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Bradley Falls to #24 Creighton

By Josh Simon
January 8, 2012 Updated Jan 8, 2012 at 12:08 AM CDT

Courtesy Bradley Sports Information:
Players wearing the No. 3 combined for 69 points, but Creighton's Doug McDermott accounted for 44 of those points, leading the #24 Bluejays (13-2, 3-1 MVC) to a 92-83 win at Bradley (5-11, 0-4 MVC) Saturday night at Carver Arena.

McDermott's career-best 44 points were the most ever by a Bradley opponent in the 30-year history of Carver Arena and his 18 field goals (in 23 attempts) equaled the most-ever by a Bradley opponent in any venue. Bradley senior forward Taylor Brown scored 22 of his team-high 25 points in the second half and was a perfect 5-for-5 from 3-point range.

Brown's efforts paced four Braves in double-figures as Walt Lemon, Jr. added 16 points and a career-best eight assists, Dyricus Simms-Edwards chipped in with 14 points and swingman Jake Eastman scored 10 points off the bench. Creighton center Gregory Echenique put up a double-double with 12 points and a game-high 12 rebounds and enjoyed a perfect shooting night: 3-for-3 from the field and the 47.7 percent free throw shooter was 6-for-6 from the line. Jahenns Manigat added 13 points for the visitors.

After enjoying a hot-shooting first half (.556 field goal percentage), Creighton came out blazing to start the second half, making its first 11 field goal attempts after the break to help stretch a 44-34 halftime lead to 69-49 with 11:22 remaining.

Averaging only 3.8 3-pointers per game for the season, Bradley turned to the long ball and sank five treys during a 29-14 surge that pulled the Braves to within 83-78 with 1:52 left. Simms-Edwards blocked a Grant Gibbs jumper, but Bradley missed on its opportunity to slice further into the Creighton lead on the ensuing possession and the Bluejays made 7-for-8 free throw attempts in the final minute to close out the game.

While Creighton made 10-of-20 3-point field goal attempts to defend its status as one of the nation's top 3-point shooting teams, Bradley made 13-of-24 (.542) attempts from behind the arc. The 13 treys tied for the eighth-best total in program history and third-best total at home.

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