Controversial foul call leads to heartbreaking Creighton loss in Elite Eight

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Moments after the buzzer sounded for a second time, Baylor Scheierman couldn’t lift his face to the crowd. The glimpses of it left uncovered had burned red, his tears falling into his hands before the Creighton onlookers could see.

As the door to the Bluejays’ locker room at the KFC Yum! Center flung open between the moments CU soaked in its 57-56 loss to San Diego State Sunday, Ryan Kalkbrenner faced up against the rugged, white-painted brick that lined the walls. He swung his head into it back and forth in defeat. In pain.

This wasn’t the way they saw their dream season ending.

“You work so hard to get to this point,” Scheierman said. “To make the Final Four. To lose in general, it’s tough. I feel for everybody in the locker room. We’ve worked our butts off since June to be here.”

Scheierman’s steal and layup to tie the game with 34 seconds left should’ve stayed with Elite Eight enjoyers. But most of the closing moments of the Bluejays’ final game were spent with their starters resting their hands on their hips.

With SDSU guard Darrion Trammell sizing up CU's Ryan Nembhard for the Aztecs’ final possession, Nembhard’s hand caught Trammell’s hip on one final floater. The whistle hardly managed to beat the buzzer.

There was Creighton’s shot at its first Final Four, in the balance. Waiting to be determined by a trip to the free throw line with 1.2 seconds left.

Time froze. If not after the Jays awaited Trammell to score the closing point, then while officials pored over the following review after Scheierman’s touchdown pass to Arthur Kaluma fell incomplete with mere milliseconds seemingly left.

Before anyone claimed a Final Four run was possible, players and personnel inside Creighton's program did. All they felt they needed was a fraction of a second — or potentially five minutes of overtime — to make it happen.

It never came.

“It's a tough feeling,” Nembhard said. “You work so hard all year, and it comes down to a play like that, I don't know. I think we could have done a little bit more to make it a game that didn't have to go down to that, but it's a tough way to lose.”

Creighton had its chances.

Through 20 minutes, the Jays navigated toward their spots the way they had all NCAA Tournament, shooting 53.8% from the field in the first half.

The Jays gave SDSU a choice. If the Aztecs’ pesky perimeter defenders wanted to chase Scheierman away from the 3-point line as he curled, he’d find Kalkbrenner up high for passes the big fella has caught all year long.

Kalkbrenner, who finished with 17 points, found one advantage after another, either watching his man come up too high or seeing a pass put in a good enough place for him to have little work to do.

CU (24-13) having such easy decisions only lasted so long.

Sunday’s game wasn’t even two minutes old when San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher decided to make Creighton uncomfortable. Trammell was a hound. He roamed underneath the basket, awaiting an errant pass and getting into the jersey of whoever caught it.

SDSU (31-6) didn’t take a possession off with its full court press. Creighton chose to mirror the Aztecs’ intensity, even if just in spurts. Guard Shereef Mitchell, who hadn’t played more than three minutes in a game during this NCAA tournament run, played four in the first half alone.

Mitchell wouldn’t play again, with CU’s lone non-starter minutes in the second half coming during the single minute Francisco Farabello played while Nembhard tended to an apparent right wrist injury.

Creighton led 33-28 at halftime, but it hadn’t seen anything yet. If it thought it saw ball pressure, it was wrong. In just the opening four minutes and change of the second half, the Aztecs forced two turnovers, bumped CU out of almost every action and kept it out of rhythm.

“They just turned up the intensity,” Arthur Kaluma said. “I don't even know how to describe it.”

When they looked up, the Jays were just one for 10 to start the half. Some looks came with relief after fighting through SDSU’s physicality, others came with no alternative.

“A good shot in this game is different from a good shot against other teams,” Kalkbrenner said. “Other teams, you can pass up a good shot for a great shot. San Diego State, you just gotta take the good shot.”

CU went on to miss all 10 of its 3-point attempts in the final 20 minutes.

The Aztecs turned the game into a drought. Just the way they like it.

The Bluejays had prepared for the Aztecs to attempt to live on the offensive glass. But as Nathan Mensah extended his reach and Jaedon LeDee flexed his 6-foot-9, 240 pound frame, there was little Creighton could do to stop them.

In the end, it all came down to one final possession.

Half the building and TV viewers across the country scratched their heads at Nembhard’s late whistle after both teams channeled their share of physicality for the better part of 39 minutes.

"Officiating is part of the game," coach Greg McDermott said when asked his opinion of the call. "We're not going to go there." 

Nembhard intended to chase Trammell into five more minutes of basketball. Instead, endless replays circulated around him for what felt like an eternity, prolonging the end of Creighton’s unprecedented run.

Their historic season, which reached new heights after advancing to the program’s first Elite Eight, ended with several of the Jays’ starters in their own worlds.

For Trey Alexander, it was a blur.

“I really wasn’t able to listen to most of Mac’s speech because I was kind of in my own head,” Alexander said. “This is what happens when you feel like you worked too hard for something and it didn’t happen.”

Nembhard had few words for the way things went down. Kaluma’s voice could hardly project. Scheierman pushed back tears while San Diego State kicked around confetti.

Kalkbrenner drove himself into the wall wondering what could’ve been and what was all at once.

“I’m gonna look back on this day one day and be like, ‘Elite Eight is a great run,’” Kalkbrenner said. “Right now when you lose, it just hurts. Especially after all the work you put into it.”