Ryan Nembhard leads Creighton to Maui Invitational title game with win against Arkansas

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Ryan Nembhard’s career game included a very strong dunk late in the second half against Arkansas in the Maui Invitational semifinals. Creighton beat previoulsy unbeaten No. 9 Arkansas 90-87. Yes Nembhard had his best scoring performance, but again it was a balanced effort by the Jays. Ryan Kalkbrenner scored 21 points, Baylor Scheierman 20 and Trey Alexander had 12 with two clutch free throws in the final two seconds.

It’s great in the moment to win a top-ten matchup against Arkansas, but this will very likely be significant in March when the committee is comparing resumes. For the Creighton another chance to improve on the perfect 6-0 start to the season with one last game in Hawaii Wednesday in the championship.

Greg McDermott, “It was just an incredible college basketball game. There was a lot of haymakers thrown out there in 40 minutes. Their poise for as young as they are is really incredible. We didn’t go very deep on the bench tonight, or this afternoon. I felt like we kind of had to ride these guys and they did a great job.”

With the win the day before against Texas Tech this is the first time in program history Creighton beat ranked teams on consecutive days. This is also the programs first win against a top-ten team as a top-ten team, they played two previous games in this same situation

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