After a rebuilding season featuring a career-ending injury to the team’s only returning starter four games in and four freshmen in promising roles, expectations are high for Creighton women’s basketball heading into 2026-27.
The league’s coaches pegged the Bluejays to finish third in their preseason poll and unanimously voted two sophomores to the preseason All-Big East Team ahead of Thursday’s Big East Media Day.
“We’re optimistic about our season,” Coach Jim Flanery said. “We had a really young team last year, and we’re only slightly older this year, but we are quite a bit more experienced. We played four freshmen last year and they all came back, and we added some good freshman this year. I’m excited about our one transfer.
“I think our early season, we should be a little bit more prepared than we did last year, but the challenge will be to hopefully improve over the course of the year the way we did last year, which I thought was something that we were excited about, because I felt like we really built toward something better in January and February than what we were in November and December.”
Creighton finished 16-15 overall and finished fifth in the Big East at 11-9, which including winning eight of its last 11 to finish above .500 and take some momentum into the offseason.
UConn is the heavy favorite to win the league once again with unanimous preseason player of the year Sarah Strong leading the way. UConn also has the preseason freshman of the year in Olivia Vukosa while KK Arnold and Blanca Quiñonez earned spots on the preseason team.
Villanova landed second, with St. John’s and Seton Hall separated by one point in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
Point guard Ava Zediker was a unanimous All-Big East First Team selection as a freshman last year, and the league’s coaches expect her to repeat that feat as a sophomore. She averaged a team-best 13.3 points plus 4.8 rebounds and 3.4 assists, shooting 41% from the field, 37.3% from 3 and 83.9% from the free-throw line. With a full season under her belt, Flanery will look to learn on his point guard even more as an on-court leader this year.
“I don’t think you can force leadership on kids,” Flanery said. “We’re going to ask Ava to do more of that for sure. Ava Zediker’s going to be on the floor a lot for us, so we’re going to ask her to do that. It’ll be uncomfortable for her at first because that’s not necessarily her personality.”
Fellow sophomore Neleigh Gessert joined Zediker on the preseason All-Big East Team. The 6-foot sharpshooter out of Millard (Neb.) West averaged 11.8 points while shooting 38.3% on nearly eight 3-point attempts per game.
Neleigh Gessert (23) shoots a contested layup during a college basketball game against Georgetown on Feb 4, 2026, in Omaha, Nebraska. Photo by Brandon Tiedemann
“Neleigh can shoot the heck out of the ball,” Flanery said. “She is one of the more elite shooters that I’ve coached in terms of catch-and-shoot, but also, she shoots it really well off the move. That’s the one thing that I think impressed me pretty much from day one is how well she can come off a screen, get square and shoot it.
“She’s got to continue to get better in the other areas. She’s got to become a better rebounder, more physical. She’s got to improve her decision-making, which is the case for most players when they go from freshman to sophomore year. I think she can make those jumps and I think from what I’ve seen over the last few weeks, I feel like she’s committed to that.”
Gessert only averaged 2.3 rebounds and 0.7 assists in 24.9 minutes per game as a freshman, but Flanery said he’s seen a commitment to contributing more heading into year two.
“I think when you’re a freshman, you’re surviving, you’re trying to get on the floor, and when you’re a sophomore, in some ways you’re more coachable to the things that maybe you weren’t as coachable to as a freshman because, like I said, you’re in survival mode a lot of times as a freshman,” Flanery said. “I feel like she isn’t in that mode right now where I think you can say, ‘Hey, we need you to get two more rebounds in practice in a session, we need you to pass the ball better in our drills.’ Those are the things I want to see from her.”
Beyond the preseason all-conference picks, Flanery said he’ll rely on the only two upperclassmen on his roster to provide leadership this season and create space for the likes of Kendall McGee and Norah Gessert, the other freshmen who played big roles last year, to take more ownership in the team’s success.
“Nia Holloway, our fifth-year transfer from Minnesota, I think has been a great voice,” Flanery said. “She reminds me a lot of our grad transfer from last year, Grace Boffeli — just high energy, high motor and a really good leader. And then Allison Heathcock is a third-year player for us who kind of flies under the radar with our sophomore class, but she’s really solid in that area, and I think they can help Ava, because we do want to grow Ava’s voice and we also want some of those other sophomores to take a little bit more ownership, because player ownership is better than what I’m going to give them.”
Other notes:
>> Flanery said he’s in favor of NCAA Tournament expansion, mostly because of the opportunity it provides to give student-athletes unforgettable experiences.
“I just heard Geno [Auriema] talk about it can’t be necessarily to reward teams that are under .500 in a league that’s obviously good, but I think we have to have a have a plan for what those eight teams are, and hopefully the Big East can be the beneficiary of that,” Flanery said. “But I just think anytime you give student athletes the opportunity to perform and just experience an NCAA Tournament, I think that’s a good thing.
“The first time as a head coach that we qualified for an NCAA Tournament, I got an email from a men’s basketball alum, and he talked about just how there’s nothing better than the first time you play in an NCAA Tournament. The whole when you take the court, the way you’re treated, just the level of excitement that you’re going to have. So I think for eight more teams to have that is a good thing.”
>> Flanery also said he’s a fan of the age-based eligibility model largely because it creates an even playing field for everyone and does away with the waiver system.
“I don’t think it solves a lot of problems, but I think it solves enough,” Flanery said. “The entire waiver process and the fact that people were applying for seventh and eighth years, and you had 25- and 26-year-olds, at some point you’ve got to move on with your life. Again, I don’t think it solves everything, but I do think it kind of gives the NCAA a little bit more leverage, because I feel like waivers just kept coming and coming, and the NCAA couldn’t win lawsuits, so I think it’s helpful that way.
“Everybody has that opportunity. You hear a lot about, ‘Oh, it affects the classes of ‘26 and ‘27 and ’28,’ but on the other end, they’re going to be the beneficiaries of that opportunity when they’re fifth-year players. So if their goal is to play five years of college, they’re going to be 23 when the 18-year-old freshmen come on campus, so I think you have to frame it that way for them.”
However, Flanery is opposed to players who have moved onto the professional ranks in one form or another circling back to college looking for more opportunities.
>> While Flanery said the Protect College Sports Act in its entirety is above his pay grade, he’s in favor of it largely because it would slow down transfers. While college sports generates a lot of money in certain areas — mostly in football and men’s basketball — Flanery is still focused on the student part of student-athlete more than he’s thinking about the competitive aspect.
“I’m a proponent that if you transfer a second time, you should have to pay a penalty,” Flanery said. “I just think, and it’s the model of we’re an educational institution and we want people to get degrees … I think it’s really hard when you’re going to five schools in five years, and when that becomes the culture, I think that’s the issue. It’s not that one random person, that couldn’t be in their best interest, but it can’t be in the best interest of the number of people who are doing it.
“So I think anything to prevent kids from moving from A to B to C to D, because the vast majority of them are not going to play the sport at a professional level, whatever sport they’re in. So, if they have a degree from an institution and it didn’t take them two extra years, and they send in that first resume with five schools or six schools on their resume, they’re not getting the job that somebody else is getting who got through in four years at one or two institutions, so that’s the major reason why I’m a proponent of it is I feel like we can’t just allow carte blanche transfers.”
>> In non-NCAA related topics, Neleigh Gessert shared what it’s been like playing with her twin sister, Norah, throughout their careers. They won two state titles together at Millard West and chose to continue playing together at Creighton.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Neleigh said in an interview on Peacock. “I’ve done it since I was in kindergarten, since we started playing basketball, so it’s kind of like I have another me out there almost. It’s been super cool, just growing up getting to play with her. She’s helped me out a lot, I’ve helped her out a lot, and I feel like you can kind of just see it on the court. I know where she’s at, she knows where I’m at, and just things that translate, it becomes a lot easier when you have someone out there that kind of knows how you play. It’s been a really cool experience, and not everybody gets to say that they get to play with their best friend.”
Neleigh holds numerous at Millard West, including career points, career 3-pointers and career blocks, while Norah is the school’s career assists leader. While the two may be twins, their games have developed differently.
“I definitely say Norah does a lot of the dirty work,” Neleigh said. “She gets out there, she dives on the floor, she loves defense, she’s a good rebounder, she’s a great passer. In high school, she was the point guard and she passed to me, and then I love to shoot; 3-ball’s my thing … We kind of go good together because we kind of have a mix of both.”
