On Sunday, the Creighton women played a heavily-favored St. John’s team in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. WBR correspondant Garret Mueller, a member of the Creighton Alumni Band that played at the game while the regular CU pep band was in Greensboro, files this report.
An up-and-down season for the Creighton women’s basketball team ended Sunday night with a 69-67 loss to the St. John’s Red Storm in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
After a pair of free throws by Bluejays guard Carli Tritz tied the game with 5.4 seconds to go, St. John’s point guard Nadirah McKenith took the inbounds pass coast to coast, hitting an off-balance, high-arcing layup with the clock showing 0.1 seconds. All the Bluejays could do was inbound the ball before the final horn.
Bluejays guard Ally Jensen was one of the defenders trying valiantly to stop the final shot, and talked about it after the game. “I was in position, and I wish that I could rewind and go back on this one. It was a lot. They are a great team and she is a great player. She was making plays all day, she is super quick and has a super good crossover. I just wasn’t ready for that play.”
Meanwhile, her head coach Jim Flanery took blame for the sequence. “It was my fault,” he said after the game. “I had to address to Carli [Tritz] that she might miss the free throw. I told her three times that she was going to make it, but I just had cover [the missed free throw] just in case…We had our two post players up just in case there was a miss and we needed to either back tap it or score an offensive rebound or foul right away.”
With their post players in position for the potential tip-in, it left them chasing the in-bounds pass after Tritz made the game-tying free throw, and allowed a better look at the other end that would normally have been the case. “I felt like we had to cover a few bases, instead of running straight down the court,” Flanery explained. “Jordan Garrison was to be the outside in and then DaNae Moore couldn’t get there because she was responsible for having the ball dribble out. The other three were supposed to match up on the other three players. We either wanted them to dribble sideways out to eat up some time or get a throw back to the trailer.”
St. John’s jumped out to a 19-9 lead just over 8 minutes into the game. It was apparent early on that it was the Red Storm’s plan to take advantage of their size advantage on the interior. The Jays weathered the interior onslaught, and starting center Sarah Nelson and reserve Alyssa Kamphaus were key in holding St. Johns to 15 points for the rest of the half.
Creighton also found its shooting touch midway through the first half, and an 11-4 run got the Bluejays back into the game. Creighton whittled the St. John’s lead to 1 at one point beforegoing into the break trailing 34-32.
A large Oklahoma crowd (including the WWE’s Jim “JR” Ross) got behind the plucky Bluejays in the second half, as Jim Flanery’s club refused to wilt against the athletically superior BIG EAST (yes, they require you to capitalize it… I don’t know why) team. Junior guard Ally Jensen found her long range stroke, and several Jays took their offense to the outside, away from the length of the St. John’s defense.
A 7-0 St. Johns run appeared to signal the beginning of the end for Creighton, as the Red Storm built a 58-49 lead with just under 8 minutes to play. Flanery responded to the switch in momentum by employing an active full-court pressure defense, spearheaded by Tritz, a first-team All-Valley selection. Not only did the pressure slow down the St. John’s offense, it also got into the heads of its primary ballhandlers. The Bluejays were able to convert on Red Storm miscues, as a 12-5 run drew Creighton within 63-61.
DaNae Moore drew a flagrant-1 foul on the Red Storm’s Keylantra Langley during a confusing sequence in which Langley appeared to call timeout while being trapped in the half-court corner. Officials went to replay, however, and found that Langley caught Moore in the face with an elbow, awarding Moore with two foul shots, and giving the ball to Creighton. Moore sank both freebies, tying the game and setting the stage for the frantic final minute of play.
Talking about those free throws Moore said, “I wasn’t trying to think about it too much. I practice shooting free throws every day, every practice. Obviously, there are huge free throws, but I shoot them every day.”
McKenith led all scorers with 21 points. Jensen led the Jays with 15 points on 4-13 shooting(including 4-9 from beyond the arc), Tritz added 14 points to go along with 6 rebounds, 5 assists,and 3 steals. Moore poured in 14 points in the final game of her Creighton career.
“I told our team that I couldn’t be more proud of them, win or lose,” Jays head coach Jim Flanery told the media after the game. “The team that we are today is so much better than the team we were in October. That, as a coach, is what you strive for. In my 20 years of coaching, I’ve never had a team that has improved more in that time frame. A lot of credit goes to these two here [DaNae Moore and Ally Jensen]. These are our team captains. I feel really strongly about who they are as people and how they represented our program and what they meant to our team. That is the story of our team.”
Creighton ended the season 20-13.