Digging deep into the memory bank wasn’t necessary for this one, but was more than worth reliving anyway. On this week’s episode of “Creighton Commentary” we go back to March 1, 2020, the final day of the regular season for the Creighton women’s basketball team, and the last game in Omaha for seniors Jaylyn Agnew, Olivia Elger, and Morgan Turner. There wasn’t much drama with the game itself as the Bluejays opened up a 10-2 lead out of the gates, and led by as many as 23 points on their way to a fairly stress-free 95-78 win over a Georgetown team that would finish the 2019-20 campaign with a 5-25 record and a 2-16 mark in Big East play. The notable excitement from this contest lies in the performances of Creighton’s three aforementioned seniors and the unforgettable final chapter they wrote.
The star of the show was Jaylyn Agnew. The eventual 2nd-round draft pick of the Washington Mystics cemented her status as the 2020 Big East Player of the Year by etching her name in the history books in her final home game. The 5-foot-10, two-way stud broke Connie Yori’s 37-year-old, single-game scoring record by dropping 43 points on the Hoyas on 15-of-25 shooting from the floor, including a career-high eight 3-pointers. She added nine points, six assists, two steals, and two blocks to her stat line. She also didn’t commit a single turnover in 37 minutes, joining Connecticut’s Maya Moore and Louisville’s Angel McCoughtry as the only players in the Big East to finish a game with 40+ points and 0 turnovers in the last 16 seasons.
Agnew’s record-setting bucket came with 4:18 left in the fourth quarter. From that point on she was a willing decoy to give her two classmates an opportunity to have their moment. Turner’s came with 2:28 to go. Despite a back injury that forced her into an early retirement prior to the season, Turner suited up for Senior Day and checked in with 2:42 left in the game and the Bluejays leading by 18. Fourteen seconds later she came off a screen set by Agnew, caught a pass from Rachael Saunders, and sank a 3-pointer from the right wing right in front of her bench. It was Elger’s turn after that, and like everything else in her career it didn’t without a little flair. The lefty from Peoria, Ill., isolated a Georgetown defender on the left wing, and used her trademark ball-handling skills to create enough space that allowed her to bury a double-clutched three just as the shot clock expired with less than a minute to play.
In his 18 years as the head coach at Creighton, Jim Flanery has said several times since this game concluded that he has never experienced a senior day like the one we saw on that Sunday afternoon at D.J. Sokol Arena. Agnew and former assistant coach and player Chevelle Saunsoci team up to re-watch this one and take us inside some of the conversations that took place during a game that won’t soon be forgotten.
