Creighton head coach Jim Flanery knew his team had its hands full on Thursday night ahead of their in-state rivalry matchup at Nebraska on Sunday afternoon. Green Bay brought back seven of their top eight scorers after finishing 28-6 last season and winning the Horizon League regular season crown. The Bluejays weren’t looking past the Phoenix, but whether it was a missed shot here or a turnover there, compounded by an inability to extinguish a 17-0 first-quarter run sooner, put them in a hole that they were never able to climb out of in a 65-53 home loss to fall to 2-1 on the season.
The Phoenix shot 60.9% from the floor in the first half and 54.5% for the game while holding the Jays to 6-for-26 shooting from 3-point territory and forcing them into a 25.4% turnover rate.
“Green Bay is a really good team and we knew that this was going to be a really tough game,” Flanery said. “They are tough-minded and good at both ends. They fight, they’re deep, and I thought they were really hard to prepare for … I thought we did settle in defensively and got better. But offensively, they are a tough team to find a rhythm against because of how much they compete and how much experience they have. It’s not a bad loss, but I’m disappointed that we didn’t play a…
