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South Dakota State’s production in the paint and on the offensive glass sinks Creighton’s bid for a season-opening resume win

Jim Flanery knew his team was in for a fierce test heading into their season-opening matchup at South Dakota State on Friday night in Brookings. The 21st-ranked Bluejays were anywhere from a 3.5 to 6.5-point underdogs, depending on your site preference, against a Jackrabbits team that went 27-6 last season and returned seven of their top eight scorers — not including 2023 Summit League Sixth Woman of the Year Kallie Theisen, who is back in the mix after sitting out last season with an injury.

Entering the game, SDSU sported a 57-4 record at the newly revamped (and renamed) First Bank & Trust Arena over the last four seasons. One of those four losses, and the most lopsided of the bunch, came at the hands of Creighton back in November 2022 when then junior guard Lauren Jensen dropped what was at the time a career-high 30 points in a 78-69 win in the season-opener for both teams that year.

Jensen is still in white and blue after returning for a fifth year in Omaha. She christened her final season of college basketball with a game-high 23 points on Friday night, but it wasn’t enough to repeat the feat as the Jackrabbits dug themselves out of an 8-point hole in the first half to deal Creighton a 76-71 defeat.

SDSU shot 65.2% after halftime and produced 38 points in the paint and outscored the Jays 13-3 in second-chance points. Five of those came off missed free throws late in the second quarter to cut an 8-point deficit down to three by halftime. By the end of the third quarter, it was the Jackrabbits who held the 3-point lead, and they used 12-2 run over the first four minutes of the fourth to push it to 13 before holding a relentless rally by the Bluejays.

Creighton produced just 24 points on 25 attempts from 3-point range, and while that certainly would have made it tough to win, they did end up with four players in double figures as Molly Mogensen (13), Kiani Lockett (12), and Morgan Maly (11) joined Jensen in that department. At the end of the day, it was the plays like the missed block-outs at the charity stripe in the first half that loomed larger on the Minnesota native’s mind after the loss.

“I really think it came down to special teams and little things,” Jensen said. “I think they got way more boards than us on offense and defense. They got to the line. They got second chance points. And when your offense isn’t necessarily clicking or rolling like it wasn’t tonight, you need to find a way to win with those little things. SDSU bested us in that area.”

Creighton started the game in a 7-0 hole. Then Jensen and fellow All-Big East super senior Morgan Maly found their rhythm offensively while the Jays held South Dakota State to five points on its final 10 possessions of the first quarter. Maly punctuated the gritty opening stanza by burying a step-back mid-range jumper just before the buzzer to give the CU a 13-12 edge after one.

Jensen made more plays off the bounce in the second quarter to help her team extend the lead. She also showed off some intriguing chemistry offensively with newcomer Brooke Littrell.

On one particular play, the grad transfer out of D-II Central Missouri caught the ball in the post and squeezed a pocket pass between two defenders to Jensen, who was back-cut into the lane for a layup. Later, Jensen gave her one back with a drive and kick sequence off a ball screen for Littrell to tee up a 3-ball from the top of the key.

That gave the Bluejays their largest lead of the game at 31-23 with 1:25 to play before halftime. SDSU’s Mesa Byom answered with a bucket inside, drawing a foul in the process. She missed the freebie, but Summit League Preseason Player of the Year Brooklyn Meyer crashed in for the rebound and hit 2024 Summit League Tournament MVP Paige Meyer (no relation) for a wide open three.

Under most circumstances, going into the locker room with the lead after 20 minutes in a notoriously difficult place to play well at all, let alone win, would give a team some mojo. But South Dakota State’s ability to steal five extra points off of their own missed free throws — essentially producing nine points on just two possessions in the second quarter — felt like a potential back-breaking sequence.

“It kind of sucks that we weren’t able to hold on to that lead,” Jensen said. “We talk about special teams and end of quarters all the time, and that’s something that Flan did mention in the locker room. End of quarters are important and can shift the momentum, and I feel like they definitely carved into that a little bit going into halftime.”

The Jackrabbits abandoned the 3-point shot almost entirely in the second half and established their Preseason POY early right out of the locker room, leading to 12 of the 17 points she scored on the evening in the third quarter alone. As a team, South Dakota State shot 80.0% in the period. They scored on 21 of their first 24 possessions that ended in a shot to start the second half. That stretch, which was capped off on back-to-back 3-pointers by Madison Mathiowetz put them in front 72-62 with just 2:06 left to do anything about it.

Creighton kept pressing on defense and pulling the trigger on offense down the stretch to threaten the comfortable win, increasing the anxiety level of the 3,208 fans in attendance in the process. But it was too little and too late to overcome how potent SDSU was in the post coming out of the locker room.

“I honestly think that was a big turning point in the third quarter,” Jensen said. “We actually got pretty good looks in that stretch, but they were just burying us on the block and getting easy buckets, and they were able to jump out to a pretty good lead there. It’s just kind of tough. We were able to chip away at that lead, but we weren’t able to get over the hump. That was a big, big part of the game there in the third quarter.”

This Creighton squad has been through too much to take solace in near-misses. They hate losing. Friday night was no different. But it is just game one, and the schedule doesn’t get any easier from here on out either. That’s why, while the loss will almost certainly lead to a bitter bus ride home given this group’s make-up, their long-time head coach does believe there is value in coming out the other end of the fire.

“I think twice we’ve broken 20-something-game winning streaks up here,” Flanery said. “That’s how hard it is to win at this place.

“I look at our schedule, and it’s really tough, but we have a team that can do it. You want resume wins like this, but you also want to be battle tested, and we’ll definitely learn some things from tonight.”

The Jays will return to the court on Monday night when they welcome Missouri Valley Conference preseason favorite Drake to town for their home-opener at D.J. Sokol Arena. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:00 p.m.

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