After two years spent battling injuries and learning from the program’s veterans, junior point guard Kiani Lockett looks poised for a much-needed breakout season for Creighton women’s basketball.
Emma Ronsiek’s departure left a big hole in the starting lineup. Coach Jim Flanery gave senior guard/forward Jayme Horan the chance to take Ronsiek’s place during the program’s European tour in August, but he’s opted to insert Lockett instead during the team’s exhibition and season opener, and the junior from Minnesota has made the most of her opportunity.
“She gives us, defensively, something that we need,” Flanery said of the decision after Creighton’s exhibition. “Without Emma, there’s probably even more pressure on Lauren [Jensen] to score more, so now, from a guard standpoint, we’ve got two kind of seasoned guards defensively. Lauren is too, but I just think it takes a little bit of pressure off her from maybe having a guard that nice player. Her decision making has gotten better … She’s played with these guys a long time. So part of it is the game has slowed down, but she also knows what Lauren can do even more so, what Morgan [Maly] can do even more so.”
In the exhibition, Lockett focused on setting up her teammates, finishing with seven assists, zero turnovers and six points. She followed that up with 12 points on 5-of-7 from the field (2-of-2 from 3), three assists and zero turnovers in 30 minutes in Creighton’s loss at South Dakota State on Friday. The Jays were plus-6 with Lockett on the court in the 76-71 loss.
“She’s always been great,” Jensen said. “Kiani’s so smart and her IQ is really high, and that’s why I love playing with her, one of the many reasons why I love playing with her, and I think that’s why she fits so well in our system. On defense, she brings a ton of energy. We’ve had a lot of seniors for a long time now. Kiani is a junior, but I was a junior when she was a freshman, and so I think that’s also a little bit of a different dynamic and can be kind of hard, because she’s had a lot of good senior guards in front of her, and what she’s been able to do has been great.
“I remember, looking back her freshman year, she was coming off an ACL and she was able to play impactful minutes by the end of the year, which is super hard to do as a freshman.”
Lockett has had to battle injuries throughout her basketball career. She missed half her freshman season of high school with a torn ACL, then she suffered a torn ACL in January of her senior year as well. She missed the first four games of her freshman season, then she missed 12 games as a sophomore as well. Now healthy, Lockett is playing with a high level of confidence.
“It’s definitely the highest that it’s been in my college career,” Lockett said. “I think it’s just because my teammates, and also just being older. I’m an upperclassman now, the game has slowed down a lot for me, and I think that had has helped a lot.”
Lockett scored 48 points in 233 minutes as a freshman, averaging 2.1 points and 0.9 assists while shooting 32.6% from the floor. She upped that to 2.6 points and 1.6 assists while shooting 36.8% from the field in 300 minutes as a sophomore. She went 10-for-38 (26.3%) from 3 in her first two season.
The Lockett Creighton fans have seen thus far in 2024-25 is a completely different player, the one she expected to become when she committed to Creighton out of Minnetonka High School.
“I think I have put a lot of pressure on myself to get to the level that I am at right now, and I think it’s just on display, all the hard work that I’ve done,” Lockett said. “And so I think now I’m just meeting the expectations that I always wanted to meet for myself and my teammates.”
Creighton women’s basketball will need Lockett to continue meeting those expectations all season long, starting with Monday’s home-opener against a Drake team that won 27 games last year and is off to a 2-0 start this season.
