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Creighton coach Jim Flanery partly blames himself for the dip in production recently experienced by sophomore forward Sarah Nelson.

Nelson has been one of the Bluejays' top scorers but went through a four-game stretch where she didn't hit her average one time, including scoring four points in one game and eight in another.

"Sarah's a tough matchup for almost every '5' in our league because she's so versatile," Flanery said. "She got off to such a good start and was scoring the ball with her back to the basket so well early that I might have put her down there too much.

"The fact is that at 6-foot, she's more suited to going out on the floor and using ball screens. A lot of that dip that we saw was my fault because I overbought her back-to-the-basket game. She can still score down there, but she's better off movement."

The good news for the Bluejays, who host a 7:05 p.m. "pink out" game Friday against Illinois State, is that the coach has recognized the error of his ways and has adjusted Nelson's role.

That's led to a dramatic uptick in her production in her last three games. She scored 16 points Feb. 4 against Missouri State, then followed it up last week with career-high efforts of 23 points against Evansville and 25 points against Southern Illinois.

She also shot better than 50 percent in each game after going through an eight-game stretch in which she made half her shots just once.

"When you get into those slumps, a lot of it's mental," Nelson said. "That makes things that much harder, because as hard as the game is physically, you're battling that mental thing.

"It just feels good to be out of it, and I hope I'm not jinxing myself by talking about this."

Nelson's hot streak has boosted her scoring average to 13.3, second on the team behind sophomore Carli Tritz's 14.2. Nelson also leads the Bluejays (13-11) in rebounding with a 7.7 average, and her 60 assists rank second on the team.

She's also within one turnover of having a dead-even assist-to-turnover ratio.

"It's really rare in women's basketball to have a post player with more assists than turnovers," Flanery said. "She's led us in assists in a couple of games. We had talked to her about becoming a better ballhandler and passer, and that's one of the parts of her game in which she's really improved."

Nelson, who played high school basketball at Omaha Westside, emerged as a starter at the end of last season, partly because of an injury to her older sister, Kellie. Kellie Nelson played the past four seasons for the Bluejays, including her last two as a starter.

Following in her older sister's footsteps, Sarah said, has its advantages and disadvantages.

"The biggest advantage is having someone to talk to when it starts going bad," Sarah said. "I've talked to her a lot this season, and it's like, 'Yeah, I remember going through that.' Everyone is going to have slumps and bad games and needs a pick-me-up every once in awhile.

"She's the person that can do that because she understands."

The disadvantage?

"She's the first one to tell me to suck it up," Sarah said. "She tells me she doesn't feel bad for me because she was there once, too. But she's my biggest supporter."

While Flanery has tried hard not to compare the sisters, he said, it's easy to spot the differences in them. He said Kellie was a "pleaser," a player who tried hard to do the right thing to not get on the bad side of the coach.

"Sarah doesn't care that much what anyone thinks," he said. "Which is good because she's not looking over to the bench every time she misses a shot to see if I'm going to take her out."

Sarah also brings a fiery nature to the court. It's common for Flanery in film sessions to point out to other players how hard Nelson is playing. That fierce competitiveness has surfaced a couple of times this season when Nelson snapped back at the coach after getting chewed out.

When told that Flanery brought that up as an example of how competitive she is, Nelson laughed nervously.

"I usually don't do things like that," she said. "It goes along with my competitiveness. And the first time it happened, he was yelling about something I knew wasn't my fault.

"It's not something I'm proud of because I think the worst thing in the world is to disrespect your coach. And the first time it happened, I was like, 'Sarah, shut up!'"

• NOTES: Creighton is asking fans to wear pink to Friday's game as part of a promotion to raise cancer research awareness. The Bluejays will wear pink uniforms as part of the promotion. ... Illinois State brings a 14-9 record into the game and is tied for first place with Wichita State and Missouri State with 9-3 records. Creighton is fifth in the league at 7-6.

Contact the writer:

402-679-2298, steve.pivovar@owh.com

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