North Dakota State (3-6) at Creighton (5-2)
Sunday, Dec. 16 • 2:05 p.m.
Series History: Creighton leads 7-1
Settle in, you’re reading a game preview about ESPN’s Team of the Week. That’s right, your Creighton Bluejays received some national pub last week after their HUGE win over Houston. Yes, a come-from-behind win against a Cougar team which went 3-26 last year caught the attention of ESPN’s Graham Hays. OK, it was the impressive win over No. 25 Nebraska that put Hayes on notice, but it was the follow-up road win that solidified the recognition.
Breaking it down beyond a win over a ranked opponent and a 21-point road win, how the Bluejays earned Team of the Week recognition is the truly impressive part. Creighton has two all-conference juniors in Carli Tritz and Sarah Nelson. That talented duo combined to score 13 points in the two games. Not average 13 points, but total 13 points between the two of them in the two wins. Tritz, a first-team all-MVC player and preseason Valley Player of the Year, and Nelson, an honorable-mention all-MVC peformer (and a snub on this year’s preseason all-MVC team) weren’t non-factors in the wins however.
Tritz and Nelson may have eased up on the scoring, but not on their production.
Tritz dished a season-high seven assists in a season-low 23 minutes at Houston. The junior, whose practice time this year has been limited because of some nagging injuries, attempted a career-low one shot in the game and did not score in a game for the first time since 2nd grade (this is unconfirmed, but it was in fact the first scoreless game of her collegiate career). Her previous career-low had been 2 points and she had never attempted fewer than four shots in a game before the Houston win. The junior guard also grabbed a season-best seven rebounds against the Huskers, including a memorable offensive board in which she out-worked 6-foot-2 Emily Cady for the ball.
Nelson scored four points against Nebraska and three against Houston, but played 73 of 80 minutes in the two games because of her other contributions. Nelson, who may rank as the best passing post player in school history, led the team with six assists (and eight rebounds) against NU and followed with an even better yet lower scoring game at Houston. Against the Cougars Nelson fell one rebound shy of her career-high by grabbing a game-high 16 boards, while she also dished a career-best seven assists. That’s 24 rebounds and 13 assists from your “four” in the last two games.
Scoring is down from the all-conference duo, but scoring is soaring from a different pair. Junior McKenzie Fujan has poured in consecutive career-high scoring games and freshman Marissa Janning has started to show the form which helped her set the Minnesota prep record for career three-pointers made. Fujan scored a career-best 13 against Nebraska and then topped that with a new high of 20 at Houston. The junior guard has played the best ball of her career in the last two games, following a two-game stretch in which she had zero assists and seven turnovers. The Wahoo Bishop Neumann product has made 7-of-10 three-pointers in her last two games, after starting the year 0-for-5 through five games. The slashing guard also leads the team in free-throws and free-throw attempts, a critical part of her game.
To twist Dennis Green’s infamous rant, “Marissa Janning is who we thought she was.” Which allows me to tell a fun story from my Creighton days. Steve Huber is Creighton’s recruiting coordinator and was my roommate on women’s basketball road trips for the past six seasons. I was in the room when Huber got the phone call from Marissa that she was committing to Creighton. It’s a huge understatement to say Huber was ecstatic. I had no idea who was on the other end of the phone call when he received it, but by the time he got off the phone, it sounded like we had ourselves quite a player. He was thrilled and when he finally ended that call, he told me she was going to be a difference maker from day one. I’ll let Huber off the hook, because it wasn’t day one. Janning took four games to get settled into collegiate ball before exploding over her last three games.
Janning opened the year just 2-for-25 from the field and scored 12 points through four games. She followed with 19 points against both BYU and Nebraska, and another 15 points at Houston. The left-hander is 11-of-19 from three-point range in her last three games, ranking second in the MVC with 48.1 3FG% on the season and is second on the team with 9.3 points per game. For her efforts against UNL and Houston, she was tabbed the MVC Newcomer of the Week for the second consecutive Monday.
Creighton enters Christmas Break at 5-2 with an MVC-best RPI of 24 and the preseason MVC Player of the Year is FIFTH on the team in scoring. If I were the rest of the MVC, I’d be scared of that statement. Tritz will start taking over games soon enough, I have no doubt about this. And if Fujan and Janning continue to play at the level they are playing, in addition to the increased contributions from Jordan Garrison and Alyssa Kamphaus, the Valley season is going to be fun.
Long intro for a game preview I know, but I’d rather cover the Bluejays and their recent success than take too much time discussing a 3-6 North Dakota State team which appears to have an identity crisis. The Bison have already lost to MVC foes UNI and Drake this year. The Bulldogs, who are in a rebuilding year under a first-year head coach and picked to finish ninth in the MVC, beat NDSU by 12 in Fargo last week. The Bison have also suffered a huge setback this year by losing 6-foot-5 senior center Janae Burich for the season with a knee injury. All this to say I’m not expecting a highly-competitive contest on Sunday.
In breaking down NDSU, they have a lot of players, playing a lot of minutes – hence my diagnosis of an identity crisis. The Bison are led by fifth-year senior and Nebraska native Katie Birkel. Birkel, a former Miss Nebraska Basketball at Lincoln Southeast, missed all of last year with a knee injury, but has come back to lead the team in scoring (12.7 ppg), assists (28) and steals (16) this season. Her friends and family in attendance at D.J. Sokol Arena on Sunday will see her on the floor for most of the game, as the preseason all-Summit League pick is tops in school history in minutes per game. The other two players which will likely impact the game are 5-10 senior forward Dani DeGagne and 5-11 senior guard Hannah Linz. DeGagne, who set a career-high with five steals against Creighton last year, is second on the team in scoring (11.6 ppg). Linz is NDSU’s outside threat who ranks second in school history with 151 career three-pointers. Last year she finished 12th in the NCAA, shooting 39.9 percent from three-point range.
Beyond those three, I think I could guess who will play the remaining minutes as well as fifth-year head coach Carolyn DeHoff could. Nine different players have started a game for NDSU already this year and 11 healthy players average better than 11 minutes per game.
NDSU has three wins, beating Harvard and NAIA Mayville State to open the year before beating SWAC team Prairie View A&M in the Great Alaska Shootout (after losing to D-II Alaska-Anchorage). The Bison are picked to finish 4th in the 9-team Summit League and are 1-7 all-time against Creighton.
To be fair to the Bison, they do rank 12th in the NCAA in free-throw shooting at 78 percent and are 28th in the nation with just 14.6 turnovers per game.
Other things to know going into Sunday:
- Jim Flanery is one win shy of Bruce Rasmussen’s school-record 196 wins. Flan is in his 11th season, Rass accomplished the feat in 12 years.
- Creighton’s RPI is tops in the MVC at 24, but their strength of schedule is second at 29. Missouri State’s SOS is 17, while the Lady Bears are second in RPI at 47. (Source – RealTimeRPI.com)
- The Bluejays finally out-rebounded an opponent at Houston after getting out-rebounded in each of their first six games. Behind 16 boards from Nelson, Creighton had a 49-36 rebounding edge over the Cougars.
- Creighton has 44 assists on its last 53 field goals, great ball movement from the Jays and indicative of the great team effort they posted in the wins over Nebraska and Houston.
- Shoutout to Sammy Jensen who drained her first two three-pointers of the year and scored a career-high eight points at Houston.
- In last year’s 71-51 win at NDSU, Alexis Akin-Otiko scored a career-high 16 points. Ally Jensen also scored 16 points on 4-of-7 shooting from three-point range.
- Creighton is 5-0 all-time against NDSU at home, including a 55-44 win in 2010.
- Fun NDSU facts – the Bison won five NCAA Division II National Titles in the 1990s, played in nine Final Fours and appeared in 18 of 19 NCAA Tournaments before making the move to Division I.
- Speaking of bison, am I the only one that misses Ted’s Montana Grill out west? Great bison burgers.
- Creighton ranks 12th in the NCAA in three-pointers per game (8.1), aided by the 15 they sank at Houston. If you’re wondering, the school-record is 16.
- The Jays are 26th in the NCAA in assist-turnover ratio and one of just 34 teams in the nation with more assists than turnovers. My Twitter followers already knew that nugget.
- As I said in my last preview, this is the “easy” part of the non-conference schedule as CU’s next three opponents were in the postseason last year. Miami (Ohio) won 21 games and was in the WNIT, South Florida won 19 games and was in the WNIT and Minnesota won 19 games and captured the (not)
highly-coveted and mostly unknown WBI Title – defeating UNI in the championship game. - If you aren’t coming to D.J. Sokol Arena to watch Flan’s school record-tying game, you can listen to myself and Brad Burwell on KZOT 1180 AM in Omaha or online here. Video webcast and live stats are also options. For more in-depth info, check out Glen Sisk’s game notes.
Coming in next week’s preview: I whine about not getting to travel to Cancun with the team.