 15 of his 22 points in the first half in helping Wichita State take a 49-36 lead at the break. Ragland had 17 of his game-high 24 points in the final 20 minutes.

The two, along with Toure' Murry and Demetric Williams, took turns driving through and shooting over Creighton's attempts to defend them. Smith and Ragland combined to make 17 of 24 shots from the field and 5 of 10 3-point attempts.

Murry and Williams each added 11 points. Shocker center Garrett Stutz, the team's leading scorer, finished with eight points as foul trouble and the work of Creighton center Gregory Echenique held him in check.

“Tonight, Garrett was not as good as he's been,” Marshall said. “Echenique won that battle, but that might have been the only battle they won.”

Creighton won the first meeting between the teams 68-61 on New Year's Eve in Wichita by holding the Shockers to 22 points in the final 20 minutes.

It became clear early Saturday that there would be no stopping Wichita State. The Shockers trailed 8-4 early but erased that with an 11-0 run. Creighton was able to get back within 25-23 on Doug McDermott's basket with 7:51 to play.

Wichita State hit the Bluejays with an 8-0 run and, after the Bluejays closed within five with 4:34 left in the half, closed the half with a 16-8 spurt in which Smith scored eight points.

“That was very important to give us some momentum for the second half,” Smith said. “We got stops so that we could get on offense and score.”

Creighton scored the first three points of the second half to get within 10, but Ragland countered with a four-point play, burying a 3-point shot as he was fouled by McDermott. That pushed the lead back to 14 points, and Creighton never got closer than 12 the rest of the way.

“I'm excited about my team's performance and how tough, gritty and thorough they were tonight,” Marshall said. “They took care of every facet of the game. We didn't leave it up to ... there was no doubt.

“The crowd, a ref's call, we told them don't do that. I could not have asked for more.”

In winning for the 12th time in 13 games since losing to Creighton, Wichita State improved to 22-4 and 13-2 in the Valley. The Shockers finish the league's regular season with a road game at Illinois State sandwiched between home games against Missouri State and Drake.

Creighton, now 11-4 in the Valley, has league games remaining Tuesday at Southern Illinois, Feb. 21 at home against Evansville and Feb. 25 at Indiana State.

The Bluejays' once rosy postseason hopes got a little more hazy. They shot 40.4 percent from the field, including 21.7 percent (5 of 23) from 3-point range. Echenique led the Bluejays with 16 points, but the Shockers held McDermott to 13 points, 10 below his average.

“We have to regroup, there's no doubt about that,” Creighton guard Grant Gibbs said. “We have to get back to playing defense, and our effort has to be a lot better. We have to care more and play harder.”

The losses that preceded Saturday's stomping could be dismissed as the normal dips that every team encounters during a long season. The Bluejays lost at Northern Iowa on a buzzer-beating shot, then dropped an eight-point decision at Evansville when they faded badly down the stretch.

But Saturday's defeat, to their biggest conference rival on national television, can't be easily dismissed.

“Nothing changed after the UNI game or the Evansville game,” Gibbs said. “We didn't have a sense of urgency in practice or in the games. That's the most disappointing part. We have to get back in the gym tomorrow and get this thing moving forward again.”

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com
twitter.com/PivOWH

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