The Creighton women’s basketball team used a 31-3 run to end the first half and dug themselves out of an early hole en route to an 85-68 win over Minnesota State-Mankato. The game was their lone exhibition before the 2014-15 season officially gets underway on November 15.
Early on it didn’t look like either team could sustain a run as the largest lead on either side was just three points in the first ten minutes of the game. That changed a bit when Creighton started trading their free throws for Maverick three-pointers, and eventually got into trouble after they gave three 3-pointers in a span of six possessions to fall into a 30-22 hole with 7:22 remaining in the first half.
Their opponents’ three-point barrage woke the Bluejays from their off-season slumber as Creighton went on to score on each of their next five possessions to take a 32-30 lead. The Bluejays weren’t about to take their foot off the gas after gaining the lead. A pair of layups by reigning Big East Player of the Year Marissa Janning sandwiched around a beautiful crossover and drive to the basket by true freshman Jade Owens pushed the lead to 38-30, finally forcing a timeout by Minnesota State-Mankato head coach Emilee Thiesse.
It only showed up as a steal and a tie-up to the official scorer’s, but Janning and Taylor Johnson credited a couple defensive plays by sophomore guard MC McGrory for jump-starting the team, “I think MC started it off with her ball pressure,” Janning said. “We just kind of saw and Flan said that’s what we need to do and kind of talked us through it. We got the hang of it and we all started playing hard and talking more, which is huge.”
“We just picked up our energy,” Johnson added. “Once we got a couple of stops and deflections the team really stepped up and really committed to defense, which led to offense.”
Maverick point guard Aubrey Davis ended the scoreless drought with her second 3-pointer of the half, but the Bluejays kept attacking and scoring almost with ease when they did so. Davis’ basket would be the Mavericks’ only points over the final 7:22 as the Bluejays outscored Minnesota State-Mankato by 28 points during that span to turn an eight-point deficit into a 53-33 halftime lead.
Marissa Janning led all players with 12 points and four assists in her 17 first-half minutes.
The Mavericks didn’t hit the floor in the second half looking like a team ready to give up. After Janning fed Alexis Akin-Otiko for a layup to give Creighton its largest lead of the game at 55-33, the visitors from Minnesota started bombing away again to key a 21-9 run that cut the Bluejays’ 22-point lead down to 10 with still 12:26 left to play.
They would cut the deficit down to 67-58 a few minutes later, but some big plays by Creighton senior guard Sammy Jensen helped put the Mavericks out of reach. It started with a ball that she wrestled away from a much larger MSU player after a rebound, which led to another basket by Akin-Otiko. She finished with 15 points and a team-high nine rebounds. She won the battle for another loose ball a few plays later, this time drawing the foul to go along with it. She made the first and missed the second to push Creighton’s lead to 74-60 with 5:47 to go. The Mavericks would not get any closer than 11 points from that point on. She only scored the one point, but Jensen didn’t commit a single turnover while grabbing four rebounds and coming up with three steals in her 21 minutes of action.
Taylor Johnson and Sydney Lamberty each sank a pair of free throws in the final minute to give the Jays the 85-68 win after they held the Mavericks scoreless over the final two minutes to pull even further away.
After not playing at all in each of the last two years while she recovered from knee injuries, Johnson finished with nine points, six rebounds, an assist, a steal, and a blocked shot in 17 minutes in her long-awaited return to the court. Of the 18 players who saw more than 15 minutes of action, she was the only to fill the stat sheet. Showing that despite her sometimes limited mobility, she can still contribute in a variety of ways for head coach Jim Flanery due to her experience and basketball IQ.
“She’s got some definite limitations defensively, but she’s doing what she can from an intelligent standpoint to make up for that,” said Flanery. “I think the more game experience she gets the better she’ll be there. She made a couple bad decisions trapping the post in the first half, but again that’s somebody who hasn’t played. She’s just a little hyped. But I think because she’s made good decisions by and large in practice, once she gets in enough game experience to slow her heart rate down a little bit you’ll see even more experience. She’s what I call a ball movement player because her range is so good that you have to stretch out, and that opens up opportunities for others. She sticks that ball in a shooting position every time she catches it. Maybe not quite as far as Ethan [Wragge], but she makes the people around her better because she’s always got it loaded up and a lot of times she’s three feet outside the three, which makes it easier for those other kids to make plays when the ball does move.”
Johnson told reporters after the game that she wasn’t always sure how to act or what to do, but overall it was good to back on the floor, “It was really weird because I had a lot of freshman memories like, ‘Do I zip up my warm-up [jersey] or do I not?’, but it just feels great to be back on the court and being able to contribute on the court besides cheering. It was great.”
“It’s sad to not have a bench mob anymore, but we’re happy to have ‘TJ’ back,” added Janning, saying also that’s it nice to have a taller player on the perimeter when things get too crowded on drives to the basket. “My margin for error in passing is a little bigger now with her (laughs).”
Flanery has said several times during the preseason that Janning, McGrory, and Akin-Otiko have separated themselves and everyone else is in heated competition for playing time. Along with the all-around play of Johnson, as well as the big hustle plays by Sammy Jensen, one newcomer, freshman point guard Jade Owens, did show some flashes of solid play during the game. In her 13-minute debut she chipped in six points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field while also recording a pair of assists and steals.
Although she missed most of the practices up to this point while recovering from a bone bruise, Owens, according to her teammates and coaches, provides a dynamic that didn’t exist last season.
“It didn’t look like she had only practice one time in the last 30 days,” Flanery said. “Obviously her conditioning isn’t what it’s going to be, but even then I thought she got winded, but not right away. I thought her conditioning was slightly better than I would have thought. She did a lot of good things. I’m excited about what she can do defensively almost as much as I am offensively.”
Just as they did to begin the 2013-14 season a year ago, the Creighton women will start the regular season on the road against an old Missouri Valley Conference rival when they tip things off down against Wichita State on November 15 down in Wichita, Kan. Tip-off is set for 2:05 p.m.
WBR Photographer Adam Streur was there to capture all of the action. Get your favorite shots here or enjoy the photo gallery below.