A little emptying of the notebook while in Iowa City after Creighton’s 84-74 victory on Friday:
Molly Mogensen Closes Show
The “Madness” of March is the unpredictability of what will transpire. It’s a stage that every player who steps on the court has the opportunity to shine on. For Creighton, that player in Friday’s 84-74 first-round win over Colorado was backup point guard Molly Mogensen.
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’s 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.
“To think about what Molly Mogensen did down the stretch of that game, it was huge,” Bluejay head coach Jim Flanery said. “I pulled her out for one defensive mistake right after I put her in, and she shook it off and was incredible down the stretch.”
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).
When the NCAA Tournament spotlight kicked on, Molly Mogensen didn’t blink.
“We work all season for this,” she said. “We do our best at practice pushing each other and it shows in games like this.”
Coach Rembao
Tatum Rembao came back to play but it is like another coach on the court (Juszyk / WBR)
Senior point guard Tatum Rembao has had a lot of fun this season. It’s 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’t let that fool you into thinking she’s 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.
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’s 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.
“I 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,” Flanery said. “I love that I can coach her hard a little bit, and she’s just that competitive. She’s 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’s a tremendous value.
“As good as our younger kids are, I mean, having that fifth-year voice has been super critical to our success this year.”
Tough Scheduling
Creighton never ran Colorado out of the gym at any point in Friday’s 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’s not easy to pull off when the pressure is mounting, your opponent is getting desperate, and it feels like time is slowing down.
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’s because they’ve done it before — 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’s non-conference strength schedule ranked 15th in the country. It was the 9th-toughest among this year’s NCAA Tournament field.
Jim Flanery’s scheduling is intentional. He wants a battle-tested team on his hands when the calendar turns to March. It’s why last Sunday was the fourth time in the last 10 seasons that his program had earned an at-large bid, and it’s why on Friday afternoon his program turned that at-large bid into first round win.
“I do think we schedule hard because we want to be — we want to put ourselves in positions like the players were talking about,” Flanery said. “Hey, we’ve been here before. We’ve been in tight games. We’ve been — and you’re right. I think it’s more coincidental that you do see different styles in the non-con.
“I was saying — 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’s like we need to beat Mizzou twice. So that’s why we’re scheduling — instead of scheduling someone else, they know we’re pretty comparable or similar to Mizzou in terms of our style, and I thought that was really interesting.
“I know [Colorado head coach JR Payne] in her comments talked about we’re different than pretty much anybody that they see in the Pac-12. Utah’s a little bit of a similarity, but I think that’s an advantage that we are different. We don’t stuff the ball inside. We don’t run 50 ball screens a game. We’re 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’re telling your kids this and this and this, and the older ones already know.
“Then you get to this, and it’s like it’s the first time in over 20 games for us that we’re playing somebody that it’s kind of like, wow, they’re a lot different. We have not the kind of reference points, we don’t have the kind of reference points that we traditionally have had over the last 2 1/2 months.”
Caitlin Clark’s History With The Jays
Creighton’s second round game will come on Sunday against Iowa and national player of the candidate Caitlin Clark after the Hawkeyes followed up the Jays’ win with a 98-58 drubbing of Illinois State.
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.
“I really idolized her growing up,” Clark said. “She 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’ll be rooting for me a little more. I hope so. We’re family.
But no, I think more than anything she just wants the best for me. She was here today, and I’m so glad I could have my support. I had a lot of family here today, and that’s what it’s about. Our family just loves being around the game of basketball. It’s really what we’ve done our whole lives. It was awesome.”
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.
