Women’s Basketball
Jim Flanery’s squad scrimmaged their guys practice team for four structured periods totaling 44 minutes of live reps at the Ruth Scott Training Center on Saturday morning. They’ll face an Iowa team that begins the season ranked ninth in the Associated Press Coaches’ Poll next Saturday, October 30th, in a closed scrimmage in Iowa City. Saturday morning was one of their last chances to simulate five on five situations and put some mistakes on film to clean up before taking the court against someone besides themselves.
The zone offense generated quality looks and avoided the turnover bug for the most part. Sophomore forward Emma Ronsiek made good reads and delivered passes on time and to the right spots from the high post in zone-busting situations. The Jays didn’t always convert, but shot making is fickle so the fact that they consistently produced clean looks out of their structured sets is a sign that they are rounding into form with the regular season opener at Drake just two and a half weeks away.
Creighton also simulated their press break quite a bit throughout the scrimmage. The coaching staff did a good job mixing in the full court pressure sets when the team wasn’t always expecting it as well just to keep them on their toes. When senior point guard Tatum Rembao was faced with those situations the Jays almost always transitioned smoothly into the quarter court, whether it was attacking to score right out of the pressure or waiting for numbers and either creating scoring opportunities out of the secondary break or slowing the game down and executing a quarter court set.
Scrimmage Notes:
- Former Nebraska Gatorade Player of the Year Morgan Maly was on fire. She tied Iowa transfer Lauren Jensen for the team lead in scoring with 20 points and 18 of them came from the (now extended) 3-point line. She shot 36% from beyond the arc from beginning of February on as a true freshman last season and had three games of three or more makes from that range during that span. The prolific shooting, from well behind the line at that, is her thing.
- Speaking of Lauren Jensen, her game is smooth. She handles the ball really well and transitions from dribble to shot on the move as well as anybody on the team. Probably better than anybody on the team, actually. The Jays earned an outright win over their practice squad on Saturday, but Coach Flan put 6.2 seconds on the clock after a defensive stop and tied the score to see how well his group could execute an end game situation. In this instance, they aced the test with a clear out for Jensen who attacked a closeout on the right wing and finished on the other side of the rim with her left hand to “win” the scrimmage again. She got her 20 points on Saturday by going 4-for-5 inside the arc and 4-for-9 behind it.
- The guards and wings did a good job at pealing back and cleaning up the glass while the posts held their blockouts. Payton Brotzki, Tatum Rembao, Molly Mogensen, Jayme Horan, and Lauren Jensen hauled in 17 of the team’s 30 rebounds, including six of the nine they finished with on the offensive end.
- Sophomore forward Emma Ronsiek continues to impress with her awareness around the basket. Doug McDermott immediately comes to mind when watching Ronsiek operate in the low post. When she’s down there her guards might as well just toss it to her because more times than not she’s already figured out her next move.
Men’s Basketball
The men’s team faced off with Missouri in a closed scrimmage on Saturday afternoon at CHI Health Center Omaha, but details of that matchup haven’t been made public. Based on the limited information that came out of the scrimmage they played in 2019 in Columbia there’s a good chance nothing specific gets released this time around as well.
Separately the Bluejays had a “Fan Fest” event on Saturday night hosted by the players at CHI Health Center Omaha. Jon Nyatawa from the Omaha World Herald captured a few different moments from the event.