• Box Score: Creighton 66, Southern Illinois 59
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It was debatable what was louder: the rafter-shaking performance of a drum and drill corps at halftime of Saturday’s Creighton-Southern Illinois women’s basketball game or the clanging of shots off the rims during the contest.
The Bluejays and Salukis combined to miss 88 shots, with neither team making a third of its field-goal attempts. Creighton managed to make the game’s most important baskets, then backed it up with 20 free throws to pull out a 66-59 Missouri Valley Conference victory.
Both teams would like to think that the other’s shooting woes were a result of great defense, but ...
“Personally, I know I chucked about three shots right over the basket,” Creighton forward Sarah Nelson said. “These games happen for most teams. In the end, we were able to knock down some giant 3s.
“Thank God for the people that were making 3s when I was missing layups.”
Creighton made six shots from beyond the arc, with guard Ally Jensen getting perhaps the two biggest. The Bluejays were clinging to a five-point lead when Jensen connected with 6:04 to play. After a Southern Illinois turnover, Jensen buried another 3-pointer to put Creighton ahead 57-46.
“I had open looks, and finally a couple went down,” said Jensen, who had missed 6 of her first 7 shots from beyond the arc. “It felt good to finally knock those two down.”
The Salukis never got closer than five points after that, despite Creighton playing without leading scorer Carli Tritz in the stretch run. Tritz scored 12 of her 17 points in the second half to help the Bluejays protect their four-point halftime lead, but fouled out with 5:12 to play.
Jensen finished with 13 points, while Nelson had a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds as Creighton won its second straight to improve to 8-8 in front of 807 at D.J. Sokol Arena. The Bluejays are now 2-3 in the Valley.
Southern Illinois (3-13, 0-6) tied a league record with its 24th straight conference loss. The Salukis’ losing skid put as much pressure on Creighton as it did on them.
“You never want to be that team that loses to them,” Jensen said. “They’ve been playing teams close, so we knew they were better than their record. They’re going to beat some people in the Valley.
“We knew we had to be prepared, and I’m glad we got this win.”
The victory was Jim Flanery’s 100th at home as Creighton’s coach, and it left him with mixed emotions.
“We just haven’t quite put it all together,” he said. “We’ll play well for stretches and put ourselves in a good position. Then we’ll have two or three really bad possessions on either end.
“We are just not sustaining things as well as we should be in mid-January. We had a lot of bright spots, but not as many as you want.”
At the same time, Flanery saw value in having to battle for the victory. Creighton ended a four-game skid Thursday with a 65-33 rout of Evansville.
“If we win by 32 the other day and 30 today, maybe we’re thinking we have this figured out,” he said. “We have plenty of things to tell them that we need to work on in order to give ourselves a chance to keep getting better.”
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