Women’s Basketball Notes:
- Senior forward Jaylyn Agnew and junior point guard Tatum Rembao continue to be the top impact players in the gym, and with both being the only players thus far with more steals than turnovers, they look to be leaders for what the coaching staff is expecting to be a revamped defense this season.
- The coaches brought the refs and the fans to “The Ruth” on Saturday morning for a structured scrimmage against their practice squad, and had anyone been charged to get in the door, Rembao would have been worth the price of admission. Even though she couldn’t get any of her five 3-point attempts to fall, she made good decisions within the offense and had a nose for the ball crashing the glass. She finished with an unofficial stat line of 10 points, seven rebounds, and six assists, and led the team in the latter two categories.
- Mykel Parham was sidelined over the weekend, but her fellow front court freshman Carly Bachelor was back in action after missing a few days while battling the flu. Bachelor was especially active during a end-of-game simulation her first day back on Friday. She was aggressive in looking for opportunities to take her defender off the dribble, and as fearless as usual when crashing the glass on both ends. She even sent one session to overtime with a put-back at the buzzer.
- Like most of the team through the first two weeks of practice, sophomore guard Rachael Saunders has struggled to find a rhythm with her shooting. However, she was on from long range during Saturday’s scrimmage, going 3-for-5 from beyond the arc and finishing just two points behind Jaylyn Agnew for the team lead in scoring.
Men’s Basketball Notes:
- Sophomore point guard Marcus Zegarowski appears to be getting back up to speed after a rough initial week and a half. His jump shot is returning to form, and his decision-making and pace have been really good the last three or four times out. Despite the rough spell, his assist-to-turnover ratio sits at 2.23 through 13 practices (it was 1.9 in 32 games as a freshman).
- Junior swingman Denzel Mahoney seems to be embracing the idea that he can make an impact on the defensive end of the floor with his length and physicality. He said the redshirt helped with his development in that area. He’s been deployed as the tip of the spear in the 1-3-1 zone at times, and in one sequence on Monday, he hustled from the free throw line to the corner to save a long carom in bounds, then — after he missed the open shot it eventually produced — he jumped an outlet pass for a steal and a bucket the other way.
- Speaking of that 1-3-1, Creighton’s hybrid zone defense had its moments during a controlled scrimmage with referees in the gym on Tuesday afternoon. UNOFFICIALLY, it produced a healthy amount of missed mid-range jumpers as well as turnovers on 25.0 percent of the possessions.
- In the last update, third-year center Jacob Epperson had not yet begun participating in live action. That’s no longer the case. While he is still limited to basically half of a practice each day, he has been going through full contact and getting up and down the floor at full speed. Every now and then the potential bursts out in the form of a blocked shot like the one he had against Zegarowski, or a one-handed alley-oop finish from Ty-Shon Alexander.
- While we’re on the topic of Creighton’s big men, sophomore forward Christian Bishop looks to be finding the right balance between the urgency needed to navigate a double team on the block and the controlled pace required to not turn the ball over. Through 13 practices, his five turnovers on charted possessions are the fewest for anyone on the team who has been practicing since the start of fall camp.
