A sweet fadeaway

I’ve never been more sure about a fadeaway jumper in my lifetime than Saturday night, with one eye open cowering behind my couch.
The game, season and his career hanging in the balance, Baylor Scheierman went to a move he’s mastered, having worked on it thousands of times. 
A last-second rally with huge efforts from Scheierman helped force overtime before Creighton eventually survived Oregon’s best efforts, 86-73 in double overtime in the round of 32.
A feeling of defeat began to sink in the final minute of regulation as Creighton trailed by four. The Jays were struggling to score and the Ducks were feeling it.
I should never have doubted No. 55.
Scheierman made two free throws to cut the lead to a pair inside 30 seconds left before Oregon’s N’Faly Dante missed the front end of a one-and-one.
This gave Creighton, almost unbelievably, a chance to tie or win the game. Scheierman admitted after the game that the first look was to try and win the game in regulation, but the shot wasn’t there.
“Just trying to get the best shot possible,” Scheierman said to a nationwide audience in a postgame TV interview. “Nine seconds is a lot of time. We ran a play for me and the first shot wasn’t there. Kalk (Ryan Kalkbrenner) came and set a ball screen and I was able to just get in the paint and get to a shot that I can make at a high level. Thankfully, it went in and there were a lot of winning plays tonight from everybody.”
As Scheierman described, after passing on a shot from the wing for the win, the former Husky cut hard off the screen from Kalkbrenner and at first seemed to look for the big fella on the pick and roll.
Instead, No. 55 shot faked before falling away with 10 seconds showing on the clock. The ball never touched any portion of the rim, a perfect shot.
Hang on, though. We all had to survive a driving floater from Oregon’s Jermaine Couisnard, who scored 32 points on 33 shots. 
It looked good, man. With every other game of the day over and the entire nation deadlocked on this game, it goes to free basketball.
“We could have gone home tonight,” Scheierman said. “We were down four with a minute to go. We found a way and we’re moving on to the next round. We’re going to celebrate this tonight and then we’re going to get ready for the Sweet 16 matchup.”
Steven Ashworth, one of the new pieces to the Creighton lineup this year, was a big factor in the overtimes with huge three-pointers. 
He had a cool answer on TV, too, when asked about his mentality in the extra session.
“Just try to be like Baylor,” Ashworth said, with Scheierman’s big grin in the middle. “He (Scheierman) stepped up huge for us. The play call was give the ball to B and get out of the way and he delivered. In the overtime, everyone had a part.”
Back to that fadeaway jumper for a second, though. Scheierman said in other interviews after the game how thankful he was that the Creighton coaches and his teammates trust him with the ball when the game is on the line.
They’re not the only ones. Ask Scott Phillips, who has probably seen Scheierman shoot that fadeaway more times than any of us during those 6 a.m. workouts back in the day.
Ask Tom Leininger, who trusted Scheierman to make the play when the game mattered. Kind of like when Scheierman pulled up for three in a double-overtime thriller against Seward to keep the Huskies’ Central Conference tournament hopes alive in 2019.
Ask Kyle Peterson, who transformed his football offense in 2018 entirely into something only considered as “basketball on turf,” leading to state record-like numbers they still bring up during Scheierman games.
Ask any number of Scheierman’s friends like Cade Reichardt, Cy Bullerman, Jordan Stevenson, those who played alongside him in high school and have, at times, had a front row seat in Omaha for the show. 
People trust in what they believe in. They trust hard work, dedication and love for the game. 
That’s Belo. 
Creighton will play Tennessee Friday night in Detroit around 9 p.m., again the last game of the night.
The dream is still alive. Go get it, kid. 
RICHARD RHODEN can be reached at sports@hamilton.net.