Jim Flanery’s Bluejays return 13 of 14 players from last year’s team that made a surprise run to the Big East Tournament final, and on Tuesday, all of that experience was a big reason the league’s coaches picked them as co-favorites to win the conference along with DePaul. The teams both had 75 points and five first place votes apiece in splitting the honors.
“The challenge is to keep everybody happy and getting them to understand that their roles may not be what they were in the past,” Flanery said in an interview on the Big East Digital Network. “We have essentially seven starters returning (for five spots), because we have both Marissa Janning and Brie Rollerson back after missing most of last year with injuries, plus the five starters. We’ll try to play a little more up-and-down, to take advantage of our depth and experience.”
Creighton went 17-18 last season, and thanks to their run to the Big East Tournament title game as the No. 7 seed, they became postseason eligible and earned a WNIT berth to extend their postseason streak to nine straight years. The Jays made the run without 2014 Big East Player of the Year Marissa Janning, who went down with a season-ending injury in December. Janning received a medical redshirt and returns healthy for 2016-17, along with all five starters from a year ago.
“The thing about Flan is, I think he’s always had really high expectations for us,” Janning commented in a BEDN interview, “but this year with everyone back we don’t have a learning curve (in practice). So instead of slowing down and walking through things, he just gets on us more because he expects so much of us. Our practices have been really intense.”
Janning was named a unanimous pick for the Preseason All-Big East first team, while Audrey Faber and MC McGrory were given honorable mention honors. Janning played just six games last season for Creighton before suffering a season-ending injury on November 28, averaging 10.7 points and 5.2 assists. The senior guard was granted a medical redshirt and enters 2016-17 as the league’s active career leader in scoring with 1,563 points.
McGrory stepped up in Janning’s absence, and was a big reason the seventh-seeded Bluejays advanced to the Big East Tournament title game. McGrory averaged 12.5 points for the year, but upped it to 17 points per game in the conference tournament. Like Janning, she’s seen a difference in practice this fall as the team prepares to be the hunted as opposed to the hunter.
“The biggest difference in being picked for the top of the conference is in the way Flan prepares us at practice,” McGrory said in an interview on the BEDN. “Last year when we struggled, it was more of a supportive deal, whereas now he doesn’t want us to get too big of a head.”
Meanwhile, Faber led the Bluejays in scoring and rebounding as a freshman in 2015-16, averaging 13.2 points and 4.9 boards per contest. She earned both All-Big East Honorable Mention and All-Freshman Team honors at season’s end.
Splitting the first-place votes with the Jays was perennial powerhouse DePaul, who is coming off its second NCAA Sweet 16 run in the past three seasons. The Blue Demons have claimed at least a share of the regular-season title in each of the three years since conference realignment, and have won the Big East Tournament twice during that span.
DePaul returns a trio of starters from last season, including Big East Preseason Player of the Year Jessica January, a player who led the conference in assists (5.9) a year ago while ranking fourth in steals (1.9) and ninth in scoring (14.1). January enters her senior campaign as the league’s active career leader in assists (425) and steals (199), while ranking second in points (1,230) and rebounds (457). The DePaul guard played a key role in the Blue Demons run to the NCAA Sweet 16, averaging 21 points, 4.7 assists and .568 shooting in three NCAA Tourney games. Remarkably, January could become the third consecutive DePaul guard to be elected Big East Player of the Year, following Chanise Jenkins in 2016 and Brittany Hrynko in 2015.
The Blue Demons finished 2015-16 with a 27-9 record, including 16-2 in Big East play. Since 2013-14, DePaul has a Big East-best 83-24 (.776) overall record and has qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 14 consecutive seasons, one of just six Division I teams to boast such an active streak.
Creighton and DePaul will meet January 4 in Chicago in a game televised on the BEDN, and the rematch in Omaha on January 27 will be on FS1.
Here’s a quick roundup from social media of the Creighton women’s team in NYC:
BEDN Interview with McGrory and Janning
BEDN Interview with Jim Flanery: