BIG EAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2021

Jim Flanery

Creighton Bluejays

Mohegan Sun Arena

Postgame Media Conference

Creighton - 56, Georgetown - 42

COACH FLANERY: We knew it was going to be difficult to score. We've had two low-scoring games -- one kind of low scoring and one super low scoring game against Georgetown. We know it's tough to score.

And I think last game we had 12 field goals and tonight we had 13. I thought the difference was we did a better job getting to the free-throw line. We attacked a little more off the dribble and off the cut.

And, you know, 26 free throws, again, some of those were at the end. But, you know, we did a much better job of getting to the free-throw line than we did the last time we played them. And that was the difference. And that and Temi.

Temi was outstanding, I thought. We had some younger players I thought were a little nervous, first time in a conference tournament. But I thought she was rock solid like she has been all year. Excited to move on and get an opportunity to play again tomorrow.

Q. I know you've had a lot of good things to say about Temi this year and the way she stepped up for you. But it seemed like everybody else was off today except for her, for both teams. Did you see that sense of urgency you see from a senior that really doesn't want her career to end; do you feel that was the driving force on her performance today?

COACH FLANERY: Yeah, I think that was a big part of it. I notice you've got your Houston Texans hat on and my analogy would be that Temi is a better quarterback than what you guys have going right now with without Deshaun. (Laughs).

Yeah, I thought she was great. Her footwork was really good. I thought she showed shot consistently and was able to get in the paint. She took some tough mid-range shots. But still she created, went off the dribble even when it wasn't just for herself.

So, to be honest, we had to rely on her more than I thought we would based on some of our other kids weren't as, weren't in rhythm as much as we had hoped. But she was outstanding. And Ransom is a really good defender, but I thought Temi's experience and her footwork and just her determination was huge tonight. And obviously we're going to need other people to be a little bit more of a force offensively tomorrow night.

Q. It seemed like you guys were kind of openly daring Georgetown to shoot jumpers and loading the paint. Was that in the scouting report? And how successful do you think that defensive strategy was?

COACH FLANERY: We do. We've crowded them all three games, feel like, for two reasons. One, just to give congestion into the post area for post-ups, but also to gap on the dribble, because other than Bolden-Morris, they're a drive-the-ball team on the perimeter.

We weren't perfect, but I thought we did a good job of clogging driving lanes by being in that gap or help position. And it effectively takes away some of their post-ups too. Having played them twice in the last five weeks, I think, was helpful, especially for a young team with -- to kind of see what we had done had worked against them the first two games. And you've got -- you've got to take a little bit of a chance that they're not going to make 3s because that's not what they do.

I thought we could have drawn a couple more charges. But they're slippery getting in there and then I thought they -- had Archer not had foul trouble she presented some issues just driving the ball, too, on us.

Q. Turning the page here now to tomorrow, you got that great road win at Seton Hall, one of the highlights of the season, and that win over DePaul. One of the things you point back to, I know it's been, as you described, a M*A*S*H* unit year, but what are the things that you point to that tomorrow you want to be great at to be able to advance to the semis?

COACH FLANERY: Well, we have to get back defensively. I mean, transition defense will be huge. I think playing them the first time early on -- we talked about it. We worked a little bit on it. But it's different when you actually see them.

I mean Park-Lane is -- first of all they get the ball out and in or up the floor really quickly, and she's in attack mode and they've got shooters. So we have to get back. I think that's going to be huge.

And with our legs -- they didn't play today. So that's important. But we gotta be -- we have to be ourselves offensively. We have to be a good screening team. We have to make them communicate. I think we need to probably score a little bit in the post. We hoped to score a little bit more in the post tonight than we did. But they're smaller with Elmore playing a lot of five. I think we're going to have to get some baskets, whether it's off of a post-up or just at the rim.

We can't just fall in love with 3s tomorrow night either. But transition defense and ball security. You can't turn the ball over against them and give them easy baskets, because I think offensively they're really, really good. They've got four kids that average 12 and a half or more and three of them, I think, average 16 or more.

So that's -- that will put a lot of pressure on us. And when we beat them the first time we had Tatum and Molly Mogensen, so our guard play is different than what we had. And so that's why I'm worried about ball security, because if I'm them, I'm going to turn up the pressure. Not to tell Tony what he should do. But we have to take care of the ball and get back on defense.

Q. You were able to withstand Georgetown's 11-0 run there in the third quarter and then hold them to seven points in the fourth. I wanted to ask you about the defensive effort there in the fourth.

COACH FLANERY: Well, they did a good job turning that game right around in the third quarter because we pushed it out to 12 or -- wasn't it 12, I think? And boom, it's back to, like, four right away and then two and one.

But, yeah, I think we tried to tell them, I felt like, with some of the young players that we had out there, and not just young, but inexperienced because Chloe is a junior but she's reasonably inexperienced. But I thought -- I think part of it is they knew how difficult it was to score. So I think that helps your buy-in on the defensive end.

And I thought we gave up a couple of offensive rebound baskets in that stretch where they got back in the game. And I thought we tightened that up down the stretch. We didn't give them the offensive rebound baskets in that fourth quarter, which was huge, because they had a couple there in that stretch where they got back in the game.

And I thought we really battled. Like I said, the big thing was we plugged gaps and then we rebounded.