The Creighton women’s basketball team couldn’t fully recover from an early deficit as they fell 68-58 to South Dakota (26-7) in the first round of the Women’s N.I.T. at the DakotaDome in Vermillion, South Dakota on Thursday night.
Creighton (17-14) fell into an early 10-0 hole to start the game and trailed by as many as 18 points in the first half. They rallied in the second half, cutting the deficit down to three points on several occasions in the final seven minutes, but South Dakota made the big plays in the end to secure the victory.
“We didn’t put ourselves in a position at halftime to really be anything other than really, really good in the second half,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “I thought we were better in the second half, but we weren’t quite good enough.”
South Dakota took control of the game early in the first half and never took their foot off the gas for the opening 20 minutes. The Coyotes scored the game’s first 10 points and the held the Bluejays scoreless for the first five minutes and 49 seconds before Creighton senior forward Alexis Akin-Otiko converted a traditional three-point play with a layup and a free throw.
Freshman guard Sydney Lamberty then scored seven straight points to keep the Bluejays in the game early. Creighton got within six points during Lamberty’s stretch of hot shooting, but South Dakota senior guard Raeshel Contreras hit a pair of 3-pointers to ignite an 11-2 run for the Coyotes to help open up their largest lead of the half at 30-12 with 6:58 to play in the opening period.
Akin-Otiko finished the half strong for Creighton, scoring eight points down the stretch as the Bluejays doubled up South Dakota, 12-6, to head to the locker room trailing 36-24.
“I thought she really competed,” Flanery said of his senior forward. “Not just the points, but she drew a charge and had four steals at halftime. If she wasn’t really good in the first half we would’ve had no chance, because we’d have been down by 20 or 22 points instead of 12.”
Alexis Akin-Otiko finished her Creighton career on Thursday night (Streur/WBR) $ Click to Buy$
Raeshel Contreras led the Coyotes with 11 first-half points, while Akin-Otiko led all scorers with 13 points to go along with four rebounds and the aforementioned four thefts to keep the game from getting out of hand.
Contreras opened the second half with a 3-pointer on the first South Dakota possession as the Coyotes scored the first five points to push the lead out to 17 points. With 14:59 remaining in the game, trailing by 16, the Bluejays rattled off a 10-0 run by forcing four turnovers in a span of seven possessions to make it a ball game again, 48-42, with 11:01 to go.
South Dakota got the lead back to double digits with two perfect trips to the free throw line, but the Bluejays weren’t done making runs. Three times in the final 7:04, the Coyotes saw their lead dwindle down to just three points. Junior guard Marissa Janning produced one of the instances with a layup off a baseline drive. Two other instances belonged to Akin-Otiko, fighting to extend her playing career, to cut it to a one possession game. The last time came with 1:49 remaining, but South Dakota’s seniors produced a final 7-0 run to end the game. Leading scorer Nicole Seekamp started it off with a jumper. Then forward Lisa Loeffler knocked down her one and only three-point field goal attempt of the evening before hitting a pair of free throws with under 30 seconds left to wrap up the game and Creighton’s season.
Seekamp led the Coyotes with 21 points and three assists in a game-high 35 minutes of action.
Alexis Akin-Otiko finished her Bluejay career with 23 points, six rebounds, two blocked shots, and a career-high five steals.
“I’m really proud of her,” Flanery said. “She played with the urgency of a senior for 40 minutes.”
Even in a losing effort, the Creighton senior forward’s final performance wasn’t lost on her teammates.
“It portrayed how much had heart she had in the game and how much she wanted to win,” said soon-to-be senior Marissa Janning. “It was potentially the last game of the season and potentially the last game of her career, and you look at how she played and know exactly where her heart is. That’s the kind of person I admire and I want to be. It’s just inspiring to see how much she fought tonight.”
Finishing 17-14 with some notable wins and close calls against top competition along with a team that lost two seniors to injury and counted on five freshman to grow up quickly, might have some teams celebrating at the end of the day. That’s not the case with the people involved in the program and Jim Flanery sees that as a good sign going forward.
“The good thing is that, as a program, we’re disappointed to be in the N.I.T.,” Flanery said. “We’ve been to the postseason eight years in a row. We had a much younger team, and I think on paper a lot of people didn’t think we’d be maybe even as good as we were. We finished over .500 in the Big East and beat some good teams in the non-conference, but like a lot of younger teams we’re inconsistent.”
“I hope we’re not satisfied, because we’re going to have to do some things to improve individually in the offseason. On some level it’s good that you’re program is disappointed to be in the N.I.T., or that you’re not satisfied. Some schools would view any sort of postseason as a super positive.”
Building off this loss and this season as a whole will have it’s day. For now, it marks the official end to the careers of Creighton seniors Alexis Akin-Otiko, Taylor Johnson, and Sammy Jensen. The latter two had their final years cut short due to knee injuries, while Akin-Otiko finishes her playing career with 838 points, 482 rebounds, 109 steals, 95 blocked shots, and 92 assists. Despite playing a reserve role her first three season at Creighton, she still finished 7th place in school history in blocked shots and is one of just five Creighton women’s basketball players ever to record at least 90 steals and 100 blocks in a career.
Sarah Nelson, Sam Schuett, Pam Gradoville, and Angie Janis are the other four.
Together, Akin-Otiko, Johnson, and Jensen won a total of 82 game in four seasons. Among those 82 wins are a 2012 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament title as freshmen, a share of the 2012-2013 Missouri Valley Conference regular-season title as sophomores, two NCAA Tournament appearances including a first round win over nationally-ranked Syracuse in March of 2013, and two trips to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament as juniors and seniors.
“I would’ve loved to get a win, but I love teammates and love my coaches. I loved being able to play for Creighton and being around a good group of people,” Akin-Otiko said.