Lauren Jensen led the Bluejays in scoring on Friday night. (Juszyk / WBR)
Through 16 minutes of action on Friday night at D.J. Sokol Arena Marquette dragged Creighton into a grind-it-out affair. They forced errant passes, stayed attached to shooters, drew offensive fouls — four of them, to be exact — and threw in a shot-clock violation for good measure.
The good news for the Jays was that they hung tough on the defensive end and only trailed by four points when sophomore guard Lauren Jensen got a few shots to fall over the final few minutes of the second quarter to ignite a 10-2 run to close the first half and Creighton pulled away from there, earning a 62-45 win over the Golden Eagles to improve to 10-3 on the season and a perfect 5-0 in Big East play.
“We talked about how tough and disciplined Marquette is, and I thought our kids matched that and more,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “I’ve grown more comfortable and confident that we’re going to be the tough-minded team that we showed tonight. We told them it was going to be rhythmic, it wasn’t going to pretty, because I think they defend really well and they are prepared, and they know what they are doing defensively, and they make things tough … but we hung in there.”
Carly Bachelor chipped in points for the Bluejays (Juszyk / WBR)
Jensen finished with a game-high 15 points and added three rebounds, two assists, two steals, and no turnovers in her 32 minutes on the court. The Jays were +22 with her in the game, and all of that was compiled in her scoring outburst that started towards the end of the first half and carried over into the second. Of her 15 points, five of them came during the 10-2 run to end the second quarter and the last eight were scored in the first 6:38 of the third quarter when Creighton outscored Marquette 18-4.
After falling behind 21-17 midway through the second quarter, the Jays outscored the Golden Eagles 30-8 over the next 12 and a half minutes of game time, and Iowa transfer was the tip of the spear.
“We got into some screening actions — not that we weren’t before — but I feel like they eventually got a little bit confused on defense,” Jensen said of the game-changing onslaught. “That allowed me to get some more open looks that I didn’t really have earlier in the game. At times in the first quarter the ball was a little sticky, but we started to get things going.”
Sophomore forward Morgan Maly and junior forward Carly Bachelor joined Jensen in double figures in the scoring column. Maly finished with 12 points, five rebounds, and three assists and knocked two of her four attempts from the 3-point territory, including one from the top of the key as the final seconds ticked off the clock at the end of the third quarter to give Creighton a 50-33 lead.
Bachelor ended her night with 10 points and five rebounds in 19 minutes. Four of those five boards came on the offensive glass and most of that production was tallied in a game-sealing run midway through the final period. After the Jays went scoreless on their first five possessions of the fourth quarter, Jim Flanery called a timeout with 6:41 remaining. Bachelor scored six points and hauled in two offensive rebounds over the three minutes and 12 seconds that followed to increase Creighton’s lead to 18.
Big fourth quarter performances have become a habit for the third-year forward out of Kansas. Some of her notable crunch time efforts this season include eight points against Omaha, five points and three rebounds at Nebraska, eight points against Georgetown, and nine points against Arizona State.
“I feel like all season when the game is tilting one way or the other Carly is usually that player to give us that boost and change the tide,” Jensen said. “She always does good things on the court, but she’ll be kind of silently doing her thing and then all of sudden she turns it on, and it totally flips the game. That’s huge for us.”
Rachael Saunders and crew are getting ready for UConn on Sunday. (Juszyk / WBR)
Marquette was led in scoring by junior point guard Jordan King, who finished with 14 points on 6-of-13 shooting. The rest of the Golden Eagles combined to shoot 30.4% from the floor. Their top two leading scorers entering the game, seniors Lauren Van Kleunen (13.9 ppg) and Karissa McLaughlin (13.1 ppg), were limited to nine points on a combined 4-for-20 shooting. Marquette got outscored by 20 in the duo’s roughly 34 minutes on the floor.
With the Golden Eagles entering the game with a NET ranking of 72, Friday night’s win marks the sixth top 75 win on the season for Creighton. And at noon on Sunday, they’ll get a crack at a seventh quality win when they travel to Storrs to take on UConn.
Last season, the Huskies went 18-0 in Big East play during the regular season and 3-0 in the conference tournament to claim both titles in their first season back in the league before advancing to their 13th consecutive Final Four. Thus far during the 2021-22 campaign luck has not been on their side. Through nine games, their three losses are already one more than they suffered all of last season. As if the injuries to reigning National Player of the Year Paige Bueckers, sophomore sparkplug Nika Muhl, and sharpshooting phenom Azzi Fudd, the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2021, weren’t enough to deal with, UConn’s depleted roster of available players also got hit by some COVID-19 positive tests after the Christmas break, so Sunday’s game against the Bluejays will be their first time on the court since December 19 when they lost 69-64 to No. 3 Louisville.
The Huskies are expected to have seven players available on Sunday, including Muhl, who will reportedly be restricted to 15 minutes given that she hasn’t played since December 5th.
“I think we’re as confident as we can be going in to face the most dominant program in women’s basketball over the last 25 years,” Flanery said. “They’ve had some hiccups this year with injuries and COVID, but they are still what you aspire to be in terms of just the way they play. The first time we played them in a non-conference game eight or nine years ago, I told our team in the locker room after the game that they have really good players, the best of the best, but they also play the game the right way. They play really hard. They make you uncomfortable. They are confident, but they’re not arrogant. They just play the game the right way.
“I think it’s a great measuring stick for where we are. I think we’re a better team than we were two months ago, and maybe even a month ago, but let’s go find out how much better.”