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- BYU women's basketball team defeated McNeese 85-64, improving to a 5-0 start.
- Five BYU players scored in double figures, led by Delaney Gibb and Emma Calvert.
- Coach Amber Whiting praised the team's ball-sharing and strong defensive performance.
PROVO — For the better part of 20 minutes to open Tuesday night's game, Delaney Gibb could barely buy a bucket — particularly from the perimeter, where the four-star freshman from Raymond, Alberta, missed her first four 3-point attempts.
It took her 12 seconds into the third quarter to remedy her shot.
Gibb totaled 18 points, seven rebounds, seven assists and three steals; and Emma Calvert scored 18 on 7-of-11 shooting as the BYU women's basketball team pulled past McNeese 85-64 in front of 1,488 fans at the Marriott Center.
Amari Whiting had 11 points, five rebounds and five assists for the Cougars (5-0), Kemery Congdon added 11 points and three assists, and Brinley Cannon scored a career-high 11 points for BYU.
Kiayra Ellis led all scorers with 20 points for McNeese (3-2), and Kyla Davis added 11 points for the Cowgirls, who were held to just 37% shooting including 29.4% in the fourth quarter.
"I feel like we shared the ball a lot," said BYU coach Amber Whiting, whose team distributed 23 assists on 32 made baskets with 11 turnovers. "But the biggest for me was having five players in double digits, and Kambree (Barber) almost there.
"It just shows that if this team plays together and they all are firing, it's going to be really hard to beat us."
BYU opened the game shooting 80% from the field and led by as many as 6 points. But Ellis scored 7 in the first quarter and Mireia Yespes added 6 to help McNeese, which lost 118-50 at Utah just 24 hours earlier, to a 13-2 run.
The Cowgirls led by as much as 5, but Cannon scored 9 points on 4-of-4 shooting off the bench to help the Cougars to a 22-21 edge at the first-quarter break.
Gibb missed on her first four 3-point attempts. But Congdon drained back-to-back from the perimeter, and Calvert added a third as the Cougars ended the half on a 13-3 run to take a 41-35 lead into the break.
Congdon and Calvert each scored 11 points on a combined 9-of-12 shooting, including four 3-pointers, in the first half to lead BYU. Ellis had a game-high 15 points, including all four of her 3-point attempts, for the Cowgirls.
"Brinley does a really good job of coming in and asserting herself from the beginning," Whiting said. "She's really beginning, and I love her cuts. ... Brinley bails us out on a cut all the time. She's really sneaky around the basket, and I love watching her play."
Gibb saw her first triple going down 12 seconds into the half, and BYU opened the third on a 14-4 run to turn a 6-point edge into a 16-point advantage midway through the period. The freshman went from struggling to just 4 points on 2-of-6 shooting in the first half to mildly flirting with a triple double in totaling 16 points, six rebounds and five assists by the end of the third quarter.
The Cougars shot 51% from the field and led by as much as 25 in the second half, allowing Whiting to empty her bench for the likes of Barber, Hattie Ogden, Heather Hamson and walk-on point guard Naia Tanuvasa to finish the final minutes of the game.
Barber finished with 7 points and six rebounds for BYU, which hosts Northern Colorado on Saturday.
"These two are like my secret weapon," Whiting said of Barber and Cannon. "Whenever they come in, it's instant offense and instant energy. They're different players, but coming together, their length creates a lot of problems. Both of them crash the board, and Kambree is always rebounding like crazy.
"They've settled into who they are, they play it, and they play hard."
