DePaul’s Brittany Hrynko set a D.J. Sokol Arena scoring record by a Creighton opponent on Friday night. The senior guard out of Philadelphia scored 33 points, 29 of which came in the final 25 minutes of the game, to help the Blue Demons (21-7 overall, 13-3 Big East) fight off rally after rally on their way to a 78-76 victory and snap Creighton’s (15-11 overall, 8-7 Big East) six-game winning streak.
The Big East player of the year candidate entered the night averaging 19.6 points per game, trailing only St. John’s guard Aliyyah Handford for the conference lead. After the night was over she was sitting in the same spot as her team in the league standings — first. It was the fourth time this season that Hrynko has eclipsed the 30-point mark, including the second time in the last four games she’s done so after a 32-point effort against Xavier that her coach felt didn’t get the attention it deserved.
“What you saw tonight of [Hrynko’s] ability to shoot has happened on multiple occasions this year,” said DePaul head coach Doug Bruno of his star player’s performance. “Except for the one she banked off the board, we’ll take that one now, Brittany,” he joked, looking over at his senior guard. “You know she had 27 at halftime against Xavier. That never really got publicized very much. I’ve done this 41 years, you don’t see people getting 27 in a half very often. They’re making a big deal, and they should, about the NBA guy scoring 37 in a quarter, but still a half of 27 in college basketball? So I’ve seen Brittany do this before this year.”
“What you saw tonight is something she’s done on multiple occasions this season. … I’m just really glad she selected DePaul and hopefully we can do as much as possible to extend her life at DePaul past the two remaining home games and the first game of the Big East Tournament.”
For the first 15-plus minutes of action Jim Flanery’s Bluejays held the Blue Demons star in check, but due in part to some execution break downs in the scouting report and also because Hrynko is someone who doesn’t need too much help building confidence, she went off and scored 16 straight points over the final five minutes of the first half. She finished with 20 points to lead all scorers at the break, helping the DePaul take a 41-34 halftime lead.
“She’s a really good player and can score in different ways, and that’s a big part of it,” said Flanery. “We switched a lot of screens and our plan was to switch a lot of screens, but we didn’t execute switches in some cases where she got open threes. Then the other thing we talked about a lot was we needed to push her to our closest defender. We talked about taking away her outside hand, and if there is closer help and more help on this hand then we have to push her that way. I would say our attention to detail in those two areas was just not good enough.”
“When she gets open shots and easier shots she’s going to make harder shots. She’s that good. She can make hard shots. … I’m disappointed because she went from four points, with seven minutes to go in the half, to 20 at the end of the half. We just didn’t fight hard enough. It wasn’t one person because our philosophy was to switch a lot of screens and it was that we didn’t appropriately switch a lot of times.”
The Bluejays jumped out to an early lead, but the Blue Demons used a 14-4 run to take an 18-13 lead with 11:49 left in the first half. Creighton junior guard Marissa Janning picked up two early fouls that forced her to the bench and DePaul’s full court pressure defense took advantage while the Bluejay floor general was sitting. Creighton committed six first half turnovers, and they would have had two more on ten-second violations if not for the two timeouts head coach Jim Flanery had to burn to save the possessions.
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See Exclusive Photos From the Game by WBR Photographer Adam Streur
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Flanery brought Janning back into the game to help the Bluejays handle the pressure, and sure enough they got their rhythm back. Senior forward Alexis Akin-Otiko scored four straight points to tie the game before freshman guard Sydney Lamberty buried a 3-pointer from the right wing to put Creighton ahead, 23-20, with 8:30 to go in the opening half. Sophomore guard MC McGrory stole the ball a couple possessions later and scored off the glass with the foul. She knocked down the free throw to give the Bluejays a four-point lead.
A few minutes later a 3-pointer by DePaul freshman forward Mart’e Grays cut Creighton’s lead down to a point, and Hyrnko outscored the Bluejays, 16-6, on her own the remainder of the half.
McGrory was the only other player in double figures in the first half, leading the Bluejays with 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
The Bluejays cut the deficit down to just a single possession game several times in the second half, but Hrynko and the Blue Demons were able to counter each time. “It was difficult,” Bluejay senior forward Alexis Akin-Otiko said of the trouble Creighton had getting over the hump in the second half. “Rebounding was something we could have controlled and that’s something that could have helped us get through those runs. If we had rebounded a little bit better it wouldn’t have been as tough.”
Creighton came into the game allowing only 10 offensive rebounds per game and ranked second in the conference in defensive rebounding percentage. On Friday night they allowed their opponent 16 second chance opportunities that the Blue Demons turned into 11 points. In a two-point game, McGrory said DePaul’s edge in winning the 50/50 balls made the difference in the end.
“I think the beat us at too many of those. Especially against them if they are getting more of the 50/50 balls they get to run more, they get to control more of the tempo of the game,” McGrory said. “I think first of all not having the possession, but then losing control of the pace, I think that hurt us.”
No play highlighted the difference that battle made in the outcome more than on DePaul’s final possession of the game. After Akin-Otiko’s traditional three-point play brought Creighton to within two points at 78-76 with 45 seconds remaining, the Bluejays forced DePaul sophomore guard Jessica January to misfire from three-point range on the ensuing possession. However, the Bluejays didn’t finish the possession as Brittany Hrynko swooped in from the right corner to grab the offensive rebound with under 15 seconds left. This forced the Bluejays to foul twice to send DePaul to the free throw line, one of those fouls was the fifth for Marissa Janning, sending Creighton’s leading scorer to the bench at the most critical point of the game.
January missed the front of a the one and one with five seconds left and Sydney Lamberty grabbed the rebound and passed the ball ahead to McGrory. The sophomore with a flare for hitting late-game dramatic shots would have the final opportunity for the win, but her heave from just inside half court was no good off the front of the rim.
“It was on line, but you’re taking a floater from 30 feet, it’s lucky if it goes down,” said McGrory of her final shot.
The loss snapped a season-high six-game winning streak and dropped the Bluejays to 8-7 in the Big East, a full game back of St. John’s and Butler who are tied for fourth place behind league leader DePaul, Seton Hall, and Villanova.
Creighton has three games remaining, including their season finale in Pennsylvania against Villanova, but first up are the surging Marquette Golden Eagles on Senior Day this Sunday at D.J. Sokol Arena. The Bluejays will honor their three seniors Alexis Akin-Otiko, Taylor Johnson, and Sammy Jensen after the game, but Jim Flanery hopes his players will handle the emotions of their home finale well enough to beat a team that has won four out of their six contests so far this month.
“Senior Day is always emotional and last year we lost our it for the first time in a long time,” Flanery said. “I have a hard time even knowing how to approach that because you don’t want to over-dramatize senior day, because you want to play with emotion but not too much emotion, so that will be a big factor.
“And you know Marquette has four of their last six. They’re a little similar to us in that they’re a younger team and it took them a couple of wins to get some confidence. I think now that they’ve won a little they’re playing better, because they kind of a different belief in themselves. When we beat them up there their second-leading scorer didn’t play that particular game so we know we will be seeing a little bit different team that what we saw up there. You hope that you’re team is mature enough to get over this and get ready. This is the way it is. In some ways this is what I like about the league, because if you lose that Friday game you don’t have to wait long to get right back on. Especially if you are the home team there is no reason not to be ready.”
Creighton and Marquette (8-19 overall, 4-12 Big East) are set for a 1:05 p.m. tip-off.
