Drake’s first-year head coach Jennie (Lillis) Baranczyk will be coaching in her first game against Creighton this weekend, but she’s already 0-3 against Jim Flanery in her basketball career. During Flan’s first two seasons at Creighton he went 3-0 against the Iowa Hawkeyes, and Lillis was a member of those Hawkeye teams. The 30-year-old Des Moines, nay Urbandale, native and 2004 Iowa graduate may be young (on the date she was hired, she was the second-youngest Division I head coach), but she’s quickly risen through the coaching ranks and is obviously respected by Drake athletic director Sandy Hatfield Clubb enough to hire her as the sixth head coach in the storied history of Drake women’s basketball.
Baranczyk took the reigns from Amy Stephens, who left following nine moderately successful seasons in Des Moines. The first-year head coach has learned from some great coaches throughout her basketball life, playing for former Creighton employees Bob and Sharon Hanson at Dowling Catholic High School, playing under former Drake coach Lisa Bluder at Iowa and working for Deb Patterson at Kansas State and Terri Mitchell at Marquette. A dominant Big Ten player for the Hawkeyes, she clearly has the basketball résumé to impress, and her Bulldog squad appears to be buying into what she’s teaching.
It also appears as though Creighton (15-4, 7-1 MVC) is catching Drake at the wrong time as the Bluejays head to Des Moines for a Saturday afternoon contest. After opening Missouri Valley Conference play with six straight losses, the Bulldogs (7-12, 2-6 MVC) posted their first two Valley wins over Bradley and UNI last weekend. While it might be easy to write off a team with an RPI of 282 and a strength of schedule of 262, Creighton cannot afford any more slip ups if they want to keep their slim NCAA at-large chances alive. Five of Drake’s seven wins this season have come in the unfriendly confines of the Knapp Center, where – much like the Bluejay men – the women always seem to struggle, no matter how good of a team Drake has. The Jays have won just twice in their last eight trips to Des Moines and are 8-21 all-time at Drake, including 8-15 inside the Knapp Center.
Last year, Creighton came into the Knapp Center on a five-game winning streak, but lost to the Bulldogs 54-50 on Senior Day. That win secured the regular-season sweep for DU, after it knocked off Creighton 47-44 in the MVC opener in Omaha, and allowed the Dogs to finish at 9-9 in league play. After two years of the same MVC schedule set-up, which saw the teams open and close with each other, the Valley did not force the Jays to play in Des Moines on Senior Day for a third straight year. Rather the teams now meet to wrap up the first half of the MVC’s round robin schedule.
Creighton is looking for its third 8-1 MVC start under Jim Flanery and while this is certainly not a bad thing, the Jays are hoping to avoid their fourth 7-2 start in the last five seasons.
Drake is led by sophomore guard Kyndal Clark, who averages 14.4 points per game and 15.1 per game in Valley play. She leads the team in steals, free-throws made, attempted and percentage. Junior forward Morgan Reid (11.0 ppg) is averaging a team-best 8.4 rebounds per game on the year, but her 9.6 rebounds in league play are tops in the Valley.
Guards Carly Grenfell (8.3 ppg) and Mary Pat Specht (7.5 ppg) combine with Clark to provide nearly all of the three-point shooting for this Bulldog squad. Grenfell leads the way with 35 three-pointers, followed by Specht’s 30 and Clark’s 29. That trio accounts for 94 of Drake’s 100 threes on the season.
Senior center Stephanie Running leads the MVC in field-goal percentage, shooting 51.2 percent from the field, while she chips in 7.3 points and just 3.3 rebounds per game. Junior guard Alyssa Marschner leads the Valley with 87 assists (4.6 per game), but she’s also second in the league with 89 turnovers.
Creighton has bounced back nicely from its disappointing showing in Wichita. The Bluejays have won three straight since suffering their only Valley defeat. Creighton helped its national statistical ranking during its 79-67 win over Bradley. Creighton drilled 14 three-pointers against BU and shot nearly 54 percent from long range. The Jays are still No. 1 in the NCAA in three-pointers per game, making 9.5, while they are now fourth in the country in three-point percentage (.387).
Their percentage is even more impressive when you look back at how they began the season, shooting just 27.5 percent from three-point range through four games. Since then, they’ve shot better than 41 percent from beyond the arc and have made at least 10 three-pointers in a game eight times, including four of their first eight Valley games.
Seven different Bluejays have made at least 12 three-pointers and four of those players are making better than 40 percent of their three-point attempts. Carli Tritz has only made 15 threes, but is shooting 47 percent from the outside. Freshman guard Marissa Janning is tops on the list of four players who qualify for the MVC top-15 in three-point shooting. Janning ranks second in the league and 25th in the NCAA, making 40.6 of her threes, while Ally Jensen, Sarah Nelson and Jordan Garrison all rank among the league-leaders in three-point accuracy.
Jensen ranks fourth in the MVC with 44 three-pointers, bringing her career total to 192. Little sister Sammy Jensen is also on fire from deep. The younger Jensen has made an impressive 9-of-13 (.692) three-pointers during MVC play and is 12-of-26 (.462) on threes this season.
While discussing threes, it’s a good time to bring up Jordan Garrison and how her game has improved. Garrison is known for her awkward shooting style and her seemingly limitless range, but she’s starting to use that reputation to take advantage of opponents. In MVC play, the junior guard has as many two-point baskets as she does three-point baskets, bucking the notion that all she can do is shoot threes. Her ability to get defenders in the air with a pump fake, put the ball on the floor and finish is not only helping her own game, but it’s freeing up teammates for looks as well.
Beyond Creighton’s exceptional three-point stats, the Bluejays also rank 20th in the NCAA in both assists per game (16.4) and assist-turnover ratio (1.1). Much like their ability to evenly distribute the three-point shooting, the reason Creighton ranks so highly in categories involving assists is because the entire roster can pass the ball. How often do you see 6-foot-3 centers finding 5-foot-5 guards on a back-cut to the basket? This team can do and has done just that.
As a team, Drake is ranked in the top-two or bottom-two in the MVC in just one category – ranking ninth in the conference by allowing nearly 40 rebounds per game. Outside of that, they are in the middle of the pack in every statistical category. I’ve never been one to prognosticate, because I was burned by it early in my SID career (I jinxed a sure win over Illinois State during the 2001-02 season and I’ll never forgive myself). That being said, here’s is my prediction for Saturday’s game – Creighton will either play really well or possibly poorly. They could win by 20 or lose a close game where they shoot 30 percent from the field. It’s the Knapp Center and Drake, you never know what’s going to happen – hopefully not a five-point play whistled by June Courteau (yes I am still bitter about a blown call in the 2007 MVC Title game – the last one not played on a neutral court).
Random Links, Thoughts and Numbers
- Creighton is one of 12 teams in the NCAA to use the same starting lineup in every game this season. Creighton is the only school in the NCAA that has seen both its men’s and women’s basketball team use the same starters all season.
- No program has defeated Creighton more than Drake has. The Bulldogs lead the all-time series 37-22. DU swept the regular-season series from CU last year, but the Bluejays defeated the Bulldogs 53-38 in the MVC Title game.
- Ames, Iowa and Ballard High School should once again have a large contingent of fans at the Knapp Center in support of the Jensen sisters on Saturday. This will mark Ally Jensen’s last game played in Des Moines. The senior has done well close to home, as she is 8-for-18 (.444) from three-point range in her career at the Knapp Center.
- Ally Jensen not only enjoys playing Drake in Des Moines, but she’s also put together some other nice performances elsewhere against the Bulldogs. Twice in the span of four games as a freshman, the guard set career-highs against DU, first scoring 13 in Des Moines and then bombing the Bulldogs with six three-pointers and 18 points in the MVC Tournament. Those six triples and 18 points remain career-highs (although she did equal those numbers against Evansville in early January). Ally’s 17 rebounds in three games against Drake last year were four more than any other Bluejay.
- A win would put Creighton at 8-1 through the first half of MVC play, which would equal the best halfway mark under Flan. The Jays also opened 8-1 during the 2003-04 and 2004-05 seasons. CU is guaranteed at least a 7-2 start; the Jays have finished second or better in MVC play each of the last six times they opened MVC play with at least a 7-2 record.
- The latest official NCAA RPI lists Creighton at 29, up from last week’s 32. Drake’s RPI is ninth in the league 283, but that’s up 18 spots from last week.
- WarrenNolan.com has Creighton with an RPI of 28, with a strength of schedule that has fallen to 48. Prior to opening Valley play, WarrenNolan.com had the Jays with an SOS of 12.
- Catch up on how Taylor Johnson is doing with her rehab in this week’s Tuesdays With the Bluejays.
- Follow this fun coaching trail if you can: Lisa Bluder was the head coach at Drake from 1990-2000 before leaving to coach at Iowa. Bluder was replaced by Lisa Stone, who coached just three seasons at Drake before going to Wisconsin (to replace now former Wichita State head coach Jane Albright). Stone was followed by Amy Stephens, who stepped down from Drake after last season. Bluder coached current Drake head coach Jennie Baranczyk as a player at Iowa. Baranczyk replaced Stephens, who is now an assistant coach at Saint Louis where Lisa Stone was hired before this season (to replace current Nebraska assistant coach Shimmy Gray Miller).
- I mentioned Flan’s 3-0 mark against Baranczyk and Iowa during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons. CU beat Iowa 89-82 during the 2002-03 regular-season in Omaha and topped Iowa 84-72 in overtime in Iowa City in 2003-04. The Bluejays also defeated the Hawkeyes 70-64 in Iowa City during the 2003 WNIT. Baranczyk averaged 18.3 points per game in those three losses to the Bluejays.
- To be fair to Baranczyk, she and the Hawkeyes did beat Creighton (under the direction of Connie Yori) 86-43 during her sophomore season. I can still remember that bus ride home all too well, and the loss stands out in my mind because it was the only game during Christy Neneman’s career in which she was held scoreless.
- Baranczyk is no stranger to coaching against Creighton. Prior to her arrival at Drake, she was an assistant at Kansas State, Marquette and Colorado. She faced the Bluejays at each of her stops as an assistant coach, including a 52-49 buzzer-beating win by Colorado over the Jays in San Antonio last year. Baranczyk was the recruiting coordinator at Colorado, a team which has been ranked in the top 25 much of this season.
- Check out Drake head coach Jennie (Lillis) Baranczyk’s player bio at Iowa. Not too shabby and slightly more impressive than Flan’s eight games played with zero points and five rebounds during his collegiate career at Creighton – sorry Flan. Flan does have 205 coaching wins, while Baranczyk has 7, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice.
- Here’s a nice story on ESPN.com about Baranczyk from November.
Rob Simms worked in the Creighton athletic department for 11 years, primarily working with the men’s soccer, women’s basketball and softball teams. He now serves as the color analyst for women’s basketball home radio broadcasts. He tweets about Creighton a lot @IamRobSimms
