Jamiya Neal scores 21, No. 21 Creighton beats Notre Dame 80-76

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Jamiya Neal had 21 points and nine rebounds to lead No. 21 Creighton past Notre Dame 80-76 on Saturday in the seventh-place game of the Players Era Festival.

Notre Dame cut the lead to three with 24 seconds left, but Creighton (5-3) closed the game 6 of 6 from the free-throw line to seize the win and snap a three-game losing skid.

Steven Ashworth had 15 points and six assists for Creighton. Fredrick King scored 14.

Braeden Shrewsberry and Tae Davis each had 17 points to lead Notre Dame (4-4). Matt Allocco scored 12.

Notre Dame erased a 17-point first-half deficit and took a one-point lead midway through the second half when Shrewsberry drilled a 3-pointer to give Notre Dame a 53-52 lead.

Takeaways

Notre Dame: After opening the season 4-0, the Irish have dropped four straight with a home loss to Elon and neutral-court losses to Rutgers, No. 6 Houston and Creighton. The Irish outscored their first four opponents by 19.0 points. They’ve been outscored by 5.75 points per game during their skid.

Creighton: Neal was averaging 8.7 points per game. He had 11 points by halftime after hitting 4 of 9 from the floor, including 2 of 3 from 3-point range.

Key moment

After seeing its 17-point lead disappear and falling behind by one, the Bluejays responded to Shrewsberry’s 3 with three straight 3-pointers, one from Ashworth and two from Neal to put Creighton in front, 61-53, a lead it would never relinquish.

Key stat

Creighton shot 46% from the 3-point stripe, hitting 11-of-24 attempts from long range, a vast improvement from its season average of 29.9%.

Up next

Notre Dame visits Georgia for the ACC/SEC Challenge on Tuesday. Creighton hosts top-ranked Kansas on Wednesday.

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