Gibson scores career-high 26 as CCU women win big

Coach Jaida Williams would share afterward that she had passed along a challenge to point guard Ced Gibson before the Coastal Carolina women’s basketball team took the court Tuesday night.

“Before we came out of the locker room we told Ced, ‘We need you to be our fire. It starts with you,’” Williams recounted.

And it was a message the junior guard clearly took to heart.

Gibson answered with a career-high 26 points along with four assists, five rebounds and five steals to lead the Chanticleers to a 61-40 win over Charleston Southern inside The HTC Center.

The Chants (9-15, 4-11 Big South) have now won two of their last three games by more than 20 points and have won nine straight meetings with the Buccaneers (11-14, 6-10).

“It feels great. I mean, a win always feels great, but I thought that we played well and that’s just the icing on the cake that that we all played together and we played really well tonight,” Gibson said.

She scored 16 of her 26 points in the second half as the hosts built upon a 16-12 halftime lead to pull away for the lopsided victory.

She wasn’t the only star for the Chants, though.

Senior guard Nicole Isaacs finished with 16 points and four steals while draining 4-of-7 3-pointers and scoring 11 of those points during the third quarter as Coastal Carolina outscored Charleston Southern (11-14, 6-10) by a 26-9 margin in that pivotal period.

“That was extremely encouraging,” Williams said. “... It says that our student-athletes are resilient. They are resilient and hungry to win. I got a nice text from UNC Asheville after we played them, and she said, ‘I don’t want to be at the end of your schedule – watch out.’ And so it’s a testament to how hard they have been playing lately. I’m really proud of our student-athletes.”

While the end result was dominating, the Chants actually got off to something of a sluggish start Tuesday night while shooting just 28.6 percent from the field in the first half. They scored just two points off of turnovers before halftime despite forcing 19 turnovers to that point (albeit while committing 17 themselves).

Everything changed in the third quarter, though.

The Chants were leading 20-14 when Isaacs launched into an offensive flurry. She dropped in a 3-pointer from the right side, and after the Bucs countered with the next three points, Isaacs scored again on a jumper, dropped in another 3 and then another as the lead swelled to 31-17.

“I think I was just trying to get our team going,” Isaacs said. “I think my team has a lot of confidence in me so I’m not hesitant to shoot.”

The Chants later scored the final nine points of the third quarter – including five from Gibson – to push their lead to 42-21.

Gibson’s big game eclipsed her previous career high of 24 points, which she had reached twice this season – including in the previous home game.

“Once I got going, I thought my coaches put me in a great position to score and my teammates were looking for me,” she said.

In those last two home games the Coastal Carolina women have recorded a 26-point win over High Point and this 21-point victory over Charleston Southern, but with five games remaining in the regular season the Chants are nonetheless mired in ninth place in the conference standings.

While she’s pleased with the team’s recent play, Williams admitted that seeing the Chants play to their potential in these one-sided wins has led her to at least consider the what-if’s in a mostly underwhelming season for the program.

“All the time,” she said. “[But] our student-athletes, they’re getting it. They’re getting how hard they have to play. I’m excited for when we get everybody back.”

yas day to day, banyard day to day, raechel ligament in thumb

The Chants had lost seven out of eight games before winning two of the past three. They’ve been without leading scorer Rachael Gregory for the last 11 games as the graduate transfer guard sustained a season-ending thumb injury in shootaround back in early January after turning in perhaps her best game of the season with 19 points and nine rebounds in a win at Gardner-Webb.

The team was also missing junior forwards Yasmin Miller and Derriel Banyard, who are both considered day-to-day, on Tuesday night.

Making up for the loss of Gregory, though, has been a challenge throughout the second half of the season.

“I think in some respects we’re still adjusting,” Williams said. “Rachael was a huge, huge part of our offense and our defense. She made things go and she got us a lot of easy transition baskets because of her defense. We’re still adjusting to not having her, but our student-athletes are doing a great job of just being resilient and next man up. We say that all the time – next woman up.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2016 at 9:57 PM with the headline "Gibson scores career-high 26 as CCU women win big."