Her coach called it “storybook” and, freely as that word is tossed around at this time of year, it really is the perfect description.
A year ago, Lauren Jensen looked at the scarce playing time she was getting at Iowa and decided she’d be better off somewhere else. On Sunday, she scored nine of the last 10 points for her new team, including a 3-pointer with 12 seconds left that lifted 10th-seeded Creighton to its first-appearance in the Sweet 16.
The team Jensen and Creighton beat? None other than Iowa.
“It’s so crazy,” Jensen told USA TODAY Sports after Creighton’s 64-62 win. “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet how surreal and just what a special moment it is. I’m just so grateful to be able to do it in this jersey and with this team.”
This wasn’t what Jensen planned, or could even have imagined, when she announced last spring that she was leaving Iowa.
A finalist for Minnesota Miss Basketball her senior season, Jensen was recruited by Creighton and Iowa in high school. She chose the Hawkeyes and who could blame her? Iowa coach Lisa Bluder has built a powerhouse program that wants for little – resources, fan support, exposure – and Caitlin Clark, now a candidate for National Player of the Year, was part of the same recruiting class.
But after averaging more than 10 minutes in Iowa’s first nine games, Jensen saw her playing time almost disappear. There were several games when she didn’t even get on the floor, others where she logged only a minute.
By the end of the season, her spot on the bench was essentially fixed.
“Honestly, it was a really hard decision if I should stay or go. It was hard to decide if (I) should stay and give it one more year, or leave and try to find somewhere else,” Jensen said. “Ultimately, I made the decision to put my name in the (transfer) portal.”
Jensen considered other schools, and Creighton coach Jim Flanery said it was his assistants who did a lot of the work to try and sell her, again, on the Bluejays. In the end, though, it was someone else entirely who might have been the deciding factor.
Creighton’s leading scorer last year was Temi Carda, who’d gone to the same high school as Jensen.
“I think she saw a correlation,” Flanery said. “She knew Temi, she knew the family, she knew Temi’s experience of her, 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.”
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When a first school isn’t the right fit, finding one that is only half the challenge. After being so used to having success, it can rock your confidence when suddenly you don’t. But there was something Flanery saw soon after Jensen got to Creighton that let him know she’d be OK.
“We would play at 6:15 am on Fridays in the practice facility, and the number of times that Lauren was in there was impressive to me,” he said. “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 am (with) the shooting gun set up and putting up jumpers, that resonates. And that’s been in my head a lot this year.”
Not that Flanery was thinking of that as the clock ticked down Sunday afternoon.
Creighton had dominated second-seeded Iowa for almost the entire game, only to have Iowa claw back in the fourth quarter. The Bluejays were tiring, and Iowa had taken away several of their offensive options.
But Jensen kept hitting. And she, better than anyone, knew how Iowa would respond.
“I think I did,” Jensen said when asked if she had an advantage because of playing for Iowa last year. “I knew kind of how they were playing me, I knew the things they’d maybe be doing on defense.”
After a Mckenna Warnock putback gave Iowa a 62-58 lead with 1:35 left, Jensen scored on a driving layup. When Kate Martin missed a 3 that would have sealed the win for Iowa, Jensen grabbed the rebound and took the ball up court.
Ignoring the deafening roar of the sold-out crowd around her, and Iowa center Monika Czinano right in front of her, Jensen squared up and let fly.
“I didn’t know if it was going to go in. It kind of rattled off the back rim there,” said Jensen, who was Creighton’s leading scorer with 19 points. “It wasn’t super clean, but I’m just glad it fell.”
Iowa would take, and miss, three more shots before the final buzzer finally sounded. As the Bluejays mobbed her, Jensen looked shell-shocked. Thirty minutes later, there was still a note of wonder in her voice as she talked about the win.
“It’s so crazy how it’s come full circle,” Jensen said. “It’s a typical, NCAA March Madness story.”
One that couldn’t have been scripted any better.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armor on Twitter @nrarmour.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism