As top-seeded Providence and No. 4 Creighton took to the floor in Friday night’s BIG EAST Tournament semifinals, each team had a certain recipe they hoped would spell success and earn it a trip to Saturday’s championship game.
 
For the Bluejays the plan was twofold: One, make sure Ryan Hawkins spent almost the entire night on the floor because in his career, teams with Hawkins on it have piled up a 181-18 record. Secondly, hold the Friars to under 40% shooting from the floor because when they do that, the Bluejays were 16-0 this season. And it should not be too tall a task for a team that came into the tournament as the BIG EAST leaders in field goal percentage defense.
 
For Providence, the formula was even simpler. Just show up.
 
The Friars came into the semifinals toting a stellar 25-4 record with a rather odd twist - all four losses have come on Tuesdays. Strange, I know. But it’s a fact. There’s something about the Friars and Taco Tuesdays that simply don’t mix. But with the semifinals being held on a Friday night and not a Tuesday, it all seemed to have lined up quite nicely for Providence, no?
 
Well, the Jays did their part, holding the Friars to just 27 points and 28.5% shooting in the pivotal first half. And though Hawkins was strangely through the game’s first 20 minutes, the Creighton trio of Arthur Kaluma,  Ryan Kalkbrenner and Alex O’Connell were not as the Bluejays jumped out to a 15-point halftime lead and never looked back as they cruised to an 85-58 victory in front of a sold-out Garden crowd.
 
The Bluejays move on to the tournament championship game against the winner of Villanova-UConn. It will be the fourth trip to the title game for Creighton, which has yet to claim that elusive first crown.
 
“Wow. We beat a really good team. Championship team,” Creighton head coach Greg McDermott said. “And we did it our way. We did it with defense and our defense is pretty good. We lead the league in defense. We were really special tonight on both ends.”
 
Creighton and Providence were locked in a 25-25 tie with just over 6:00 to go before halftime but it was here when the Bluejays took over. They closed out the half on a 17-2 run to take a 42-27 lead with the bulk of the damage in that run coming from Kaluma, who scored 10 points in the spurt.
 
And when the second half began, there were few among the 19,812 fans who didn’t expect some kind of Providence response to open the half. But it never came. In fact, Creighton’s defense was so stingy that it forced the Friars into back-to-back shot clock violations to open the second half. IN the meantime the BLuejays offense never let up. 
 
This time the culprit was Trey Alexander as the freshman guard scored eight points in an 18-2 Creighton spurt to open the second half as the Bluejays took a 60-29 lead with just over 14:00 to play. At that point, Friday was most definitely feeling like a Tuesday for Providence. In fact, things were going so wrong for Providence that they didn’t manage to log their first field goal until Al Durham tossed in a layup with 12:37 left to play. By that time the Creighton lead was 60-33 and Providence’s dream of a BIG EAST Tournament title to add to their dream season was over and the Bluejays were on their way.
 
McDermott couldn’t say enough about Kaluma, his uber-talented freshman after the victory.
 
“He’s made the most progress of anybody in our program from the first practice until today,” McDermott said. “His everyday work ethic in practice, outside of practice, and then gradually learning how we play and how he can be effective and efficient within that system, he’s really slowed down. And the fruits of his labor are paying off now for him and for us.”
 
So dominating was the Creighton performance that after the Bluejays’ lead had swelled to 31 points on multiple occasions, it never dipped below 26 the rest of the way. And just about everyone in a blue uniform was involved in the fun. Alex O’Connell finished with a team-high 18 points, Kaluma added 17 points, the duo of Kalkbrenner and Alexander logged 15 points apiece and Hawkins posted eight points with a dozen rebounds.
 
O’Connell had been mired in a bit of a shooting slump of late, but that appears to be over now after Friday night.
 
“I haven’t been shooting the ball too well in the last few games but I stayed confident,” O’Connell said. “And credit my teammates for finding me in the open spots. My shot fell and it feels good when your shot falls.”
 
The loss was a blip on an otherwise brilliant season for the Friars and Providence head coach Ed Cooley thinks they will turn the page on this loss sooner than later.
 
“We picked a bad time to play bad in a great arena, unbelievable crowd,” Cooley said. “I’m very, very proud of our team. I told them you can’t just look at this game. We can be upset, we can be hurt, we can be mad. But our job is to respond.
 
So while the Friars will regroup and look to Sunday to discover what the NCAA Selection Committee has in store for 11th-ranked  Providence, the Bluejays will turn their attention for Saturday night’s title tilt with either the Wildcats or Huskies. Creighton is 0-3 in championship games since joining the BIG EAST. Now the Jays are hoping the fourth time will be the charm.
 
“This is a really good win for our program,” McDermott said. “And this is our fourth time in gteh championship game in the eight or nine years we’ve been in the league. We haven’t been able to quite kick that door down. Hopefully tomorrow that’s the time to do it.”