CMU's reward: Duke Chippewas' upset of Creighton earns shot at 'one of the top teams in the country'
Friday, March 21, 2003
By Gretchen Flemming
The Grand Rapids Press
SALT LAKE CITY -- Central Michigan University found out that keeping a lead in the NCAA Tournament is much harder than building one.
Since the Chippewas were able to withstand a furious Creighton comeback to post a 79-73 victory over the sixth-seeded Bluejays, 11th-seeded Central gets a date with Duke in the second round.
"Duke is one of the top teams in the country," said CMU senior guard J.R. Wallace. "It will be a big challenge, we're looking forward to it."
Getting there proved to be a challenge, too.
Against Creighton, CMU shot out to a 38-22 halftime lead, built it to 50-24 with 16:24 left in the game before the Bluejays struck back at the Huntsman Center at the University of Utah.
A 16-1 run made up much of the difference, then Creighton cut the margin to two, 72-70, on a Larry House bucket with 1:36 to play. But senior Mike Manciel answered for Central with a basket 30 seconds later, and after a Creighton turnover, CMU's Tony Bowne hit a free throw to make it 75-70.
Central put it away in the final 34 seconds with two free throws apiece by Wallace and junior guard T.J. Meerman, to score the biggest upset of the NCAA's first round.
"It's March Madness," said Bowne. "Teams are going to make runs. All the teams you face now are good teams. But when it got down to the nitty gritty, I think we made plays on defense and we were able to hold them off."
Bowne made key plays on offense and defense, none as big as the two crucial 3-pointers midway through the second half that
see CMU, B6
halted Creighton's big run. The 6-3 sophomore from Hastings finished with 14 points, five assists, four rebounds and a pair of steals.
"It's the same in the MAC season, when they sag off Chris (Kaman) I'm open," Bowne said. "It's a shot I can hit ... coach gave me the green light to shoot."
Creighton focused plenty of attention on Kaman, double- and triple-teaming CMU's 7-foot center every time he had the ball. Kaman finished with 12 points and six rebounds after sitting out the last 10 minutes of the first half with two early fouls.
"There were three guys rotating on me, Creighton did a good job I thought," Kaman said. "I was extremely tired, I don't know why, it might have been the altitude."
Leading the Chippewas was senior Mike Manciel, who scored 29 points and eight rebounds. He attacked the Creighton defense inside, and went to the line 16 times, sinking 11 foul shots.
"In the first half were really taking advantage of (breaking) their press and getting layups," Manciel said. "But we were dead tired in the second half, you could tell by the way we were giving up on defense."
Central built its lead by beating the highly-regarded Creighton press and scoring easy buckets on layups. CMU's pressure bothered the Bluejays, who committed 21 turnovers, as the Chippewas scored 32 points off those miscues.
"We were playing back on our heels, thinking too much about what we should be doing," said Creighton senior Kyle Korver, who finished his career with 21 points. "Then some shots finally got us going, we got some energy from that. Guys were flying all around on defense."
Creighton, which was ranked 19th in the final Associated Press poll, had two reserves come up with big games as 6-7 forward Mike Grimes scored 15 and 6-10 Joe Dabbert had 10. Guard Larry House scored 11.
"It was disappointing to finish our season like that," Creighton coach Dana Altman said. "This was an outstanding group of guys. We were flat, we just weren't ready to play tonight and that's my fault."
The Chippewas notched their first NCAA Tournament win since 1975 when they defeated Georgetown. They'll play Duke, which beat Colorado State Thursday.
"We're excited about it," Kaman said. "We really wanted to play Saturday."
