It wasn't in the cards for the Golden Eagles to win Saturday before a national television audience.

The Eagles had more rebounds and fewer turnovers than the rugged visitors from the Missouri Valley Conference. But they struggled offensively and Creighton's Booker Woodfox made the game's biggest shot.

Woodfox drained a 3-pointer with 28 seconds left and ORU missed two chances in the closing seconds, allowing the Bluejays to escape with a tense, 65-64 BracketBuster win before ESPN2's cameras and a Mabee Center announced crowd of 8,512.

"That was a really good game," said Creighton coach Dana Altman. "I thought the atmosphere was great. (Woodfox) hit a big, big shot there at the end and that was the only difference."

The Eagles outrebounded the Bluejays 43-37 and lost only eight turnovers, but negated everything positive they did by shooting only 37.9 percent overall and 4-of-23 from 3-point range.

Moses Ehambe, the Summit League's most recent player of the week, shot 4-of-16 overall and 1-of-11 from behind the arc.

"It's hard to beat a good team when you shoot 4-of-23 (from 3-point range)," said ORU head coach Scott Sutton. "I thought we competed, but it comes down to making shots, and it so happened to be one of those days when the ball wasn't going in."

Still, the Eagles had chances right to the end. Two foul shots by a badly hobbled Rob ert Jarvis gave them a 64-62 lead with 37 seconds left. But Jarvis had to leave the floor favoring his right ankle after getting banged up on the pre vious play. He wasn't available at the end, and it hurt the Eagles.

Creighton came back with a play designed for its leading 3-point shooter. Woodfox came into the game hitting 46.4 percent. He used Dane Watts' screen to get away from ORU defender Kelvin Sango, took a pass from Josh Dotzler and shot in the same motion while moving right to left toward the top of the key.

Without Jarvis, ORU didn't have its leading 3-point shooter in the game. Adam Liberty tried the right side and missed an off-balance 15 footer with time running out.

Sango speared the rebound and sent it to an open Ehambe, who shot quickly with the 6-foot-8 Watts flying toward him. Watts deflected the shot and it fell short of the basket. ORU's Marcus Lewis caught it, but had no time to get up another shot.

"It was in our hands until the last seconds," Lewis said.

A miss was as good as a mile for the Eagles (20-7), who have won nine Summit League games that weren't decided until the closing seconds of regulation or overtime.

All was not lost. Later in the day, the Eagles learned they had clinched the top seed in the conference tournament when Oakland (Mich.) beat Western Illinois 91-82.

Sutton said his greatest disappointment was losing on Senior Day for the second straight year. Ehambe, Liberty, Yemi Ogunoye, Shawn King and Ben Haynes played their last regular-season game at the Mabee Center.

"This is a game they'll always remember, especially with it being on ESPN2. Those are five wonderful young men who have done a lot for this program, and it's very disappointing. But last year's (team) regrouped and won the conference tournament," Sutton said.

Mike Brown 581-8390
mike.brown@tulsaworld.com