Delaney Gibb didn’t put up a career high in points against Utah this time, but she didn’t have to.
The first-team All-Big 12 guard instead led a second-half BYU rally during the second round of the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament, as the Cougars beat their rivals 70-52 on Thursday afternoon at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
After Utah went into halftime up 36-27 on the heels of a 17-2 run and still maintained a seven-point lead with three and a half minutes left in the third quarter, Gibb and the Cougars turned up the heat.
BYU ended up forcing Utah into 19 turnovers, and the Cougars converted those takeaways into 18 points, one of the major determining factors in the postseason matchup.
“I feel like kind of all of the pieces to the puzzle are just coming together right now for us,” said Gibb, whose team is on a five-game win streak. “We’ve talked all season about being a team that plays together and plays for each other, and I think that that’s just been shown so well throughout these past five games.
“We’ve been moving the ball so well. We’ve been getting great opportunities for each other, and then on defense we’ve been just working hard, executing the game plan, and just being super focused and being tough. I think that’s why we’ve been successful so far these past five games, and it’s fun basketball to play.”
“I feel like kind of all of the pieces to the puzzle are just coming together right now for us.”
— BYU guard Delaney Gibb
Turnovers, in particular, helped flip the script at the end of the third quarter.
No. 9 seed BYU forced the No. 8-seeded Utes into six turnovers over the final three minutes of the third period, and that fueled a 15-0 Cougars run.
At one point, BYU scored seven straight points to tie the game without Utah ever being able to get the ball over midcourt; then freshman All-Big 12 guard Olivia Hamlin delivered a banked-in 3 at the buzzer to give the Cougars a 51-43 lead going into the fourth.
“I think Delaney had one and Liv had one, too, that were in shot-clock situations. Just glad they went in today,” BYU coach Lee Cummard said, of Hamlin’s 3 that ended the quarter and kept the momentum going.
Why didn’t Utah coach Gavin Petersen call a timeout to stop the bleeding?
“I thought, you know, it was getting close to the media (timeout), so I didn’t want to burn one. I believe in these guys so much in being able to make a comeback, so I thought I would definitely need those timeouts towards the end of the game,” Petersen said.
“Again, in that third quarter you’d hope that they can stop the bleeding. I mean, hindsight 20/20. I do feel like — and we talk about it all the time, the ability that we have to shoot the basketball and score the basketball, I wanted to give them a chance and then chip away, and maybe we’ll use those timeouts when they’re a lot more needed. But, again, hindsight 20/20."
BYU kept it rolling in the final period, scoring 17 of the game’s final 22 points and outscoring Utah 43-16 after halftime in what was essentially an NCAA Tournament elimination game.
“BYU played really, really well in that third quarter and into the fourth,” Petersen said. “I was really proud of our first half tonight. I thought we were playing Utah basketball. We were dialed in. Our energy was good.
“Then not sure what happened in that third quarter, but we kind of got away from that, maybe started pressing a little too much. Then they gained momentum. This time of year momentum is hard to stop, and we just weren’t able to get kind of over the hump there in that third and fourth quarter.”
Both squads entered the Big 12 tournament as bubble teams, needing a big run to bolster their NCAA résumé.
Utah (20-11, 10-8 Big 12) had a first-round bye, while BYU (22-10, 9-9) overcame turnover issues of its own to beat No. 16 seed Houston in the first round.
The Cougars, winners of five straight, still likely have work to do to make the NCAAs, considering they don’t have a Quad 1 win yet, though they’re 8-4 against Quad 2 opponents.
They’ll get another chance at a Quad 1 win when they face No. 1 seed TCU, the two-time Big 12 regular-season champions, in Friday’s quarterfinals (12:30 p.m. MST, ESPNU).
BYU lost to the Horned Frogs by 24 points in Provo during the regular season.
For Utah, meanwhile, it’s less likely the program makes a fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
The Utes began the day as the first team out in the latest bracketology from ESPN’s Charlie Creme, and while the Utes are 2-2 against Quad 1 opponents, they have gone 4-7 since, losing the first matchup against BYU back on Jan. 31.
“I think our team is deserving. We had some pretty good wins,” said Utah senior guard Lani White, on her pitch why Utah should earn an NCAA at-large bid. “We fought in a lot of games. Obviously in a perfect world I would love to dance in March as a senior, but man, I mean, whatever our postseason — however it plays out, we’re just going to be grateful that we’re still playing, to be quite honest with you."
The Cougars ended up with three wins over rival Utah this season with Thursday’s result, thanks to Gibb.
Two weeks ago when BYU beat Utah at the Huntsman Center, Gibb scored a career-high 37, beating out her 36 from a year earlier when the Cougars lost to the Utes by three in Salt Lake City.
BYU also beat Utah in Provo back on Jan. 3, when, like Thursday, the Cougars rallied from a first-half deficit.
On Thursday, while the sophomore standout struggled with her shooting and turnovers over the game’s first two and a half quarters, Gibb paced the Cougars on both ends over the dominant last 13 minutes of the game.
Gibb led BYU with 19 points, eight assists, five rebounds and four steals, to counter six turnovers. She also hit four of BYU’s 11 3-pointers.
In the second half, Gibb had 12 points, shot 5 of 9 from the field and added five assists and four steals while turning the ball over just once.
“One of the assistants on staff suggested an adjustment offensively (at halftime) because of the way that they were guarding Delaney Gibb, and we got probably five or six baskets from just switching it from her having the ball in her hands to getting it on a handoff,” Cummard said.
“It was just a great second half for us.”
Forward Laura Rohkohl, who was held scoreless in the first half, added 12 points before fouling out, while Brinley Cannon scored 12, all on 3-pointers.
“I felt like I started a little slow. I was good on defense, but I never got going on offense in the first half of the game,” Rohkohl said. “I feel like we just played together as a team and if we move the ball and I get the ball down there, that’s how I score.
“I feel like just us as a team coming together and actually playing as a team got me going.”
BYU marched out to a 22-17 lead after one quarter, thanks to shooting 6 of 13 from 3-point range while forcing six Utah turnovers.
White, a second-team All-Big 12 selection, got the Utes going in the second quarter.
After a slow start to the period, Utah went on a 17-2 run to end the quarter, starting with a Maty Wilke jumper. Over the final 5:41 of the quarter, the Utes outscored BYU by 15 to go into the half up 36-27.
White, who had a game-high 20 points, scored 11 in the second quarter while shooting 4 of 6 from the floor.
Like BYU in the second half, the Utes fed off their defensive intensity to make the second-quarter run happen, and back-to-back 3-pointers from LA Sneed and White pushed Utah ahead 32-25 before the team finished the half strong.
The Utes also got eight points from Wilke and six points and eight rebounds from Chyra Evans.
“No one wants to lose in this tournament. It’s tough, because I think we had a really good few days getting up to this,” White said. “We had a good first half. We were confident, and I think we had been talking about it all season, the third quarter is what hurts us, and it hurt us tonight.
“So I’m really upset as a senior, because I’m wishing I could have done things different.”
The Utes’ intensity didn’t carry over to the second half, and Petersen, when things started to unravel in the third, didn’t call a timeout as BYU’s defense began to unravel the Utes.
Instead, the Cougars relied on Gibb and unsung heroes like Arielle Mackey-Williams (seven points, one steal off the bench) to fuel the rally, including a 3 late in the third that pulled BYU within two.
“I don’t want this press conference to go on without letting Ari Mackey-Williams know that she was very instrumental in our run in the second half,” Cummard said.
“She came in and gave us some poise and some composure, and she’s been at this level for a long time and hit a big 3 on a baseline out of bounds. It’s a baseline out of bounds we haven’t run once the entire year. We didn’t execute it perfectly, but it was good enough.”
Now, the Cougars get their date with the Horned Frogs once again, and the chance again to prove they belong in the NCAA Tournament.
One game at a time, though.
“I’m really grateful for this group and how connected they are. They want to do it for each other and for the name on the front of their jersey,” Cummard said.
“I hate that it comes at Coach Petersen’s expense to advance, because he does such a great job. He’s got a great team, but glad that we were on the winning side of today’s battle.”
