{"id":3145,"date":"2022-03-19T21:18:01","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T21:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/?p=3145"},"modified":"2022-07-07T16:53:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T16:53:24","slug":"ncaa-tournament-notebook-creighton-84-colorado-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/ncaa-tournament-notebook-creighton-84-colorado-74\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Tournament Notebook: Creighton 84, Colorado 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little emptying of the notebook while in Iowa City after Creighton\u2019s 84-74 victory<\/a> on Friday:<\/p>\n

Molly Mogensen Closes Show<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

The \u201cMadness\u201d of March is the unpredictability of what will transpire. It\u2019s a stage that every player who steps on the court has the opportunity to shine on. For Creighton, that player in Friday\u2019s 84-74 first-round win over Colorado was backup point guard Molly Mogensen.<\/p>\n

Entering the NCAA Tournament, four different Bluejays had scored at least eight points in the fourth quarter of a game this season. Against the Buffaloes, the sophomore from Farmington, Minnesota became the fifth. Mogensen scored 11 of Creighton\u2019s 15 points in a span of six minutes to extend the lead to 78-71 with 54 seconds left in the game after Colorado had pulled within two.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo think about what Molly Mogensen did down the stretch of that game, it was huge,\u201d Bluejay head coach Jim Flanery said. \u201cI pulled her out for one defensive mistake right after I put her in, and she shook it off and was incredible down the stretch.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 11 fourth-quarter points were more than any Creighton player had scored in that period all season, eclipsing the 10 points scored by fellow sophomores Emma Ronsiek (against South Dakota State) and Lauren Jensen (against Omaha).<\/p>\n

When the NCAA Tournament spotlight kicked on, Molly Mogensen didn\u2019t blink.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work all season for this,\u201d she said. \u201cWe do our best at practice pushing each other and it shows in games like this.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coach Rembao<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n
\"White<\/a><\/p>\n

Tatum Rembao came back to play but it is like another coach on the court (Juszyk \/ WBR)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Senior point guard Tatum Rembao has had a lot of fun this season. It\u2019s evident in that smile when she drops a dime for a back-door layup or kicks out to a teammate for an easy rhythm 3-pointer. But don\u2019t let that fool you into thinking she\u2019s out there just to have a good time. Beneath the surface at all times is a fierce competitor. She wants to win, end of story.<\/p>\n

It was never more on display than in two critical junctures of the game. The first came at the outset when Colorado opened up an 11-2 in the first three and a half minutes of the game. As she was back-pedaling to get ready for a defensive possession, Rembao turned around to the other four players on the court behind and motioned for everyone to calm down. The second standout moment occurred late when she told her head coach to put Molly Mogensen back in the game so Creighton could have another ballhandler on the floor to combat Colorado\u2019s full-court pressure. Once the clock hit zero, there was no doubt that the fifth-year senior channeled that competitive fire in an effective way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you that they respond to that better than I do because, when she was telling me to put Molly in the game, I kind of snapped back at her, which I love about Tatum,\u201d Flanery said. \u201cI love that I can coach her hard a little bit, and she\u2019s just that competitive. She\u2019s been around long enough to express her opinion and be that voice, not just for the team, but for the staff. Hey, what do you think about this? Yeah, I think there\u2019s a tremendous value.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs good as our younger kids are, I mean, having that fifth-year voice has been super critical to our success this year.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tough Scheduling<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Creighton never ran Colorado out of the gym at any point in Friday\u2019s win, and they were chasing the game for much of the first half. But a 9-0 run right up to the buzzer just before the break put the Bluejays over the top and they never relinquished the lead the rest of the game. That\u2019s not easy to pull off when the pressure is mounting, your opponent is getting desperate, and it feels like time is slowing down.<\/p>\n

The Jays rarely looked like a team that was ill-prepared to fight through those moments and execute when they needed to bring it home. That\u2019s because they\u2019ve done it before \u2014 On the road against Arkansas, who earned an at-large bid. Against South Dakota State and Northern Iowa, who each ended their seasons one win away from getting to the Big Dance. Against an Arizona State team that beat NCAA Tournament participants in Colorado, Oregon, and Arizona. On Selection Sunday, Creighton\u2019s non-conference strength schedule ranked 15th in the country. It was the 9th-toughest among this year\u2019s NCAA Tournament field.<\/p>\n

Jim Flanery\u2019s scheduling is intentional. He wants a battle-tested team on his hands when the calendar turns to March. It\u2019s why last Sunday was the fourth time in the last 10 seasons that his program had earned an at-large bid, and it\u2019s why on Friday afternoon his program turned that at-large bid into first round win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think we schedule hard because we want to be \u2014 we want to put ourselves in positions like the players were talking about,\u201d Flanery said. \u201cHey, we\u2019ve been here before. We\u2019ve been in tight games. We\u2019ve been \u2014 and you\u2019re right. I think it\u2019s more coincidental that you do see different styles in the non-con.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was saying \u2014 I told our team or maybe our staff that Arkansas scheduled our game, and one of their coaches told me that they scheduled the game because they always play Mizzou twice in the SEC, and he\u2019s like we need to beat Mizzou twice. So that\u2019s why we\u2019re scheduling \u2014 instead of scheduling someone else, they know we\u2019re pretty comparable or similar to Mizzou in terms of our style, and I thought that was really interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know [Colorado head coach JR Payne] in her comments talked about we\u2019re different than pretty much anybody that they see in the Pac-12. Utah\u2019s a little bit of a similarity, but I think that\u2019s an advantage that we are different. We don\u2019t stuff the ball inside. We don\u2019t run 50 ball screens a game. We\u2019re just different, and I think that can be a good thing because when you get in your league and you have so much similarity for 16, 18, 20 games. You\u2019re telling your kids this and this and this, and the older ones already know.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you get to this, and it\u2019s like it\u2019s the first time in over 20 games for us that we\u2019re playing somebody that it\u2019s kind of like, wow, they\u2019re a lot different. We have not the kind of reference points, we don\u2019t have the kind of reference points that we traditionally have had over the last 2 1\/2 months.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Caitlin Clark\u2019s History With The Jays<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Creighton\u2019s second round game will come on Sunday against Iowa and national player of the candidate Caitlin Clark after the Hawkeyes followed up the Jays\u2019 win with a 98-58 drubbing of Illinois State.<\/p>\n

Clark, a sophomore phenom, has a bit of history with the Bluejays. She was recruited by them, of course, but prior to that she was a fan due to the fact that her cousin, Audrey Faber, was an All-Big East standout for Creighton from 2015 to 2019. Along with helping to lead the Jays to their first Big East regular season title in 2017 and winning NCAA Tournament games in 2017 and 2018, Faber ranks fifth all-time in CU history with 1,857 career points and 260 made threes, and holds the programs record for career blocked shots with 160.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really idolized her growing up,\u201d Clark said. \u201cShe played at Dowling and went on to play at Creighton, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I remember I went to Oregon State to watch Creighton play. They ended up going to the round of 32 and I was just her biggest fan growing up. I loved basketball. I think she\u2019ll be rooting for me a little more. I hope so. We\u2019re family.<\/p>\n

But no, I think more than anything she just wants the best for me. She was here today, and I\u2019m so glad I could have my support. I had a lot of family here today, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s about. Our family just loves being around the game of basketball. It\u2019s really what we\u2019ve done our whole lives. It was awesome.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 10th-seeded Bluejays and 2nd-seeded Hawkeyes will square off in front of a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday at noon (central time). The game will be televised nationally on ABC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little emptying of the notebook while in Iowa City after Creighton\u2019s 84-74 victory on Friday: Molly Mogensen Closes Show The \u201cMadness\u201d of March is the unpredictability of what will transpire. It\u2019s a stage that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,87],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured","8":"category-womens-basketball"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3147,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions\/3147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whiteandbluereview.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}