No. 22 Creighton found itself in a tense situation on Friday afternoon. After watching 11 of their last 12 shots clank off the rim to shrink a 20-point lead in half early in the third quarter against a South Dakota team that is no stranger to finding ways to beat the Jays, fourth-year forward Morgan Maly turned up heat by knocking down a pull-up jumper and burying three 3-pointers — each one increasingly further away from the basket — during a 21-4 run that allowed CU to put the game on ice and improve to 2-0 on the young 2023-24 season with an 81-55 win in front of over 1,500 fans at D.J. Sokol Arena.
Maly ended up tying her career-high with 30 points, adding 10 rebounds, two assists, two blocked shots, and no turnovers in 29 minutes for the fifth double-double of her career and the first 30-10 game by a Bluejay since first-year assistant coach Jaylyn Agnew dropped 33 and 11 at Providence in 2018.
With a wry smile and ho-hum shrug, she called her performance “kind of average.”
The Coyotes would probably not share that sentiment, especially after the third quarter outburst that extinguished any hopes of a comeback and a road upset. The senior out of Crete, Nebraska said she wasn’t really cognizant of the time and score when she caught fire and sparked the momentum shift. She just kind of read the room and let it rip.
“I probably should be more aware of the score, but I just knew that things weren’t really flowing for us offensively and they were sagging off of me the whole game — even when I did start to make some shots,” Maly said. “I just thought, ‘ok, I’ll stay out here and if the ball keeps going in, I’ll just keep doing it.'”
Creighton led 29-14 after the first quarter thanks to 68.8% shooting from the floor and 5-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc. They pushed that lead to 20 points three different times in the second quarter before South Dakota cut it to 15 at the break thanks to eight offensive rebounds and 11 second-chance points. In the second half, the Jays held limited them to one offensive rebound and no second-chance points despite. They held USD to 36.8% and forced 10 turnovers — eight coming on live-ball steals — that they converted into 12 points after halftime.
“I thought we did a better job of taking away the high post because they were going high-low,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “The steals that we got were from denying that high post reversal pass or that high post hit into the look-in, and I think that was a key. We got the steals and the runouts, and I thought were a little more active off the corners.”
The Bluejays shot just 34.5% over the final three quarters, but still managed to outscore South Dakota 52-41 over that span thanks in large part to their defensive effort on DePaul transfer Kendall Holmes and junior guard Grace Larkins. That duo were the two top scorers in USD’s 85-57 win over Northern State, combining for 27 points, seven assists, and three turnovers. Against Creighton, they finished with 15 points, two assists, and six turnovers on 4-of-19 shooting. Mallory Brake had a lot to do with that, according to Flanery. The versatile forward did it all for the Jays on Friday afternoon with 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting to go along with a stat-sheet stuffing nine rebounds, three assists, three steals, and one blocked shot. Her +36 was the best on the team and she drew the assignment of holding Larkins, who dropped 20 points on the Jays in last year’s meeting, to 2-for-11 shooting and three turnovers in 30 minutes of action.
“With Larkins, a lot of that was Mal,” Flanery said. “We’ve decided to just put her on the opponent’s best perimeter player. She was great against North Dakota State, and she was great today. She didn’t have Larkins all the time, but the fact that Larkins got off to a really tough start because of Mal’s length probably took away her aggressiveness.”
Through her first two career starts now, the senior out of Hastings, Minnesota is shooting 62.5% overall and averaging 5.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 3.0 steals, and 1.5 blocks per game while having yet to commit a turnover in 48 minutes. With three fellow starters in Emma Ronsiek, Lauren Jensen, and Maly all averaging better than 15 points per game, Brake thinks of herself as the perfect piece of the puzzle to compliment the skill sets of Creighton’s veteran core.
“I feel great with the lineup I’m with,” Brake told reporters after the game. “It kind of takes the pressure off of me offensively. I know I don’t have to do the most there and my focus really is just about being on the glass and locking up whoever I’m guarding defensively. It kind of makes my role easy in a sense because that can be my focus and I can let the offense and the layups come.”
Creighton (2-0) returns to action next Thursday, November 16 when they host a Green Bay squad that returns seven of their top nine scorers from a team that went 28-6 a season ago. Tip-off between the Bluejays and Phoenix is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. (CT) at D.J. Sokol Arena.