Nebraska women’s basketball snapped a three-game losing streak over in-state rival Creighton and secured its second win in the past 10 meetings with a blowout 84-50 victory at Pinnacle Bank Arena Wednesday night.
“This is a great win for us,” Nebraska coach Amy Williams said. “We have a very strong mutual respect with the team that’s our in-state rival, and it’s been a little while, so we needed this one. I felt like our team kept their intensity and focus for 40 minutes, not that that it was mistake free or that we don’t have things to learn from, but I thought we were pretty focused, locked in and had good energy for 40 minutes.”
Sophomore Britt Prince posted a game-high 18 points on 6-of-12 from the field and 6-of-6 from the line with seven rebounds and three assists, effortlessly weaving through the defense and getting to her spots for pull-ups or layups throughout the night. The victory ties the largest margin of victory for the Huskers in the series.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Smothering Defense
It took a while for Nebraska (3-0) to settle in offensively with a couple early scoring droughts, but after giving up an open 3 to Creighton’s top shooter on the first possession, the Huskers locked in defensively and absolutely smothered the Bluejays the rest of the way.
Nebraska held Creighton (1-2) to nine points in the first quarter then locked down even more in the second. The Jays totaled one field goal (on 12 attempts, six of them 3s), two free throws (on four attempts) and nine turnovers in the quarter.
The Huskers held the Bluejays to five points in the second and took a 35-14 lead into halftime. Crieghton’s shooting percentage barely cleared its point total in the first 20 minutes (16%), and its turnover count was even.
Creighton coach Jim Flanery said it was the worst half of offense he’s seen from his program and that his young team “emotionally unraveled.”
“Obviously their defense disrupted us more than I anticipated,” Flanery said. “We had 16 turnovers total through the first two games and 25 tonight … I thought we lost our composure. I was really disappointed in our emotional discipline. I just thought we were an immature team tonight … The other part is I thought we were tight. We missed some really easy looks in that second quarter that would have maybe kept the game in a little more tenable position. But the story of the game was their defense.”
The Bluejays started to make some shots in the second half, but the pressure continued as Creighton turned it over 11 more times to finish with 25, the highest count for the team since it gave the ball away 26 times against Minnesota in 2012.
“They do a great job of taking care of the basketball, and so to force them into 25 turnovers is really kind of unheard of,” Williams said. “I think it’s been a while, so I think just the fact that we made things fairly difficult, and I thought Hailey Weaver sets the tone with that with her pressure in the backcourt, but Callin Hake is the anchor to our defense on that backside, covering up a lot of mistakes, communicating at a high level, making sure people get matched up, and taking charges when we need it. I just think there’s great team effort right now defensively for us.”
Of those 25 turnovers, only five of them were Nebraska steals. Rather than taking the ball away, the Huskers forced the Bluejays into travels, charges and an inordinate number of passes out of bounds as the Huskers sped the Bluejays up and got them out of sorts.
“I think it was just being deceptive,” Jessica Petrie said. “We knew that we had a lot of shooters on the floor, a lot of drivers, and we were just kind of changing things up — if we were going under screens, chasing screens. I think it just forced a little bit of confusion on their end, just not knowing where we were going to be all the time on defense, and I think that was a big point for us this week during practice.”
Creighton shot 29.4% from the field, finishing with 10 more turnovers than made shots.
Bombs Away
Nebraska had a slight edge in the paint, but not enough of one to create a blowout. The 3-point line is a different story.
Nebraska was sitting on 14 points with a few seconds to go in the first quarter when Jessica Petrie let it fly from right in front of her head coach on the bench, banking in the near three-quarter court shot with the buzzer sounding.
JESSICA PETRIE ARE YOU SERIOUS ⁉️🚨 @HuskerWBB
📺: FS1 pic.twitter.com/UFazFyCE05
— Big Ten Women's Basketball (@B1Gwbball) November 13, 2025
“Honestly, I wasn’t thinking,” Petrie said of the shot. “It wasn’t really the play, but I just was open for my teammates, and just threw a Hail Mary and it went in.”
Including Petrie’s heave, the Huskers hit five 3s in the first half then buried four more in the third quarter to continue extending the lead. Nebraska found more success in the paint in the fourth quarter, scoring 14 points there after managing just 16 in the first three periods. That turned it from a blowout to a route as the lead peaked at 35.
Nebraska finished 10-of-28 (35.7%) from 3, the Huskers’ highest total of triples against Creighton. Creighton finished 6-of-23 (26.1%) from deep after totaling 20 3s in its first two games.
Hake went 3-for-4 from deep and finished with 13 points while Petrie and Weaver each shot 2-for-4.
Big Day for the Program
The blowout victory put a giant cherry on top of the sundae that was a massive day for the Nebraska women’s basketball program.
On Wednesday morning, three top-100 players signed their financial aid agreements to officially join the program. Five-star forward Ashlyn Koupal (No. 22 in the ESPN Top 100) headlined the group, which also included four-star guards Ava Miles (No. 69) and Maddi Stewart (No. 100).
“It’s just an awesome day for Nebraska women’s basketball,” Williams said. “I think there’s a lot of excitement. We are super excited about our 2026 class and some outstanding pieces that just fit — fit our team, fit our culture. But this particular team today had a mission, and just our eyes on 40 minutes of basketball, and I thought our team competed with joy, and that’s fun for me to see.”
Hake, a senior, said the current Huskers wanted to give their future teammates a look at what kind of a program they’ll be joining next year.
“The day started off with great recruits coming in in that 2026 class, and so being able to celebrate them, and even some being named to some pretty big honors, and so we were super excited this morning about just the future of the program,” Hake said. “We just wanted to keep that momentum going into tonight and just excite those girls for what they’re coming into and what our standard is, and I hope they had so much fun watching it at home and we’re just excited for them to be in a Husker jersey.”
Up next for the Huskers is a trip to Sioux Falls to face North Dakota State at the Sanford Pentagon on Sunday at noon.
