PROVO — Five games into conference play after missing eight games due to injury, Delaney Gibb is definitely back.
She proved it Saturday afternoon.
Gibb followed up her season-high 21-point effort at Arizona with 19 points, four assists and three steals as BYU led nearly wire-to-wire en route to a 79-64 win over Houston that helped the visiting Cougars split a two-game road trip at the Fertitta Center in Houston, Texas.
Oliva Hamlin added 14 points, three assists and two steals for the Cougars (14-3, 3-2 Big 12), who got 13 points, seven rebounds and three blocks from freshman Bolanle Yussuf.
Brinley Cannon had 11 points and five rebounds, Marya Hudgins supplied 10 points, four rebounds and three assists, and Lara Rohkohl pulled down nine rebounds with 7 points as BYU won for the seventh time in the last nine games.
“I thought that Livvy came in and gave us a really big lift in the second half, playing free and playing on attack,” BYU coach Lee Cummard told ESPN+ of Hamlin, the freshman from Santa Clara who connected on a career-high four 3-pointers. “It was good to see.”
Through 17 games of Cummard’s first season as head coach, BYU has yet to lose back-to-back games.
Kiera Merchant had 18 points, five rebounds and four steals for Houston (6-10, 0-5 Big 12).
Yussuf shot 4-for-4 for 8 points in the first quarter, despite playing just three minutes due to foul trouble, as the Cougars ended the frame on a 7-0 run to take a 28-16 lead.
Houston had just six players available after three of its players were ejected for fighting and another for leaving the bench during a 71-62 loss to Kansas State that dropped Houston to 0-4 in Big 12 play.
Houston led by as many as 14 points before the Wildcats’ comeback and ending that first-year Houston coach Matthew Mitchell called “disappointing.”
That left Houston with just one player available outside of Mitchell’s starting five Saturday afternoon in Kyndall Hunter.
The senior transfer from Texas A&M did all she could, finishing 1 point off her season high with 19 points with three assists and three steals, including a 3-pointer as her hometown team overcame a 15-point deficit to pull within 48-46 with four minutes left in the third quarter.
But Hamlin ended the period with three 3-pointers to help the visitors to a 59-51 lead with 10 minutes to play.
“It was really all my teammates,” Hamlin said. “They set up great looks for more, and I just tried to knock it down.”
Sydney Benally left the game with an ankle injury in the fourth quarter, finishing with 3 points and a game-high nine assists in 20 minutes.
Gibb scored 6 points in the final period to help the visiting Cougars pull away for good.
BYU returns home for the first of three-straight home games beginning next Saturday against No. 16 Baylor (2 p.m. MST, ESPN+).
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