This Friday, Bluejays fans will gather at D.J. Sokol Arena to help the basketball teams usher in the start of the new season. There is building excitement (and media frenzy) for Doug McDermott and the men’s basketball team; it could be a memorable season for the Jays.
Many fans might not know that Creighton’s women’s basketball team has already started its season. When Jim Flanery’s team joins Greg McDermott’s Bluejays on the court Friday night for Bluejay Madness, the women’s team will have finished its second week of practice ahead of an exhibition game against Rockhurst November 2.
“Things changed last year,” said Flanery. “We put in a 30-and-40 rule. You count back 40 days from the first game (November 11) to October 2. So you would get 30 opportunities within those 40 days. I really like it. It gives us extra flexibility with young players. It gives them more days off so they are not hit so hard mentally doing six practices in seven days.”
The early start gives Flanery extra time to evaluate his team. The men, who start on October 14, have a short three weeks to determine the status of the team ahead of the start of games. With a young team in the fold this year, the rule definitely gives Flanery and his coaching staff time to make some player decisions and better define roles.
The Bluejays have only one senior, DaNae Moore, and she has played a lot of different roles in her first three years on the Hilltop. The team also only has two juniors — Ally Jensen (a starter at times last season) and Jasmine Corbin.
“Our three juniors and seniors won’t necessarily be our leading scorers.” Flanery continued, “They understand what they need to do to help us move forward. DaNae has played a lot and Ally has played a lot.”
The other nine players on the roster are underclassmen. But they aren’t just your regular run of the mill players. Carli Tritz and Sarah Nelson return with a lot of experience after a successful freshman campaign.
Last season's MVC Freshman of the Year will lead the Jays this season (Streur/WBR)
Tritz was the Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year last season after winning freshman of the week honors nine times during the season and joined the starting lineup 10 games into the season. Nelson won freshman of the week honors twice herself en-route to the MVC All-Freshman team along with Tritz. Carli will spend the first few weeks watching from the sidelines after injuring her knee the first day of practice. Luckily she only tore her meniscus. With surgery this past week, she should be back in time to start the season.
Although young, the women’s basketball team has a lot to build on heading into the 2011-12 campaign.
“The more I watch them, the more I like them,” said Flanery. “We don’t have the experience we have had the last three years, but I feel like we are talented enough. Our sophomore class in particular is really talented and we have enough leadership.”
Follow us as we take an early look at this season’s Creighton Women’s Basketball team.
Incoming Players
Creighton will add three players this season in Sammy Jensen, Taylor Johnson, and Alexis Akin-Otiko. All three players had interesting ties in their recruitment to the Bluejays.
Sammy Jensen: Sammy, the sister of junior Ally Jensen, joins the Bluejays this season. She was a first team all-conference and second-team all-state player for Ballard High School in Ames. Also a three-point threat, coach Flanery sees her as a little quicker than her sister and could create some problems for opponents on defense.
Taylor Johnson: Taylor is a two-time first-team all-state and three-time first-team all-conference honoree from Platte City, Missouri. During her high school career she scored more than 1,800 points and as a junior set a school record averaging 20.5 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. Flanery was familiar with Johnson along the way as they tried to recruit her sister, Morgan, as well. Morgan is a junior this season at Iowa.
Alexis Akin-Otiko: Akin-Otiko is a local product and Flanery says it is important to keep local talent in the area. Like Carli Tritz last season, Akin-Otiko is another impact player for the Bluejays. She was named the Gatorade Nebraska Girls Basketball Player of the Year to go along with her other honors as a player throughout high school. The Bellevue West product was a first-team all-Metro player three years in a row, averaging almost 17 points and 8 rebounds as a senior. She walked away as the school’s career scoring and rebound leader. She shattered the old scoring record by more than 400 points. That is saying something for a player who follows former Creighton Bluejays and fellow Thunderbirds Kristi and Kelsey Woodard. By the time Akin-Otiko finishes her career at Creighton, the Bluejays will have 12 straight years with a player on the roster from Bellevue West.
Flanery believes the building of the Ryan Center and Sokol Arena is something that has helped the program in recruiting some of the talented players the last couple of seasons.
“I have no doubt that this facility has been the deciding factor for helping to keep local talent here and other talented players that have decided to go to Creighton.”
Family Ties
Creighton has had a lot of success over the years keeping recruiting within the family. Last season Sarah Nelson had the opportunity to play with her sister Kellie; at times they shared the court. Last season, Kelsey Woodard finished a family legacy where prior to Kelsey’s arrival, her sister Kristi was an important cog to the basketball team as well.
The family ties continue this season with the arrival of Sammy Jensen, as her sister Ally will welcome her to the Creighton program. The junior will look to be a big leader this season after going through a transition to more of a ball handling role last year instead of the three-point assassin role she took during her freshman season. You can bet that Ally will have plenty to tell Sammy as the season gets underway.
Scheduling
The great thing about women’s basketball compared to the men’s game is the ability to reasonably schedule games against top opponents. Coach Flanery is not one to shy away from a tough schedule, and this season is no different.
“It’s about being the best you can be,” Flanery said. “The more you can test yourself, the closer you can reach your potential. When you play against tough teams early, you are exposed and you can figure out what you do well and don’t do well.”
But in women’s basketball it is also easier to create home-home situations that can bring attractive games to Omaha. Two seasons ago, Big 12 power Oklahoma made a trip to Omaha in Sokol Arena’s inaugural season. Last season, Nebraska and Kansas came to town.
“The great thing about the women’s side is that I think there are more major conference schools that are willing to play the Creighton’s of the world on our home court than on the men’s side. Now there are a lot of schools that won’t play us, but I think the men have a harder time scheduling. A lot of the men’s teams want to schedule 10 games at home, but on the women’s side there are those that only want 7 or 8 at home and that is good for us.”
With the Oklahoma game, the Bluejays could have easily went down to Norman for a one-time game and take home a little paycheck, but it got late enough in the process that Oklahoma became open to returning the game back in Omaha.
This season, the Bluejays will host Notre Dame on Sunday, December 4, at 1:30 p.m. The Fighting Irish played for the national championship last season and finished as National Runner-Up. The Bluejays played them early in the season at North Bend and suffered a 91-54 loss. Luckily they were able to get a home-home pretty easily with Notre Dame. Flanery knew they were a good team when they played them, but was pleasantly surprised to see them in the NCAA Tournament Final.
With the Irish returning the trip to Omaha, this is one Flanery hopes draws a lot of fans to cheer the team on. However there is a big challenge — the men play Nebraska at CenturyLink Arena at 5 PM* that same day.
“With Notre Dame, they wanted to play an early afternoon game, and if it is Notre Dame you sort of do what they want. At the same time, the concern was the men’s game against Nebraska. Luckily, fans should be able to see both games that day,” said Flanery.
*The afternoon after talking to Flanery, the men’s game had a time change to 4 p.m. to accommodate for TV, thus creating another challenge for the women’s team.
Bowling Green, another NCAA Tournament team, will also visit Sokol Arena this season (December 18) so while a lot of non-conference games are on the road to start the season, there are also home games that will be well worth it.
Challenges
Coach Flanery understands that when ESPN comes on Friday night, they are not there to see the Bluejay women. At the same time, Flanery embraces the new exposure with Bluejay Madness and the willingness of Greg McDermott to make sure everyone is involved.
“Coach McDermott has done a wonderful job of making sure we have the opportunity to be involved with things like this event. We know that even though ESPN is coming that they aren’t necessarily coming to see us. But we enjoy being able to do something fun for the fans.”
The program would like to see more crossover from the men’s team to the women’s team, but over time as the team keeps improving, someday the ESPN’s of the world will come looking for the Bluejay women’s basketball team.
Friday night will be the first opportunity to see the Women’s basketball team in action. Their opening game is an exhibition on November 2 against Rockhurst. The Bluejays will hit the road for the first three games of the regular season before opening their home slate on Tuesday, November 22, against South Dakota.