It wasn’t pretty at the start, but Creighton women’s basketball took down DePaul 70-50 in its Big East home opener on Saturday afternoon to improve to 6-5 on the season and 2-0 in conference play.
The Bluejays fell behind by as much as 13 but flipped a switch midway through the second quarter and more than doubled up the Blue Demons (3-11, 0-3) the rest of the way to turn the game into a rout.
“Obviously, the start was not anywhere close to what we wanted,” Coach Jim Falnery said. “We talked about when you play DePaul, there’s a there’s a certain chaotic element to how they play, just the randomness defensively and then offensively, they spread you out and they force you to have to communicate. So we didn’t settle in for quite a while, but that that push in the second quarter, I thought some of our young kids really helped us in that stretch, and that’s going to be important …
“Good team win, but certainly plenty to work on. It didn’t feel like a 20-point win; it felt like a lot closer game, and it was, obviously, through the majority of it.”
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Turning Defense into Offense
As Flanery said, “chaos” is the best way to describe DePaul’s style of play. The Blue Demons press and trap and fly around and foul like crazy. Early on, the Bluejays did not handle it well. They rushed shots, they dribbled into traps, they threw the ball away, and the result was some easy buckets for the Blue Demons.
Add ice-cold perimeter shooting to the turnovers and it was a recipe for disaster — such as a 20-10 deficit after one quarter against the worst team in the Big East. Creighton’s struggles continued into the second quarter. At one point, the Jays had missed 11 straight shots from the field, and they misfired on their first 10 3-point shots as well.
When nothing seems to be going right on offense, a good team must be able to fall back on its defense, and that’s exactly what Creighton did. The Blue Demons turned the ball over on half of their last 12 possessions and only scored twice as Creighton used a 15-0 run to take the lead. DePaul knocked down a second-chance 3 to take a 28-27 lead into halftime, but the damage was undone.
“I think it was the defense,” Grace Boffeli said. “Just getting stops, consecutive stops, three in a row, and then that just leads to offense. And once one shot fell, then several shots fell.”
The Gessert twins accounted for 12 straight points themselves during that 15-0 run, with back-to-back buckets from Norah then three straight jumpers (including Creighton’s first two 3s) from Neleigh. Overall, the Bluejays turned the tables on the Blue Demons, speeding them up and taking them out of their offense — including a pair of highlight-reel defensive plays from Neleigh Gessert with a steal and a block.
“I thought we just played a little bit harder in that stretch,” Flanery said. “This happens with young teams, is when you struggle offensively, it’s easy to just be a little distracted when you transition from offense to defense. Your mind is on, ‘Oh, I missed a shot,’ or, ‘Oh, I turned it over.’ That’s a tough thing to kind of get back and be like, ‘OK, but I can still flip the game defensively too,’ with a couple turnovers, a charge. I said during one of the timeouts, we have to make some energy plays to flip this game …
“It’s about not feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got to create that momentum. There are a lot of times where you can create it on offense, but occasionally you’ve got to create it on defense.”
The Bluejays carried that momentum into the second half, holding DePaul to 11-for-45 from the field over the last three quarters to cruise to a victory.
Creighton entered the game shooting 35% from 3 but went 6-for-25 (24%) against DePaul. However, they turned 21 Blue Demon turnovers into 23 points on the other end and finished with 10 steals and four blocks in the game.
Veterans Take Charge
Freshmen Neleigh Gessert and Ava Zediker have turned it up a notch over the last handful of games and entered Saturday as the team’s top two scorers. Over the recent stretch, if one has struggled, the other has often picked up the slack. Against DePaul, they combined to shoot 4-for-21 from the field with six turnovers.
Kiani Locket (Creighton’s third-leading scorer) is still sidelined with an injury while Kennedy Townsend (No. 4) dealt with foul trouble all game and finished with six points. With their top four scorers on the season totaling just 22 points, Boffeli and sophomore Allison Heathcock stepped up in a big way, combining for 31 points on good efficiency.
“I think it’s important just for everyone to understand that not every night you’re going to be the leading scorer, but I think Neleigh and Ava led in different ways tonight, and Ava was coming off ball screens, passing it, assisting,” Boffeli said. “I think Allison stepped up as well.”
Creighton forward Grace Boffeli scores inside against DePaul. Photo by Jackson Luethje.
Heathcock finished with 14 points on 5-of-10 from the field (2-of-5 from 3) and 2-of-2 from the foul line, six rebounds, three assists and two turnovers. The Bluejays outscored the Blue Demons by 21 points in her 33 minutes, a team-best.
“I think Allison played really well,” Flanery said. “I feel like she does a lot of things to make us a better basketball team, even when she doesn’t make shots. Today, she was good offensively, but defensively, I think she’s got great recognition. For a kid who barely played last year, she has really good recognition, and she’s got the length and mobility to defend one-on-one, but I think her off-ball recognition is good, and even just in the half court on offense, she’s become a better decision maker in addition to becoming a better scorer.”
Boffeli notched her second double-double in as many Big East games, and she had it wrapped up midway through the third quarter. It’s her fourth of the season in 11 games. The senior forward finished with 17 points — her best as a Bluejay — on 8-of-9 from the field including a three-point play, 11 rebounds and two blocks. Boffeli also had 12 points and 10 rebounds in Creighton’s win at St. John’s.
“I think Grace had a good November, but if you think about the fact that she didn’t get cleared to play until mid-October, we feel like she’ll only get better as the year goes on,” Flanery said. “Part of that’s her comfortability with the knee, and then part of it’s just comfortability with the way Creighton plays and the way we can utilize her, because we’re still trying to figure that out, how to best utilize her.”
Quick Turnaround
Creighton has now won five of its past six to climb above .500. Part of that has been a much lighter schedule, but it also appears the young Bluejays have begun to figure some things out.
“On the court, we just have the connection now, just by playing more games this season,” Boffeli said. “We know what our strengths are and we’re able to share the ball more, and we just enjoy it on the court. So it’s fun.”
Creighton will have to move on quickly to keep the success coming, as the Bluejays will return to D.J. Sokol Arena on Monday afternoon to host Seton Hall (7-4, 1-1 Big East). The Pirates will get an extra day to prep for the Bluejays after falling at Villanova, 72-55 on Friday.
“Like Flan said in the locker room, it’s a short prep, but we’ve just got to come tomorrow to practice, work hard and just prepare for Seton Hall,” Boffeli said.
Seton Hall has four players scoring in double figures, including 5-foot-8 junior guard Savanah Catalon who is leading the way at 14.0 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game while shooting 42.1% from deep. Sophomore Jada Eads, a 5-foot-7 point guard, is averaging 12.1 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.9 assists. Senior Mariana Valenzuela is the team’s top interior presence as the 6-foot-2 forward is contributing 12.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game while shooting 64.5% inside the arc and 37.2% from 3-point range.
Flanery knows the same kind of effort Creighton produced on Saturday won’t be enough to get it done against the Pirates on Monday.
“They’ve got two dynamic and explosive guards,” Flanery said. “We’ve got to do a good job just understanding where they’re best. And then they’ve got a kid who’s a good low-post scorer, a really versatile player. And then they’ll press us. I think any team that has watched us against pressing teams and who presses will press us. They’re not maybe as heavy a pressing team normally as DePaul, but I feel like they know our roster. They know how young we are at the ball-handling position. We can’t practice very long because we’re playing again, but we won’t be able to turn the ball over as much as we did today, because it’ll be a little lower-possession game too.
“They’re not quite as deep as DePaul, but they don’t maybe quite play at the pace that DePaul does. If you’re down 13, which we were today, that’s going to feel a lot bigger against that team.”
Tipoff on Monday is set for 3 p.m. CT, and ESPN+ will stream the game.
