Seton Hall scored 15 points off Creighton turnovers in the first half and shot 60% from the field in the second half to hand the Creighton women’s basketball team a 79-74 loss in the Big East opener for both teams on Wednesday night at D.J. Sokol Arena.
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Creighton got key contributions from their veteran players as junior guard Marissa Janning scored 13 points and grabbed a career-high 12 rebounds for her first double-double as a Bluejay, and senior forward Alexis Akin-Otiko scored a career-high 22 points on just 12 field goal attempts in 31 minutes of action.
Both hit big shots throughout the game as Creighton tried to get over the hump, but the turnovers, thanks in large part to Seton Hall’s defensive pressure led by senior guard Daisha Simmons, who had a season-high seven steals to go along with her game-high 23 points and eight assists in 39 minutes. She led an effort that allowed Seton Hall to use timely runs throughout the game to build comfortable leads midway through both halves over the Bluejays.
Though the Bluejays dominated on the boards, it was Seton Hall’s 19-13 edge in points off turnovers that ended up being the difference for the visiting Pirates.
“Points off turnovers in the first half was what decided the game,” Creighton head coach Jim Flanery said. “It wasn’t even the 15 turnovers. It was the 11 steals or however many they had at half. I mean, it was just unbelievable. We just were so sloppy with the ball.”
In the first five minutes of the game it looked everyone in attendance was in store for a good show. Both teams got up and down and executed offensively. Janning and Akin-Otiko led the attack early, each hitting a couple shots from the field. But with the game tied at 11 with 14:46 left in the first half, the Bluejays turned it over on three consecutive possessions and Seton Hall turned them into six points to take a 17-11 lead and forced a timeout by Flanery that he admitted after the game was probably taken a little too late as the Pirates turned a 9-4 deficit into six-point lead.
“I should have obviously called a timeout earlier,” he said. “I thought both teams were tired, but our team was obviously more tired, because we gave them some easy baskets in that stretch. When you give a team easy baskets they’re going to think the basket is bigger when they’re running their half court offense.”
This proved to be true in Seton Hall’s case. After scoring eight points off Creighton turnovers in building their 17-11 lead, the Pirates scored nine of their next 11 points with half court execution as part of an 11-3 run that pushed the lead to double digits at 28-18 with 8:34 left in the first half.
Creighton would punch back, though. Trailing 34-24, the Bluejays went on a 9-2 run over a nearly four-minute stretch to cut the deficit down to three points. They capped it off when Marissa Janning found Alexis Akin-Otiko down low for an easy basket to make it 36-33 with 50 seconds to go in the half. As would prove to be the case all night, Seton Hall found the answer when it needed to. Senior forward Janee Johnson buried a three-pointer for the Pirates with 10 seconds left in the half and Seton Hall took the 39-33 lead into the locker room.
“They forced turnovers. At one of the timeouts it was 12 to 1 in points off turnovers, and personally I know I didn’t take care of the ball as well as I could have,” Janning said.
Seton Hall forced the preseason Big East player of the year into four first-half turnovers and converted the takeaways into six points, which ended up being the difference between the two teams at halftime.
“I’m definitely going to be better than that,” added Janning.
The two teams traded baskets to start the second half before Janning hit a baseline jumper off the dribble on the right wing to bring the Bluejays to within two points at 44-42 with 17:19 remaining. Just when it appeared that Creighton was ready to make a run and get some momentum, Seton Hall landed a devastating counter punch. Over the six and a half minutes, the Pirates went 7-of-9 from the field, 3-for-3 from the free throw line, and scored on eight out of 12 possessions as part of a 19-4 run that extended their lead to 63-46 with just 10:42 left in the game.
“They hit some tough shots, but that stretch really did decide it,” Flanery said. “We’ve got to do a better job of shortening the stretch where we get derailed. That’s about as simple as I can put it. The difference between a 6-0 run and a 10-0 run is huge. If it’s 11-4 instead of 19-4 you’re in good shape, and a lot of that is on me. We have to be more disciplined in those situations and we were went disciplined. We continued to kind of force things early.”
The Bluejays and Pirates would again get into a rhythm of trading baskets over the next seven minutes before the Bluejays turned up the pressure on the defensive end and started stringing stops together. Down 76-62 with 3:18 left in the game, the Jays made one final push with a 10-1 run over a two and a half minute stretch to make things interesting. Seton Hall helped the cause by missing six consecutive free throws in just a single minute, while Bluejay freshman guard Sydney Lamberty made four straight at the line to make it 78-74 with just under 20 seconds remaining.
Seton Hall sophomore forward Tabatha Richardson-Smith made one of two at the line to seal the game and improve the Pirates to 1-0 in conference play with the 79-74 win.
Though Lamberty, a true freshman, was 0-for-6 from the field in just her second career start, she at times looked more in control than any player on the floor. She finished with six points, six assists, and a career-best seven rebounds in 30 minutes as she got her first taste of Big East competition. Through seven games, she has by far the best assist-to-turnover ratio on the team at 4:1 thanks to her 20 assists and five turnovers that she has produced in a little over 20 minutes per game. Even in a loss, Lamberty’s teammates have noticed the improvement.
“She’s getting better every game and that’s really good for us,” said Marissa Janning. “It’s nice to see when Jade and Syd and Bailey, when they come in and step up like that. Especially for Syd to be able to do that and not be afraid to be aggressive at times, especially at the end of the game when Flan likes her matchup. It’s really nice to see. It’s encouraging.”
The loss is the third in the last four games for the Bluejays who are now 3-4 on the season and only halfway through a rigorous non-conference schedule. Even though he would like to have a couple more wins, Coach Flanery believes his young team is making progress.
“We’re getting better. I don’t think we’re that far away,” Flanery said. “You look at the number of minutes that Sydney and Jade have played and they’re freshman, so they’re only going to get better, I hope. Lex has nights like tonight and her confidence is only going to get better or be at a higher level than it has ever been. Those are all positives. We’re getting good contributions out of Bailey Norby as a freshman, so we’re headed in the right direction. I just certainly would have liked to be two games better than what we are.”
Creighton will get a few days to rest up and get healthy before they hit the road again to take on the Northern Iowa Panthers on Monday, Dec. 8 in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Alexis Akin-Otiko said after the game that there are lessons to be learned from tonight, and she believes the Bluejays will do exactly that and be ready in time to face the Panthers.
“It’s awful to lose, but with every loss you can learn something,” she said. “We’ll definitely watch film and learn what we need to do from this game and carry it on. We just have to try to be tough and go get another win.”
Tip-off between the Bluejays and Panthers is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls. It will be the 2014-15 home opener for the Panthers, who are coached by former Creighton player and Bluejay Hall of Famer Tanya Warren. The Panthers are currently 1-4 on the season and will play at South Dakota on Thursday before closing out their non-conference schedule with a five-game home stand that starts with the game against Creighton.