All weekend in Iowa City, anytime someone asked Lauren Jensen some variation of how she was handling being back at the school and in the arena she played in last season, she always had a wry smile on her face before she answered the question. As if she knew something everyone else didn’t. As if she knew she would be ready for the moment if and when it presented itself.
It did.
She was.
The sophomore sharpshooter for the Bluejays, the transfer from Iowa and the co-Most Improved Player in the Big East this season, became a March Madness legend in the span of four minutes and 30 seconds when she scored all nine of her team’s points, including a go-ahead 3-pointer from the top of the key with 12.6 seconds left in the game to help her new squad overcome a late 4-point deficit to defeat her former team in their own building — in front of nearly 14,500 fans, with a nationally-televised ABC audience on the edge of their respective seats — to send Creighton to the Sweet 16 for the first time. Ever.
Hollywood, your script is ready.
“Storybook” was the first word out of Jays head coach Jim Flanery’s mouth in the post-game scrum.
“For Lauren to do what she did today, if people had asked me — I’ve gotten the question a lot, how is Lauren going to feel today, what’s Lauren going to play like? Those last few minutes had to be magical and special, and we’re super proud of her and we’re super proud that she’s part of our program.”
Jensen’s three in the final seconds was her third of the game, but it wasn’t the first one to give Creighton the lead. Her first two, all the back in the final 70 seconds of the first quarter broke a 17-17 tie and gave the Bluejays a lead they wouldn’t relinquish for nearly 25 minutes when Iowa’s Gabbie Marshall, who had spent most of the game guarding Jensen, hit back-to-back 3-pointers — her first points of the game — for the Hawkeyes to the home team a 56-54 lead with 6:51 to play. Prior to that, each time Iowa made a push that got the sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena crowd roaring as they anticipated the play that would put their team over the top Creighton always had a response that would silence them.
All of a sudden late in the fourth quarter, the Bluejays seemed to run out of answers right as they were running out of time. That’s when Jensen, who had missed three of her last four shots and had only scored two points thus far in the second half, took over. She got to her right hand from the right wing to get by Marshall and weaved her way through three Hawkeyes to the rim to cut the deficit to two with 4:42 to go. Two minutes later, she got a switch on Iowa center Monika Czinano and pulled up from the elbow to pull her team within two again. After Iowa’s McKenna Warnock scored on inside behind a Creighton double team of Czinano in the post, Jensen answered again by taking Marshall off the dribble from about 30 feet out and finishing at the rim with 1:25 remaining on the clock.
Then pivotal moment presented itself.
She grabbed a defensive rebound off a miss inside and drove it up the floor. Initially she attempted to get to the basket again, but Czinano and Marshall walled her off at the 3-point line, so she pitched it over to her senior point guard Tatum Rembao, repositioned herself beyond the arc and set her feet, got the ball right back from Rembao, and let it fly to send a shockwave from Iowa City to every television set, phone, and viewing device throughout the country, including an ESPN studio where the analyst panel of Rebecca Lobo, Elle Duncan, and Nikki Fargas reacted in every which way to the shock and awe of Lauren Jensen’s March madness.
“I was just super excited,” Jensen said of her immediate reaction to her game-winning shot. “I honestly didn’t know if it was going to go in. It kind of rattled off the back rim there. It wasn’t super clean, but I’m just glad it fell.”
Clean or not, her teammates were confident as they all rose to their feet on the bench when she let it rip.
“That was LJ’s moment,” senior guard Rachael Saunders said. “We all knew she was going to do what she needed to do for our team. When she had the ball in her hands, I had no doubts. I knew it was going to be her moment to be what she needed to be for our team, and to show how talented, how clutch, and what a great player she is.”
All week long, Jensen handled every question about “the storyline” from a massive contingent of local and national media. And that comfortable-in-her-own-skin smile never left her face through it all. Until the clock hit zero and her parents rushed courtside to hug her with a scorer’s table failing miserably to separate them. Her mother Marcia, her father Chris, and her all were in tears as they embraced each other in a moment that only they could fully understand.
“It means a lot,” Jensen said. “Right away from summer workouts, this team welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home and a part of the team, and I’m just so grateful for that. To be able to do that with them here today is just so great. We’ve had such an awesome season, and we knew from preseason workouts that we could do something special, and it’s just very rewarding to come here and see that come to fruition.”
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