NCAA WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: SECOND ROUND - CREIGHTON VS IOWA

March 20, 2022

Jim Flanery

Lauren Jensen

Payton Brotzki

Creighton Bluejays

Media Conference

Creighton 64, Iowa 62

JIM FLANERY: Yeah, storybook for the two people to my left. For Lauren to do what she did today, if people had asked me -- I've gotten the question a lot, how is Lauren going to feel today, what's Lauren going to play like, da da da da? Those last few minutes had to be magical and special, and we're super proud of her and we're super proud that she's part of our program.

Payton has done an incredible job of waiting her time, and she's contributed to our program over her first three years, but she's had a special senior year. She's played unbelievably well for us. She's been a great leader, and I'm just super happy for her because she's been such a big part of why we're going to the first Sweet 16 in the history of our tournament.

Fortunate to win today. Iowa is a great team. It was a great environment. It was great for the sport, great for the participants and the staffs and the fans. It wasn't necessarily the game I envisioned. I did not think the game would be in the low 60s, and it certainly did not start out that way. It started out like it was going to be 98-93 or somewhere in that range.

But both teams kind of settled in, and the familiarity, I think, obviously with playing each other and scrimmaging each other every year and maybe a little bit of fatigue that second day. But you know, just congrats to Iowa on a great year and for the program that they are. It took everything for us to win.

I'm so proud of our group that we found a way, and can't wait to get back and get ready for whoever is next.

Q. Lauren, can you describe what was going through your mind down the stretch as you discovered that offense was pretty hard to come by and you guys needed something?

LAUREN JENSEN: Honestly I knew we would stay together. We've been in those situations before in close games and we've been able to overcome it. Obviously it was a little bit different environment playing in front of 15,000, but I'm super proud of us for staying together and getting our offense going again.

Q. Lauren, even with the environment and everything, for you personally, being so familiar with this place and having been in and out of here a lot, did that help you at all kind of just be able to digest everything today a little easier to where you could go out and make a shot like that?

LAUREN JENSEN: Obviously I'm pretty familiar with the arena because I played here all of last year, but I felt like that definitely helped. But on the flipside, there's also some nerves with that because I'm wearing a different color this year, but I feel like it did help.

Q. For both of you, what's it mean for you personally and then for the sport to play in an environment like this, a sellout where the decibel reading was over 100 for most of the game?

LAUREN JENSEN: Honestly, it means a lot. Anytime there's a sold-out crowd for women's basketball is great, and obviously to have a game like that, it's super awesome, on ABC. It meant a lot.

PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, as a senior I've played in a lot of gyms in front of a lot of people, but that was the most special environment that I've ever played in by far. And to have the team that we do by my side through that is really special for our team but also for the sport. Like she said, televised on ABC, we knew that going into it. Had to calm our nerves with that, but it's really, really special for the sport.

Q. Lauren, what was your reaction when you saw the shot go in after you got the ball back and let it rip?

LAUREN JENSEN: Honestly, I was just super excited. I honestly didn't know if it was going to go in. It kind of rattled off the back rim there. It wasn't super clean, but I'm just glad it fell.

Q. The rebounding was such a disparity today. You guys dominated on the boards. What did you guys talk about prior to the game, and can you just comment a little bit on how much you outworked them, especially in the first three quarters?

PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, rebounding is a huge focus, not in just this game but in every single game throughout the year. Obviously Czinano is an amazing player, amazing rebounder. We knew we had to kind of win the rebounding battle in that aspect, and that was a huge focus that we had yesterday. And then even this morning we talked about it a lot. Super proud of us for getting that done.

LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, just kind of echoing what Payton said, that was one of our keys to the game and we went out and executed. Monika Czinano is a great player, great rebounder, same with the rest of the team honestly. So just the fact that we were able to get in there and get tips on the ball, too, I feel like we did that really well. We were able to tip it out to where some of our guards can get the ball, so that was good that we were able to follow through on that part of our game plan.

Q. Could this have possibly been scripted any better for you, Lauren? And, Payton, you had a little confrontation with Caitlin early in the game there. Was that just kind of a mood setter, hey, we're going to be physical, hey, we're here?

LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, it's crazy. It's honestly so surreal. I feel like it hasn't really set in yet that we're going to the Sweet 16 and just the fact that it was here, still kind of processing that one a little bit.

PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, I've played against Caitlin Clark since seventh grade. So she's an amazing player, one of the best in the country. But we wanted to let them know that we were ready to come out and be physical and we were just ready to go.

Q. Lauren and Payton, what does it mean for you to be part of this team and to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time in the program's history?

PAYTON BROTZKI: Flan told us before the game that it's unconditional love no matter what happens, so I think that can be a statement for the whole season. This team truly loves each other unconditionally, and it has been the most fun and also the most successful year that I've ever played in basketball. I just think that's a testament to how we have each other's backs, how close we are as teammates, and it just translates to the court.

LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, it means a lot. Right away from summer workouts, this team welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home and a part of the team, and I'm just so grateful for that. To be able to do that with them here today is just so great. We've had such an awesome season, and we knew from preseason workouts that we could do something special, and it's just very rewarding to come here and see that come to fruition.

Q. Lauren, you scored the last two baskets. First was on a drive and then you had the three-pointer. Can you just sort of tell us what you saw on that three-point shot, how you came off a screen or whatever?

LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, I came off of it kind of assessing my options. I knew that if they were going to switch, I could possibly have a three-point shot because they were kind of sagging off on that. And I ended up passing it back to Tatum, and then that kind of freed me up just a little bit to be able to get the shot off.

Q. Can you kind of talk about how obviously this was a huge win for your team and how you guys are kind of savoring the moment, yet also keeping focus for the next one at the same time?

LAUREN JENSEN: Yeah, you know, we're going to let this one sink in a little bit, celebrate this one. But once we step on the court for practice, we'll be ready to go and locked in for our next opponent.

PAYTON BROTZKI: Yeah, just to echo that we're going to be super excited on the bus ride home for the rest of the night. But tomorrow we're locked in and ready to go as soon as we step on the court again for whoever our next opponent is.

Q. Payton, the start of the game it seemed like you were a little bit more trigger-ready than normal. Were you seeing something different in Iowa's coverages that you felt like you had more opportunities to let it go?

PAYTON BROTZKI: We kind of talked about before the game if they had a big on me just to be shot ready. And that truly comes from my coaches and teammates instilling confidence in me before the game, and that just kind of led to me being more shot ready than normal probably. I missed the first one, but once you see one go down, it's confidence that builds on that for the rest of the game.

Q. Just felt like every moment that went Iowa's way today the crowd was ready to blow the roof off this place. How did your players not let that consume them and affect their play on the court?

JIM FLANERY: I think it helped to be in the building on Friday. I know as a coach, to hear how loud it got during the Illinois State game and for our players to be in the building gave them a sense. I felt like if we hadn't been, maybe it's a little different. Just watching the way Illinois State -- I in particular was watching the Illinois State staff to see how they communicated in game to their team and back, from team back. And we talked about that before the game last night a little, but also this morning, about just the need for more eyes to be to the bench, which is part of what you're asking. But also I think the expectation was that it was going to get loud.

We said Iowa -- again, I said it was a different game than I expected. But we said, Iowa is a great offensive team. They're going to go on 6-0, 8-0 runs. I think just having that planted in their heads a little hopefully made a difference. But also I think we've got poised -- I think we have poised players, and I think we haven't been in that environment before, but we've played a really good schedule. So I don't know, that's probably as close as I can get to capturing it.

Q. Caitlin Clark went 4 of 19 from the floor, only went to the line four times, and then at the end when they absolutely went to her, she didn't make a shot. What did you do today to defend her? I think you had three or four defenders on her, Rachael had a lot of time on her. How impressed were you with your team's ability to slow her down and stop her?

JIM FLANERY: Yeah, that was the game plan was to rotate Tatum and Molly Mogensen and Rachael Saunders on to her, those three in particular. Knowing too that there were going to be times in transition where other people were going to have to take her, and off switches they were going to have to take her. But we just felt like -- they're good at the other spots to make -- obviously Czinano is a super tough cover, but they're good at the other spots to the point where you can't over-help because Marshall is such a good shooter and Taiwo and Warnock.

We just felt like our best chance was to rotate defenders on her, 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. Don't bail her out, show your hands to the officials.

I thought they let us play at both ends. For sure they let us play -- I thought both games this weekend, the officiating was consistent in terms of I thought they called verticality pretty well in both games.

So yeah, it was rotate defenders and try to keep the ball -- and keeping a fresher defender on her, that was part of the idea of trying to keep the ball out of her hands a little bit.

Tatum's foul trouble early kind of put a little kink in that plan, but overall I thought we kind of thought that would work, and that was as good as probably you're going to get with somebody that good.

Q. Iowa's 62 was a season low for them. Just your thoughts on that. And after your story about the closet yesterday, we saw you went with khakis. How did that work for you?

JIM FLANERY: Yeah, thanks for that.

Yeah, I think both teams missed opportunities. I mean, I think there was -- I think, like I said, both teams defended well. They did some things to keep us off balance by cross matching Czinano or O'Grady on somebody they wanted to hit a three, either Rembao or Saunders or Payton, and we did some good things, we worked on enough.

But both teams missed opportunities. Emma missed that lay-up late, Tatum missed that wide open lay-up late, but Iowa missed a lot of wide open threes. So I think it was familiarity, but I don't think either team probably played as well offensively as their best.

You know, I think pressure has something to do with that, too.

Q. I think everybody in the building probably knew Monika was going to get the ball at the end. What sort of defense were you trying to run there?

JIM FLANERY: Well, not the one that you saw when we came out. (Laughter).

Really, to be up two, obviously you -- I figured they'd -- you know they're either going dead inside or maybe running an outside hand drive for Caitlin, maybe cut her up the middle of the floor and give her her right hand to go to her outside hand. Those are two things, or just go dead into the post.

Morgan got buried a little bit but she sat on the correct shoulder, she sat on her left shoulder, which is the shoulder that we were consistently telling our kids to sit on when she had her back to the basket.

Fatigue maybe. I think like I said, maybe some of the missed shots late, I think were the product of fatigue. But we were on the correct shoulder. We needed to offer, I felt like, more resistance to the catch. I thought about using my last time-out maybe to -- when I saw their formation, but I didn't, just in case they scored and we needed to -- so...

Q. What was it like to walk into an environment like this? You already know you're going to be on ABC and then you look up and you see almost 15,000 people and have it as loud as it was. What does it mean for the program, for the sport, just for everything in general?

JIM FLANERY: Yeah, it's a little surreal. I mean, I'm getting close to old, and so I've been around long enough to have metal lockers and be in a bigger shared locker space and not have any of the bells and whistles that we currently have. So to see it at this point -- I told Lisa before the game, I said, gosh, this is incredible, and this is a great tribute to you and your staff and your program. And they've obviously been good for a while, but -- you know, the Gustafson years, the interest in Iowa women's basketball was big, but it's obviously at a new level with Caitlin.

Again, it's a tribute to Iowa and what they've done and who and what Caitlin is, but also to the sport, to the greater sport in general and the fact that we're on television. I told somebody that the women's game is actually in a better position to market its best players because the men's best players are gone after a year or two. And Paige and Caitlin and Aliyah Boston and Alissa Smith are there for four years. So you've got a greater opportunity, I think, to grow the sport in that way than on the men's side where the really, really good ones are only there a year or maybe two.

Q. Lauren scored nine in a row for you, nine of your last ten. Given the circumstances, aside from that, but also the stage and the moment, how much guts does it take to do something like that in your opinion?

JIM FLANERY: Yeah, absolutely. I was searching a little bit. They did a good job of making post entry passes hard. They deflected a lot of passes and we felt like we could get Emma more -- that Emma would be able to score a little bit more frequently and efficiently in the post, but I thought they defended the pass pretty well.

Morgan was tired, and we'd kind of explored Molly, so it wasn't total process of elimination. But I do feel like -- because I have so much confidence in Lauren. I'll just tell you a quick story. I started playing some 6:15 morning ball during the pandemic, and this fall we would play at 6:15 on Fridays in the practice facility and the number of times that Lauren was in there was impressive to me.

So as a coach when you have somebody who comes into your program and you're trying to get to know them and you see them when you walk in the gym at 6:00 a.m. and you see somebody who's got the shooting gun set up and putting up jumpers, that resonates, okay. And that's been in my head a lot this year.

I think I've told you when she only took three shots at Nebraska in our third game, I told her in front of the team, Lauren, you have to shoot more, because I know the work that she's put in.

I'm super proud of her and super happy for her because she's put in the work, and so that confidence that I have in her is a lot of what I've seen from her.

Q. Following up on that with Lauren, what do you recall about the conversations you had with her when she said she wanted to leave Iowa and that she wanted to come to Creighton, and what did you expect you were getting when she came to Creighton?

JIM FLANERY: Yeah, honestly I relied on my assistant coaches. I think the way we operate in recruiting, they certainly have more contact with recruits in general than I do. So I think our assistant coaches had established a better -- I had a good relationship with her but had had better relationship with her when we recruited her out of high school. So I think they were more instrumental in selling Iowa than I was.

We just thought that she would fit in. Ironically our leading scorer a year ago was a 2 guard from Lakeville North High School, Temi Carda, so we saw a correlation, and I think she saw a correlation. She knew Temi, she knew the family, she knew Temi's experience, and so that made it, I think, much easier for her to jump when it came down to making a decision where she wanted to go after Iowa.

I certainly credit my staff, and I think Temi's experience made an impact on the family.

Q. I was curious, you called time-out, you're down four, 1:32 to go, you drew up that play to get Lauren a lay-up, but how much of that time-out was you telling everyone, hey, calm down, we're okay? And was Lauren, who's been in this environment, was she saying that to her teammates?

JIM FLANERY: The fourth quarter was about telling them to calm down. I don't know specifically if that time-out was because I felt like that was more -- a little bit more of an X's and O's time-out and just being -- not deviating.

We decided or I decided at about the 3- to 4-minute mark that I wanted to put the ball in Lauren's hands and get Czinano switched on to her and let her go make plays, and that's kind of what we had talked about during the time-outs.

We just got a couple other people get a little excited, and I just wanted to repeat that that's what I wanted, because I felt like she can score at all three levels. Like if you get the switch and get it back to her now, now you've got to guard her all the way up at the three line. And she's a good finisher at the rim, and if they want to bring help, she's a good mid-range shooter.

Really in terms of what we have offensively, she is that player.

Lauren was just -- she's a listener. She's reasonably quiet so she wasn't telling people to calm down but she's a good listener. Tatum and I usually have some sort of banter going, but I felt like they were all really good at listening. You don't come back and win it if you're not still in the moment. That's what we talked about before the game was stay in the moment, don't take your mind back to what you could have done or should have done and don't take it too far forward. Stay in the moment.

I felt like we did a good job of that the last few possessions, so I thought -- it's not just Lauren making the shot, it's everybody else kind of adhering to what we were trying to do.