The Creighton women’s basketball team came in No. 3 in the Big East preseason coaches poll, and head coach Jim Flanery believes its stability is a big reason why.
The Bluejays retained all six of their freshmen from plus Allison Heathcock from last year, giving them more experience this season.
“We have good continuity, it’s a level of respect for that now-sophomore class, and quite frankly it’s also an indication that there’s just more uncertainty across our league,” Flanery told Hurrdat Sports. “Especially on the women’s side probably, in terms of OK, yeah, UConn’s UConn, Villanova has a lot back, but I just think there’s a lot of uncertainty beyond those two.”
Even so, Flanery has high hopes for this year’s team.
Last season, the Bluejays finished 16-15 after winning eight of their final 11 games, missing the postseason. This year, they’ve added some new pieces that the coach hopes will help them get off to a fast start.
“In this day and age where these kids play at such a high level of club basketball, more of them can actually come in and play as freshmen than maybe outsiders would think, so we’ll see,” Flanery said. “Our schedule is difficult, but not ridiculously difficult early, so hopefully we can get off to a good start and see the improvement that we saw last year from beginning to end.”
The three freshmen looking to play right away are guards Jayla Williams (Ankeny, Iowa) and Mya Moore (Independence, Minn.) and wing Kate Amelotte (Plymouth, Minn.). Last year, two freshmen led the team in scoring (Ava Zediker and Neleigh Gessert) while two others played significant minutes as well (Kendell McGee and Norah Gessert).
“We kind of made the decision to not go heavy into the portal because we wanted to play what we thought was a talented freshman class, and maybe take a few lumps here and there, but also build and follow that up with another good recruiting class,” Flanery said. “So our philosophy will be to maybe add one kid a year through the portal, but I just don’t think that’s the way we can be successful at Creighton.”
Adding one player through the portal is exactly what Flanery and his staff did this past offseason. Nia Holloway joined Creighton after spending four years at Minnesota. The 6-foot forward is the lone fifth-year player on a team that doesn’t have any seniors.
She redshirted her first season in Minneapolis, logged 12.2 minutes per game in her second then saw that shrink to 5.6 across her final two season. While her numbers (2.4 points and 2.2 rebounds per game for her Golden Gopher career) don’t jump off the page, Flanery said Holloway brings a lot to the team.
Creighton forward Nia Holloway (41) drives past a Truman State defender during an exhibition game at D.J. Sokol Arena. Photo by Abdoul Sow.
“I think she’s going to be somebody we can throw the ball into inside; she finishes at a high rate down there, and she’s hungry,” Flanery said. “She didn’t get to play as much the last couple years at Minnesota as she did in her second year there, so I think she’s hungry. I think she values her role, she values the leadership that she can play, so I think she’s a big piece of what we’re going to try to accomplish this year.”
Holloway said she’s enjoyed learning from the coach.
“He knows basketball so well,” Holloway said. “He knows so much basketball, so everything that he says I know that it’s coming from a really good place, and I know that he knows what he’s talking about for sure. I really like playing under Flan; he’s cool.”
Holloway and her teammates will continue learning from Flanery as he’s in his 25th year coaching the team. He said he hopes to see women’s college basketball grow and believes females’ presence on social media along with cheaper ticket prices can help the sport reach its potential.
“I hope there is room for us at the table, and we’ve got to fight for that room, but we also can’t get discouraged because growth isn’t necessarily linear,” Flanery said. “You may kick up, and then you may be frustrated and hit a plateau, but then you’ve got to keep pushing.”
Creighton will try to make another postseason push in 2026-27, and they’ll start that journey away from home with three road games plus a neutral site contest before their home opener on Nov. 18. They’ll start the season at South Dakota State on Monday, with tipoff set for 7 p.m. CT on Midco Sports for subscribers.
“We don’t want to be sitting at home by March 10 next year, we want to still be playing,” Flanery said. “So there’s that little extra maybe edge that we had in terms of going out and getting better as returners. I think, hopefully, that’s going to continue to drive us.”
