Freshman Keiana Gilbert has hit a lot of big baskets for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s basketball team in her first season of college play. She leads the team in scoring at 11.9 points per game, and she scored 27 in the Mocs’ upset win over Tennessee.
But no single shot has been as big as her buzzer-beater Monday afternoon in Boston to lift the Mocs to a 54-52 victory over Harvard and extend their winning streak to eight games.
“That was a big shot by a freshman at the end, but she’s played big all year for us,” UTC coach Jim Foster said on the postgame radio show. “Tonight was no exception.”
Gilbert scored 14 of her team-leading 18 points in the second half to keep Harvard from completing a comeback after the Mocs led by 12, and her basket as time expired snapped a 52-all tie.
“In the final two seconds Coach made an inbounds play for us to run where if I get the ball I look for Ka’Vonne (Towns),” Gilbert said. “But he told me to look for my shot also. I had the girl beat, so I just shot it and it went in.”