Creighton Post-Postgame (For 1/3/2024 Game in Omaha)

[JoePgh]

Don't ask me how, but I just re-watched the full game replay of UConn's road game against Creighton, which was played in Omaha on January 3 of this year. In view of many of the comments made in the postgame thread for the recent game on February 19, both the commentary and the statistics on the Omaha game offer a refreshing perspective.

Most people remember this game as the one in which Aubrey got her season-ending injury. In his postgame comments in Hartford on Monday, Creighton coach Jim Flanery noted another reason why the score was memorable, at least for him: it was 94-50 in favor of UConn, which is exactly the dimensions of a basketball court (94 x 50 feet).

I noticed other tidbits that are interesting in retrospect:

1. Nika got her 500th career assist in the Omaha game. As we know, she got her 600th career assist quite recently (either against Georgetown or Creighton). That means that she got 100 assists (one sixth of her career output) in just six weeks between January 3 and February 19. The box scores of the two games show that UConn had played 14 games by January 3, and 28 games by February 19. So Nika got 100 assists in about 14 games. That is impressive both for volume and consistency -- I wonder if Sue Bird or any other point guard got that many assists in such a small number of consecutive games.
2. KK Arnold had a poor shooting game in the Hartford game against Creighton, as numerous posters observed. She was 1-for-9 in field goals, 0-4 from the 3-point line, and 0-3 from the free throw line. That caused Boneyard posters to say that she is (and may always be) a poor shooter, lacking arc on her shot, showing bad judgment by not kicking the ball out to a shooter at the end of her drives, and for these reasons is likely to be replaced in the starting lineup next year. Never mind her 6 rebounds, 5 assists vs. 2 turnovers, and 3 steals in Monday's game. Well, folks, check out what she did in Omaha: she shot 5-7 and 2-3 from 3-point range, and 5-6 on free throws. The SNY play-by-play broadcaster Allen Bestwick noted that she was shooting 40% from 3-point land up to that point in the season. She scored 17 points in the Omaha game, together with 3 rebounds and 2 steals -- but she also had 0 assists and 3 turnovers. Lesson: One game is one game, and no one should draw any conclusions about a player's long-term potential based on one good game or one bad game. In this instance, with respect to shooting, KK had one good game and one bad game against Creighton this year -- and let's remind ourselves that shooting well or badly does not equate to playing well or badly.
3. Ice Brady's stats for the two games are also interesting to compare. She played 15 minutes in the Omaha game, scoring 3 points and getting 5 rebounds including 2 offensive rebounds. She had 2 assists and only 1 foul and 1 turnover. In Hartford, she played almost the same minutes (13) and scored 1 point with just 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 turnover, and 4 fouls. Despite posters in the Hartford postgame thread expressing cautious optimism about her play, I thought Ice had a relatively poor game by recent standards in Hartford, and that her game in Omaha was better. She excelled last week against Xavier and Georgetown, but she still has to show that she can have a good game against a reasonably good team.

I confess that one of my pet peeves with Boneyard postgame commentary is that it suffers from severe "recency bias" -- people tend to forget about every game except the one that they just watched, and make sweeping generalizations that a player will either become an All-American or ride the bench based on how they played in that one game. But I guess that is inherent in the nature of a devoted fan.