Creighton head coach Jim Flanery knew his team had its hands full on Thursday night ahead of their in-state rivalry matchup at Nebraska on Sunday afternoon. Green Bay brought back seven of their top eight scorers after finishing 28-6 last season and winning the Horizon League regular season crown. The Bluejays weren’t looking past the Phoenix, but whether it was a missed shot here or a turnover there, compounded by an inability to extinguish a 17-0 first-quarter run sooner, put them in a hole that they were never able to climb out of in a 65-53 home loss to fall to 2-1 on the season.
The Phoenix shot 60.9% from the floor in the first half and 54.5% for the game while holding the Jays to 6-for-26 shooting from 3-point territory and forcing them into a 25.4% turnover rate.
“Green Bay is a really good team and we knew that this was going to be a really tough game,” Flanery said. “They are tough-minded and good at both ends. They fight, they’re deep, and I thought they were really hard to prepare for … I thought we did settle in defensively and got better. But offensively, they are a tough team to find a rhythm against because of how much they compete and how much experience they have. It’s not a bad loss, but I’m disappointed that we didn’t play a little bit better.”
Emma Ronsiek struggled from the field and dealt with foul trouble all evening (Juszyk / WBR)
Junior forward Maddy Schreiber led the Phoenix with 14 points. She was 5-of-6 from the floor and 4-for-4 from the charity stripe. Callie Genke added 11 points and Cassie Schiltz chipped in 10 points, five rebounds, and four assists. Nine players entered the scoring column for Green Bay with six of them putting up five or more.
Creighton was decidedly more predictable with where their production was coming from on the night. Senior guard Lauren Jensen had a game-high 21 points on 8-of-18 shooting, while senior forward Emma Ronsiek was 4-of-10 and finished with 15 points. Everyone else in a CU uniform combined for 17 points on 24 field goal attempts.
The Phoenix made things difficult all night for Ronsiek and senior forward Morgan Maly who entered the day averaging a team-leading 20.0 points per game after a 30-point double-double a win over South Dakota last Friday. Green Bay held the duo to 20 points on 24 shooting possessions and forced them into seven turnovers. They crowded them at the 3-point line and forced them to attack off the bounce, and when they posted up inside, they were met by a crowd of defenders who were active and physical.
“I think we are going to see that a ton this year, especially in the Big East just because me and Morgan have been around for four years, and they know our tendencies,” Ronsiek said. “We have to play smart out of those situations. I don’t think me or Morgan did a great job of that [tonight]. We didn’t find the open people. It was just a tough game. They prepared really well. You could definitely tell because they were getting steals, and the chips were just falling in all directions for them. We definitely could have been a little smarter with the inside game.”
Green Bay led 22-9 at the end of the first quarter after shooting 72.7% and holding Creighton to 3-of-14 overall and 1-of-8 from 3-point range. Ronsiek sparked a 7-0 run to start the second quarter, cutting the Phoenix’s lead down to six in the process, but the Bluejays scored just three points on their last 11 possessions to close the half and went into the locker room trailing 36-22.
Creighton conversion rate offensively climbed to start the third quarter, but each time they got a bucket Green Bay answered with one of their own. The Jays grabbed four offensive rebounds on their last five possessions of the period but came away with only one point went on an 8-1 run over the final 3:39 to take a 52-37 lead into the fourth quarter.
“The main thing in the third quarter was they killed us on that high-low [action],” Jensen said. “They were sending the guards up on the weak side, so our help wasn’t really as strong. We were fronting and not really giving resistance on that high-low, and they were just dumping it in. They also got us a lot on backdoors and back-cuts. We just weren’t in the right position defensively. [Green Bay head coach Kevin Borseth] is a really good coach. He called really good plays and definitely took advantage of our defensive miscues.”
Morgan Maly was held in check by the Green Bay defense. (Juszyk / WBR)
Jensen put the team on her back and tried to spark a comeback in the final 10 minutes. She very nearly succeeded with seven points of her one and a dime on a drive and kick to sophomore guard Kennedy Townsend for a spot-up three from the left wing that cut Green Bay’s lead to 55-51 with 5:35 remaining. But third-year guard Bailey Butler came through for the Phoenix with a pair of buckets at the rim to re-extend the lead as Creighton came up empty on all but one of their final eight possessions of the game.
Creighton came out with wins in their first two games of the season by 23 and 26 points over North Dakota State and South Dakota, respectively, but combined with Thursday’s night’s performance, their normally high-octane offense is currently shooting 50.4% from 2-point range and 27.8% from 3-point range. The former is in line with where they’ve been the previous two seasons, but the latter is well below the 36.1% they shot last season and the 36.8% that the Elite Eight team shot in 2021-22. For now, it’s a small blip for a group that has played a lot of games and scored a lot of points together, but it’s not nothing at the same time, according to Jim Flanery.
“You always want to look at that and ask are we running the right things? Are we emphasizing the right things? Are we getting better shots? Sometimes just even catching the ball closer to the 3-point line. I don’t know how many times we catch it four feet outside the line when we can catch on the [line]. Those are things that we need to get better at. We are an unselfish team, but sometimes you have to be willing to catch and shoot on one pass if you are open. I’m not sure we are there yet. There is a level of concern, but I wouldn’t say it’s panicky.”
Creighton won’t get a ton of time to work on their current ailments offensively, however, as a trip to Lincoln for 1:00 p.m. tip-off against a banged up but unbeaten, and rested, Nebraska team. The Jays won last year’s meeting in a rout, 77-51, so on top of the fact that they’ll be smarting from the loss to Green Bay, they will also be dealing with an in-state rival that is hungry for payback.
“There will be a lot of energy in the building,” Flanery said. “We kind of had our way with them last year, so I know they’ll be ready to go.”
“We know it will be tough, but I do think from a preparation standpoint our players do know Nebraska a little bit better [than Green Bay]. In a lot of cases, I’d be worried that they have two more days of prep than we do coming off an easier game on Tuesday. It’s a short prep, but one, I think our kids will be excited to play and the environment will be good, and two, I think there is a familiarity in terms of how to guard them and what’s been effective in the past. But we know it’s going to be a battle.”