Fresh off a 61-42 win over Southern Illinois in the regular season finale that clinched a share of the Missouri Valley Conference regular season title this past Saturday, the Creighton women’s basketball team now has their sights set on defending last season’s remarkable MVC Tournament title run and clinching a second consecutive automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament. According to Creighton junior guard Carli Tritz, the Bluejays begin Phase Two of a plan that was set in motion after last season’s 69-67 loss to St. John’s in the opening round of the 2012 NCAA Tournament.
“[Saturday’s win] was a step in the process of what we want to accomplish,” Tritz said.
The next step will pit Creighton against either that same Southern Illinois squad, or an Evansville team that took Creighton to overtime just seven days prior. The Salukis and Purple Aces will take the court at 7:05 p.m. Thursday evening with the winner advancing to play the Bluejays less than 24 hours later.
While Creighton waits for their opponent to be decided they will look to find a solution to an issue that has given them some trouble throughout the season – attacking a zone defense.
“We’ve worked a lot against the zone this week,” said Creighton head coach Jim Flanery. Evansville played zone almost the entire game against the Bluejays resulting in an MVC record 44 three-point attempts from Jays. Along with Evansville, two other potential future opponents also threw some zone looks at Flanery’s team.
“Illinois State and Bradley are in our half of the bracket. Illinois State has played a lot of zone lately, and Bradley’s played some zone, and really for as good a shooting team as we are we haven’t been as good against the zone as you might think. That’s been a focus other than just getting ready for [Evansville or Southern Illinois]. It’s about how we’re going to win the tournament, and one of our weaknesses has been zone offense,” Flanery said.
One area of interest for the Bluejays will be the performances of true freshman point guard Marissa Janning and sophomore forward Alexis Akin-Otiko. Janning, a freshman out of Watertown, Minnesota, was recently named a 1st-Team All-Conference performer by the Missouri Valley Conference on Wednesday afternoon. She leads Creighton in scoring (13.3 ppg) and three-point shooting (69 3FGM and 41.1% 3FG%). She is also third on the team in assists and steals.
Akin-Otiko, a sophomore out of Bellevue West, has seen her role increase over the past month. She shined in what currently stands as Creighton’s most important victory of the season when she scored 13 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished three assists, to go along with two blocks and two steals in the 56-46 win over Wichita State back on February 16. The Shockers, who shared the regular season title with Creighton, are the top overall seed for the conference tournament via the points system that acts as the tie-breaker for seeding purposes at the end of the regular season.
Despite the impressive performances from Creighton’s young contributors, this will be Janning’s first trip to St. Charles, while Akin-Otiko logged just 10 total minutes in three games as a freshman last season. All of that begs the question: how will they handle the grind and pressure of three win-or-go-home games in three days?
Junior forward, and fellow 1st-Team All-Conference selection, Sarah Nelson believes that grind is difficult to prepare for.
“Three games in three days is a lot, especially when the games are close,” said the MVC Player of the Year candidate. “Most people are getting a lot of minutes, and I think it’s kind of harder to bounce back than one would think it is. A lot of it is obviously physical, but at the same time it’s mental, too. You have to stay focused and be ready. We scout every night, and there is a really fast turnaround so you have to be ready to pick up on things and know what’s going on and really focus in. There is no room for error down there.”
Tritz believes that despite the added pressure, inexperience —in a situation such as this — can actually be a benefit.
“I believe our less experienced players like Marissa or Alexis have a big advantage down there, because the last five games have been must-win situations with us trying to win the regular season [title]. They know what it’s like to play in the tight overtime games or the one-point games to win a championship. They’ve already won a championship going in there, so I think it’s a big advantage that they have over some of the other inexperienced players that we’re going to play against in this environment. I think our non-conference schedule has prepared them for it as well,” she said.
Although the stakes are raised, don’t expect Creighton’s young star to shy away from the moment.
“I’m just excited,” Janning said, “I’m going to go into every game and leave everything I have out on the floor.”
This Creighton squad heads to St. Charles and “Chuck Madness” with a number of reasons to be feeling confident. They return all but one player (forward DaNae Moore) from last season MVC Tournament Championship team. This past Saturday they won a share of the school’s first regular season conference title since the 2002-2003 season. Eight different players (Ally Jensen, Carli Tritz, Sarah Nelson, Marissa Janning, McKenzie Fujan, Alyssa Kamphaus, Jordan Garrison, Alexis Akin-Otiko) have led the team in scoring this season — that’s out of nine players who have logged minutes in every game so far.
With a 23-6 record entering the conference tournament they have already won more games than any Jim Flanery-coached team since the 2003-2004 team won 24 games. Given the success of the last two seasons, senior guard Ally Jensen believes that her team should be feeling good despite a history of coming up short prior to last season.
“I with the history we had before, we always had this monkey on our back. We made it to the championship however many years in a row and we never won. We lost by one. We lost in overtime. We could add new people and have a new season, but that [history] was always kind of there. Now after last year going down there we should have this renewed sense of confidence. We did it last year and had so much fun. It’s not impossible. Before, everyone had this belief that ‘Flan’ was never going to [win a championship], but we did it, and we can do it again. We know it’s going to be hard, but we’ve prepared the right way the whole season, we’ve worked really hard, and there is no reason we shouldn’t just give it our all and go and get it,” Jensen said.
The 2013 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament quarterfinal match-up between Creighton and the Evansville/Southern Illinois winner will tip-off this Friday evening at 6:05 p.m. Central Standard Time from The Family Arena in St. Charles, Missouri.