Without two of his best players available Jim Flanery has watched his team struggle to close out games during a grueling stretch where they played seven games away from home in a 15-day period. They exorcised some of those demons on Tuesday night by defeating Northern Iowa, 69-61, in front of more than 1,200 fans at D.J. Sokol Arena.
True freshman forward Audrey Faber scored 15 of her game-high 22 points — her fifth 20-point game of the season — in the second half. She shot 9-of-13 from the field, including 3-of-4 from beyond the arc in 34 minutes to lead the way for the Bluejays. Junior guard MC McGrory also finished in double figures with 11 points to help pace a balanced attack that as a team shot 52.0% from the field, 46.7% from the behind the three-point line, and 83.3% from the charity stripe. It was the fourth time this season that they have put up at least a 50/40/80 line, winning each of those games by an average of 25.3 points per game.
“That was a good win,” Flanery said. “Northern Iowa is a good team. They’ve played a good schedule, and they’ve played everybody that they’ve lost to close. We knew it was going to be difficult. They’re a very disciplined team. They run their stuff, and they know where they want to go with the ball. With only one day it was a tough prep. It was a game I probably squeezed the bench a little bit, and played our more experience players a little bit more just because I felt it was hard to implement enough of a scouting report to get less experienced players the minutes that we normally would.
“Our attention to detail defensively was good, and then we had a lot of people do some really good things offensively. If you look at Jade, Syd, and Lauren, they had 15 assists and no turnovers between them — that’s huge. For those three to put together that kind of stat line is big. We’re happy to get a win and feel better about ourselves.”
Flanery probably wasn’t feeling all that good after watching his team miss nine of their last 10 shots from the field and fall behind Northern Iowa, 15-8, after the first quarter. The eight points tied the lowest they have scored in any quarter so far through the first 12 games.
The Bluejays fought back right away to start the second quarter, using a 9-2 run and tying the game at 17-all with 5:37 left in the first half on a pair of free throws by sophomore forward Bailey Norby. Northern Iowa (5-6) went back in front momentarily when junior guard Angie Davison converted a traditional 3-point play, but sophomore guard Sydney Lamberty answered with a 3-pointer on the next possession to bring the Bluejay even again. Panthers junior guard Madison Weekly went right back down the court and put her team up, 22-20, but Creighton junior guard Lauren Works drove and scored off the glass to tie it up once again. A pair of free throws by Davison put Northern Iowa in front once again, but a Creighton sophomore point guard Jade Owens tied it up with a runner off the glass, and McGrory knocked down a pair of free throws to put the Bluejays in front for the rest of the opening half.
After the rough ending to the first quarter, Creighton shot 58.3% from the field in the second quarter, and held Northern Iowa to 29.4% on 17 attempts in the period to take a 31-30 lead into the locker room.
“Shots just weren’t falling for us [at the end of the first quarter],” Owens said. “We were kind of rattled in that area, but then we kind of focused on picking it up on defense. That kind of fueled our offense.”
In the second quarter alone, the 5-foot-6 point guard from River Forest, Ill., scored four points and dished out three assists. However, her most impressive feat of the period was chasing down seven or her career-high nine rebounds.
“A lot of it is my girl is usually not crashing the boards,” Owens said. “When I see our posts really working to box out with their players attacking the boards I just peel back to help them out, and don’t rely on the taller girls on our team to pick up the rebounds. Getting those rebounds fuels our transition, too, because I can just push it up.”
There was a lot of pushing when the teams came out of the locker room as the second half began much like the first one ended, with both teams trading baskets and trying to get over the hump and take control of the game. The Panthers took the lead twice, but Lauren Works chased down a missed shot and found Audrey Faber wide open at the top of the key for a 3-pointer. It gave Creighton a 38-36 lead with 6:06 to go in the third quarter. They did not trail the rest of the game.
Down 47-42 to start the fourth quarter, Northern Iowa scored the first five points of the final quarter, but sophomore forward Kylie Brown hit a jumper from about 10 feet out, and Faber buried another 3-pointer on an offensive rebound and assist from Lauren Works to kick start a 13-3 run that put the Bluejays ahead 60-50 with 4:08 remaining.
Northern Iowa senior forward Jen Keitel then scored four of her team-high 18 points over the next minute and a half to cut Creighton’s lead down to six with 2:45 to play. But out of a timeout, MC McGrory, who exactly one year ago today sent the game against Kansas into overtime with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer, stepped up and drilled another huge trifecta. This one came from the right corner to extend Creighton’s lead to 63-54, and hammered home the final nail in the Panther’s coffin.
The teams went back and forth one final time over the final minute and a half, but the Bluejays held on and moved to 6-6 overall on the season with their second straight win.
“I feel like we’re moving in the right direction,” Flanery said. “We’re on a good trajectory, and we’ve put together longer stretches of good basketball than we did in some of those games right after Marissa got hurt.”
Now the players and coaches will head home and enjoy some time with their families for Christmas break, but they know they can’t get too comfortable with two Big East title contenders in St. John’s and Seton Hall coming to Omaha to kick off conference play on December 29th and 31st. The Bluejays lost to both teams at home to bookend a 1-5 start to Big East play last season.
“Obviously it’s important to enjoy the break and get time with family, but I think we’re all very dialed in and focused,” Audrey Faber said. “When we come back we know we have a big task on our hands, but having those two games at home is really nice. We just have to be focused when we come back.”
Though they will be facing a stiff challenge when they get back, their head coach — in his 14th season leading the team — wants them to just enjoy the holiday with their families and get their bodies some rest.
“The break is short enough that I just told them to enjoy their family, and do what you need to do personally,” Flanery said. “Audrey and MC, and the people who have played a lot of minutes in the last few weeks — maybe their bodies are a little different than a freshman who isn’t getting to play — it’s more about them reading what their body needs. But it’s a short enough break — we’re coming back on the 26th — so they really only have three and a half days. It’d be hard to get out of shape in three and a half days. If we had a five or six day break I probably would have been a little more specific about what I wanted them to do. This is more about just reading your own body.”