Creighton head coach Jim Flanery loves two things when it comes to hoops: coaching and playing.
It’s no secret that one month shy of turning 59, he still laces up his kicks every week. Since the pandemic he has traded noon ball for 6:15am morning ball. Last Wednesday, his team lost seven of the eight pick-up games. Then he suffered the most lopsided loss of his coaching career when UConn thumped the Jays 94-50 in front of a sold-out crowd at D.J. Sokol Arena.
This morning, his team lost six of the seven games and he swore to his playing partners that he’d hang it up if the game that actually counts went sideways on his home floor again. It did, but this time it was the opponent getting run out of the gym as Creighton steamrolled a much-improved Butler team under second-year head coach Austin Parkinson, 89-53. It was both the most points allowed by the Bulldogs this season and their largest margin of defeat.
In addition to that, Butler also attempted a season-high 43 shots from 2-point range and a season-low 14 shots from beyond the arc after entering the day ranked fourth in the country in percentage of points scored from 3-point territory.
“Other than the blip that led me to call the timeout after we gave up the back-to-back open threes in transition, I thought we were really tight defensively and connected,” Flanery said. “Our communication [was good] and we ran them off the three-point line.”
Butler junior center Sydney Jaynes scored in the paint over her left shoulder for the first points of the game, but Creighton rattled off a 14-2 run after that to lead by 10 at the first quarter under-5 timeout. The Bluejays led 18-11 after the opening period before giving up consecutive 3-pointers to sophomore guard Jordan Meulemans and freshman wing Riley Makalusky to cut that deficit to one and force Flanery to burn a timeout 47 seconds into the second quarter.
The Bulldogs hung around for a few more minutes before a 13-3 run to close the quarter gave CU a 37-25 cushion at the break. Bluejay senior forward Emma Ronsiek played all 20 minutes in the first half, going 7-for-10 from the field for 16 points while also hauling down six rebounds.
She picked up right where she left off with a bucket out of the mid-post on the first possession of a second half that saw Creighton score on 12 of 16 possessions to build a 66-36 advantage heading to the fourth quarter. Ronsiek exploited that area of Butler’s defense over and over in the mid-post, finishing with a game-high 25 points on 10-of-14 shooting and no turnovers in a patient and efficient performance.
“I’ve been working more on the mid-post touches with [assistant coach Chevelle Saunsoci] and all the other coaches,” Ronsiek said. “I’m just a player who when she sees one go in, I’m going to keep shooting. I think that’s what happened tonight. I saw the first one go in and I got good touches — the mid-post passes from our guards and even [Morgan Maly and Mallory Brake] were really good tonight. I thought we lacked a little bit earlier this season with those, but I think we are getting better every day and those were really good tonight. They made it easier for me with the really good passes.”
When the Bulldogs played her one-on-one, she went to work. When they doubled, she made the right read to find the outlet and start a chain reaction in the defense that usually resulted in a high percentage look for someone in a white uniform. Creighton finished with 21 assists and just seven turnovers and outscored Butler 42-22 in the paint and 36-15 from 3-point range. No matter what the Bulldogs tried to do to break rhythm, the Jays had a counter.
“I think it’s hard from a scout perspective to try and double team anyone on our team who catches it in the mid-post, not just me,” Ronsiek said. “I think we call for the ball really well off the ball on offense, but we also move really well, and I think our vision when we catch the ball and face up is really good … we just have really good vision off the ball and with the ball. It’s just an accumulation of how our offense runs.”
Every player on Creighton’s active roster hit at least one shot and only senior point guard Molly Mogensen hit the 30-minute mark. CU’s 26 points off the bench were the most scored by their reserves this season since putting up 51 in the 115-62 thrashing of Northern Iowa back on December 3. Between senior Jayme Horan, sophomores Kennedy Townsend and Kiani Lockett, and freshmen Brittany Harshaw and McKayla Miller, the second unit shot 58.8% and didn’t turn the ball over one time in 66 combined minutes.
Defensively, the Jays were just as locked in, holding Butler’s three double-digit scorers in senior guard Caroline Strande, grad transfer wing Rachel Kent, and Meulemans to 40.0% shooting and 10.5 points below their collective scoring average on the season.
Creighton seniors Mallory Brake and Lauren Jensen played pivotal roles in the defensive performances against Strand, who came in averaging 14.9 points on 45.9% shooting from 3, and Kent, who was putting up 11.4 points per game and shooting 40.7% from beyond the arc.
Brake held the former to eight points and only allowed her to get off six shots all night in 27 minutes of action.
“It started in practice,” Brake said. “We knew we had to take away her left hand and that she was a talented player. I was mainly focusing on pushing her off the three-point line and making her catch it outside of her comfort zone to take her out of the offense early. That was my focus going into it.”
Lauren Jensen was a menace on defense
Jensen, meanwhile, was a menace. She made Kent’s catches tough and her finishes even tougher. Though she ended up leading the Bulldogs with 10 points on the night, it took the fifth-year sharpshooter 10 shots and seven free throw attempts to accumulate them.
“I thought [Lauren] worked hard,” Flanery said. “We talked about pushing [Butler’s guards] out and we showed them some clips from last year where we tried to push them out and Rachael Saunders got an early steal layup. We wanted to push them out because we thought they were dependent on getting to their comfort zone … from what I could tell, I thought [Lauren] fought really hard and was really good off the ball and made [Kent’s] catches tough. If she gets easy touches, she’s such a good shooter — really those 2-3-4 players can shoot the heck out of the ball, so we talked a lot about making their catches more difficult and I thought Lauren was really good there.”
Creighton has now won their last two games since the loss to Nos. 13/14 UConn to improve their record to 3-2 in Big East play and 12-3 overall this season. Next up on the schedule is another home game on Sunday afternoon at 1:00 p.m. (CT) against Providence.
The Friars are 8-9 this season but have already won at Seton Hall and taken down DePaul at home under first-year head coach Erin Batth despite losing key guards Kylee Sheppard (for the season) and Grace Efosa (for 11 games).
“They are a way different team [than Butler],” Flanery said. “They are going to throw the ball inside a lot. They don’t shoot the three very well and they don’t shoot very many, but just watching them on film defensively they are doing what they can with what they have. They are really attentive to taking away a team’s strengths. They’re big, they’re long, they rebound it. I think Erin is doing a really good job.”
