No. 5 Creighton upsets No. 4 Marquette, advances to face UConn women in Big East semifinals
UNCASVILLE — For the second year in a row, the UConn women’s basketball team’s path to a Big East Tournament championship will run through Creighton.
The No. 5-seed Bluejays took down 4-seed Marquette 57-44 in the quarterfinals at Mohegan Sun Arena on Saturday afternoon, advancing to the semifinals for a fourth straight season. Creighton’s win was the first upset of the 2026 tournament after the higher seeds won in all three first-round games.
The Huskies beat Creighton in the 2025 Big East title game, and the teams will meet again this year a round earlier in the semifinal. The teams tip off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Mohegan Sun Arena with a berth to the championship on the line.
The Bluejays led Marquette by just four points at halftime, but they pulled away early in the second half after a 15-0 run that extended across the final seven minutes of the second quarter and into the first three and a half minutes of the third.
Though Creighton had a mediocre offensive performance shooting 41.4% from the field and going 4-for-24 on 3-pointers, the Bluejays locked down defensively on a Marquette team that entered the matchup ranked second in the conference in field goal and 3-pointer percentage. Creighton held the Golden Eagles to 29.3% shooting including a 4-for-17 outing from beyond the arc. The Bluejays also forced 17 turnovers while giving up just 11.
Senior guard Kennedy Townsend, Creighton’s only returning contributor from last year’s squad, anchored the Bluejays with 17 points shooting 58% from the field and 3-for-7 on 3-pointers. Star freshman Ava Zediker, a unanimous All-Big East first team selection, added 15 points while leading the team with six rebounds and four assists. Freshman Kendall McGee also added three of Creighton’s eight steals.
Entering Sunday’s semifinal, Creighton is 0-2 against No. 1 UConn this year and has never beaten the Huskies in 14 meetings since 2014. UConn delivered the Bluejays their two largest losses of the 2025-26 season, first with a 95-54 victory in Omaha on Jan. 11, then a 94-44 rout at Gampel Pavilion on Feb. 11.
The undefeated Huskies are five-time defending champions in the Big East Tournament look to reach their conference championship game for a 22nd consecutive season.
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