Morgan Maly’s team-high 20 points off the bench led an offensive attack that saw four Creighton players score in double figures during Friday afternoon’s 84-74 win over 7-seed Colorado in the first round of the 2022 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
The Bluejays and Buffaloes squared off at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa, and early on it was the higher seeded team who handled the “jitters” of the March Madness stage. Colorado scored on seven of their first nine possessions to open up a 15-7 lead with 4:58 left in the first quarter. Their pressure on the wings defensively forced turnovers and kept Creighton from teeing up 3-pointers and hitting cutters in the lane, and offensively, the Jays struggled to contain their speed off the dribble, giving up four layups in that stretch.
A three-point play by Big East First Team forward Emma Ronsiek prior to the first media timeout seemed to loosen things up for the Bluejays. While Colorado kept the lead for much of the remainder of the first half, they never were able to shake off CU and extend it to double digits. Trailing 31-27 with 90 seconds to go before halftime, Creighton’s offense really broke the seal. Sophomore guard Lauren Jensen got to free throw line on back-to-back possessions and made all four shots, then after Emma Ronsiek made a layup to give Creighton its first lead of the game at 33-31, she stole the inbounds pass to rob Colorado of the chance to tie or retake the lead heading into the locker room. Instead, the half ended on the first 3-pointer of the game from Big East Sixth Woman of the Year Morgan Maly just before the buzzer to put the Bluejays up 36-31. Maly and Jensen combined to score 17 of Creighton’s 19 points in the second quarter.
“I feel like we just kind of settled in,” Jensen said. “It’s the NCAA Tournament, so we might have had some jitters there to start the game, but once we settled in and started making more reads and handling their pressure, it was good for us.”
The third quarter featured a 10-minutes, non-stop barrage of offense from both teams. Colorado shot 83.3% as a team in the period, but still got outscored 25-22 as Creighton countered with 66.7% shooting as a team — including 3-pointers from Ronsiek and Maly along with seniors Tatum Rembao and Payton Brotzki — to extend their halftime advantage to 61-53 heading to the fourth quarter.
Colorado opened the final period with an 8-2 run, spearheaded by the play of junior point guard Jaylyn Sherrod, who led the Buffaloes with a career-high 27 points to go along with five rebounds, five assists, and two steals. That cut Creighton’s lead to two, but the Jays responded with a 7-0 run to push it back out to nine, the largest of the game, with 4:05 left. The Buffaloes got within four with 2:21 to go, but sophomore point guard Molly Mogensen back-cut her defender on a sideline inbounds play and raced into the lane for a layup, then sank a pair of free throws to put the Jays up 78-71 with just under a minute remaining. The Colorado Kid Tatum Rembao and Iowa City native Rachael Saunders, the tandem heartbeat of this Bluejay team, capped off the win with consecutive 2-for-2 trips to the free throw line in the game’s closing moments.
Maly’s 20 points and eight rebounds off the bench led Creighton in both categories. Jensen finished with 16 points on 5-of-11 shooting, Ronisek added 10. Mogensen added 16 points (11 in the fourth quarter) off the bench to add to Maly’s tally from the CU’s reserves, who outscored their Colorado counterparts 41-20.
“We just stayed the course,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “I told them the game wasn’t going to be decided in the first 7-8 minutes, and I had to tell myself that when we got down 11-2. It’s a credit to our kids for how they fought and stayed steady.
“I’m really proud of our team. We’ve come a long way in the last 13-14 months. To get to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, we’re thrilled to have an opportunity again on Sunday.”
The win gives the Bluejays their fourth appearance in the Round of 32 in as many opportunities since 2013 and improves their overall record on the season to 21-9. On Sunday, they will face 2-seed Iowa. The Hawkeyes won a share of the Big Ten regular season title this season, then ripped through the Big Ten conference tournament to take home that crown as well. They are led by national player of the year finalist Caitlin Clark, who is the cousin of former Creighton great Audrey Faber. Tip-off between the Bluejays and Hawkeyes, as well as broadcast information is yet to be announced.