There had been two big questions for No. 10 Creighton coach Jim Flanery heading into this second-round game against No. 2 Iowa. One had to do with an opposing player: What on earth would his team do with Caitlin Clark, the leading scorer in the nation and an electrifying, game-changing presence? The other had to do with one of his own: What would this be like for Lauren Jensen, who transferred last spring from Iowa to Creighton, and now would be walking back into her old arena as an underdog?
The Bluejays managed to find an answer for Clark. And later, when it was all over, Flanery had his own answer on Jensen:
“Storybook.”
The sophomore guard returned to her old stomping grounds of Carver-Hawkeye Arena, faced off against one of the best players in the country in Clark and took matters into her own hands for the last few minutes of the game. She scored nine of the last 10 points for the Bluejays, including a go-ahead three-pointer, to seal the deal: Creighton pulled off the upset, 64–62, to lock in the first trip in program history to the Sweet 16.
Ron Johnson/AP Photo
“It’s crazy,” Jensen said, grinning at the podium afterwards as she tried to find the words to describe her performance. “It’s honestly so surreal. I feel like it hasn’t really sunk in yet that we’re going to the Sweet 16, and the fact that it was here—I’m still kind of processing that one a little bit.”
The win knocked one of the biggest stars in the game out of the tournament much earlier than anticipated. Clark is the definition of appointment television, and after leading the Hawkeyes to the Sweet 16 in 2021, she was poised to take them even deeper in ’22. Instead, she found herself on the losing end of a tremendous upset, at the hands of someone who had been a teammate last year.
It’s all but impossible to truly neutralize Clark as a threat. She led the country this season not just in scoring (27.0 ppg), but also in assists (8.0 apg), the first player ever to lead the nation in both categories. She’s dangerous from all over the floor, and her slick, no-look passes can be just as impressive as her buckets. But Creighton showed Sunday at least what it looks like to significantly quiet her: 15 points, her lowest total of the season, alongside 11 assists.
“We just felt like our best chance was to rotate defenders on her,” Flanery said of Clark. “Try to keep the ball out of her hands, especially late shot clock, make it difficult for her to catch, and then just be vertical at the rim.”
The result of that effort was striking. Iowa’s offense is typically nothing short of explosive, centered on the duo of Clark and Monika Czinano, who offers a dominant presence in the post. The pairing made a heroic effort Sunday: As Clark faced down the defensive pressure on her from the Bluejays, she did as much as she could to feed Czinano, who finished as the leading scorer with 27. But those two cannot win a game entirely on their own. And they had little to work with from their teammates here.
More than 18 minutes of gameplay had passed before a bucket from a Hawkeye other than Clark or Czinano. Ultimately, no one else scored in double digits, and the rest of the team finished the afternoon shooting 9 of 31. This is usually the best offense in the country: The program led the nation in effective field goal percentage (56.2%), points per scoring attempt (1.2) and offensive rating from Her Hoops Stats (119.5). Much of that comes from Clark and Czinano, naturally, but the squad has other typically reliable contributors in McKenna Warnock and Kate Martin. There was little from them against Creighton, and in the end, that proved damning.
But the outcome was dependent on far more than the lackluster play of the non-Clark-and-Czinano Hawkeyes. The Bluejays deserved plenty of credit for all they did to control the game—most notably with rebounding and second-chance points. Creighton beat Iowa on the boards, 52 to 37, with almost twice as many offensive rebounds. That, perhaps more than anything, allowed the Bluejays to stop the Hawkeyes from opening up the space to take over the game.
Yet, even with all of that, it was close all the way down to the end. Which led to Jensen with the ball, the shot clock off as the final seconds of the fourth quarter ticked down in front of a deafening sell-out crowd. The Bluejays needed a two to tie and a three to take the lead. Jensen passed to Tatum Rembao, pulling a defender off her and creating an opening for Rembao to send it right back to Jensen. She now had an open look a few feet beyond the arc.
She didn’t hesitate: Creighton, 63, Iowa, 62.
It wasn’t over just yet—15 seconds remained—but Iowa could not pull back ahead. And so the hero of the day was not Clark, or Czinano, or even Creighton’s regular-season leading scorer Emma Ronsiek. (She finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds.) Instead, it was Jensen, dominating on the court she had left behind last year.
“That’s an incredible storyline,” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder said after the game. “She goes over there and she comes back and beats us on our home court.”
Bluder could only sigh.
“I wish it wasn't in this situation. But I’m happy for her.”
