In what may prove to be a big weekend for Creighton’s non-conference resume, the Jays got the first half of the challenge off on the right foot with a 63-52 payback win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers on Saturday afternoon at D.J. Sokol Arena. The Golden Gophers overcame a 17-point deficit late in the second half to defeat the Jays 88-81 in double overtime at Minnesota last season. This time, from the opening tip on Creighton was prepared to erase that loss from their memories.
The game started with a free-throw line jumper by Minnesota freshman center Amanda Zahui B., which was answered on the other end by a top of the key three from Sarah Nelson. A layup by Golden Gopher star Rachel Banham gave the lead back to Minnesota, then Sarah Nelson answered again provided the answer. Again it was from three-point territory. And again it was from the top of the key. Creighton never trailed from that point on.
The Bluejays as a team got off to a scorching hot start in the first half, hitting four of their first 10 from three-point territory as they took a 20-9 lead midway through the first half. The Golden Gophers finally got their perimeter game going as three-pointers by Rachel Banham and Sari Noga cut the Creighton lead to 21-15 with 5:08 remaining in the first half. Then Creighton’s senior and preseason All-Big East selection, Sarah Nelson, took over scoring seven of her game-high 14 first half points over the final five minutes of the half. She started with a three from the top of the key — her third of the half from that spot — to extend the lead to 24-15, then a driving layup and a couple free throws sandwiched around an assist on a Jordan Garrison corner three keyed Creighton’s 15-7 run to close out the first half with a 36-22 lead.
For third game in a row, the Bluejays came out of the second half and just could not get anything to fall. A three-pointer by Marissa Janning was all they had to show for the first five minutes of the second half as they went 1-for-8 from the field over that stretch. Despite those struggles, Minnesota was only able to trim the Bluejay lead down to 39-29 with 14:47 to play.
The Jays were able to knock down some shots and keep the lead between nine and 12 points until baskets by Banham and Zahui cut the Creighton lead to 51-44 with 5:49 to play. Then the theme that had separated the two teams all afternoon up to that point proved to be the difference once again: the Jays just fought harder. Senior guard McKenzie Fujan grabbed an offensive rebound after a missed three-pointer by Sammy Jensen. She then found Nelson wide open on the right wing and the senior made it count to make it 54-44 with 5:06 to go. Two possessions later it was 5-foot-5 Jensen returning the favor, this time fighting a Fujan miss out of the hands of Zahui B., Minnesota’s 6-foot-5 center. Creighton head coach Jim Flanery called a timeout, and junior forward Alexis Akin-Otiko nailed a jumper from the right baseline to put the Jays up by 12. Minnesota would get no closer than nine points the rest of the way.
Jensen’s offensive board may have only been one play, but it was the story of this game. She was shorter by a foot, but it didn’t matter, because she wanted it more. So did the Jays.
“Sammy’s rebound was the whole game in a nutshell,” said point guard Marissa Janning, “her rebound showed the best thing about this game. We were the underdogs going in. We had to fight. Sammy does that every single game it just doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. She comes into every game fighting girls twice her size.”
Janning struggled with her shot on the day, going just 4-for-16 from the field, but she finished with 10 points, six assists, two steals and just one turnover. She’ll need to continue to provide scoring for her team, but that’s not as important as her 14:6 assist-to-turnover ratio has been in the last two games. After a dishing out just two assists and committing six turnovers in the season-opening loss to Drake her decision-making as well as Creighton’s as a whole has been the difference in the two games since that loss.
“It’s not anything that we do differently in practice fundamentally, I think at Drake our attitude was different,” said Janning. “We didn’t have any enthusiasm. That’s the only thing that’s really changed. Being more enthusiastic in practice gives us more intensity, it gives us more fire. We came into SDSU like that, and it just got better against Minnesota.”
The Bluejays were once again led by their senior forward in this one. Nelson ended up with a near triple-double, recording 22 points on 7-of-12 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and seven assists in 37 minutes of action. It was a motivated effort from Nelson who desperately wanted a different result against the Golden Gophers this time around.
“Revenge is definitely sweet,” Nelson said. “We were in the locker room up 14, and it was kind of like deja vu. We were in the same position last year and feeling really good about it, and it totally slipped away. We were not going to let that happen again.”
The Jays won’t be able to celebrate the win for long, however, as they now head off to Lawrence, Kan., for a battle with the Kansas Jayhawks at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. The Jayhawks beat the Bluejays 58-48 last season, so it will be another chance for the Jays to exact some of that ‘sweet revenge’.