Mocs rally past Arkansas State, win on Gilbert shot

Chattanooga's Keiana Gilbert (20) is pressured by Arkansas State's Aundrea Gamble (24) and Brittney Gill (5) in second half action Wednesday at McKenzie Arena. After trailing 41-25 to start the second half, the Mocs won 55-54, with a game winning layup from Gilbert.

Over the past few games, Jim Foster has combined lineups much like a person about to start a crossword puzzle. A bunch of pieces with the Hall of Fame coach trying to figure out how to fit them together.

Monday against Tennessee, the answer for his University of Tennessee at Chattanooga team was to go big. Wednesday night against Arkansas State, he found success going small.

Late in the game, he went to Keiana Gilbert.

Gilbert scored the Mocs' final six points, including a short bank shot with 6.6 seconds to play to give the home team a 55-54 win over the Lady Red Wolves in front of 1,189 fans at McKenzie Arena.

The Mocs (4-2) will host UT-Martin at 6 p.m. Saturday before their much-anticipated home game against top-ranked Connecticut on Monday.

Gilbert had team highs in points (14) and rebounds (eight), adding three assists and two steals while playing all 40 minutes.

"The play broke down, and I saw the ball coming my way," Gilbert said of the final play. "I just picked the ball up, saw an open lane and shot it off the backboard."

Foster is having to do a lot of adjusting of the rotation on the fly as junior guard Chelsey Shumpert has been out with a knee injury. Foster said Wednesday he didn't anticipate Shumpert to "be around until next year (2016)."

Jasmine Joyner added 12 points and four assists, tying Alicia Payne for honors in assists. Payne added nine points, as did Anna Claire Noblit, who came off the bench to make three big 3-pointers.

Her first came after the Lady Red Wolves (3-1) had built a 17-point lead by hitting their first five 3-pointers of the third quarter. The 5-foot-7 sophomore finished 3-for-5 from long range.

"That's my sophomore there," Joyner said of Noblit. "In practice that's all she does. I know I can kick it to her and 85 percent of the time it's going in - 99 percent on a good day."

Said Noblit: "My shot has been feeling good, and I was excited to get the opportunity to shoot the ball tonight."

All three of her 3s aided in a 20-0 run by the Mocs, with her final shot, a step-back 3 from the right wing, giving UTC a 47-44 lead. Arkansas State answered with an 8-2 run to retake the lead on a 3-pointer by Khadija Brown-Haywood with 2:27 to play, but Gilbert responded by scoring the final six points.

"We fight," Foster said. "We're competitive and we need to continue to do that - grow, cut out silly turnovers and be a better basketball team in some aspects. In the second half, we shot 56 percent from the field and I thought we did a good defensive job."

Gamble, the two-time Sun Belt player of the year, finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and four assists for the Lady Red Wolves, while Brown-Haywood had nine points and 10 rebounds.

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him at twitter.com/genehenleytfp.