- Olivia Hamlin scored a career-high 23 points in BYU's 83-69 win.
- BYU snapped a two-game losing streak with a strong team performance.
- The Cougars face Colorado next, aiming to continue their winning momentum.
PROVO — There's plenty of argument for BYU freshman Olivia Hamlin to be in the Cougars' starting line as the No. 2 scorer on the team at 11.9 points per game.
Hamlin won't make them. The former 4A state player of the year at Snow Canyon will stick to closing — like she did Tuesday night.
Hamlin notched a career-high 23 points, and Gibb added 21 points, four rebounds and three assists as the Cougars rebounded from a two-loss road trip with an 83-69 win over Iowa State in front of 2,279 fans at the Marriott Center.
"She just has an innate ability to score the basketball," BYU coach Lee Cummard said of Hamlin. "She's somebody that scores in bunches, and reminds me a lot of Jonathan Tavernari, who I played with here at BYU. They can change the game quickly with their ability to score.
"Tavernari did it from 3, and Liv does it from all levels. You can argue she should start, but I love her being able to come in and change the whole dynamic of the game with her scoring."
Lara Rohkohl supplied 15 points and nine rebounds, her best scoring output since the senior transfer from College of Charleston scored 18 on Nov. 22 against Weber State.
The 6-foot-3 forward from Hanover, Germany, was two rebounds away from a season-high on the glass, but shot 6-of-9 from the field with three free throws as the Cougars outscored the Cyclones 38-24 in the paint.
Coming against Iowa State star Audi Crooks, the 6-foot-3 junior averaging. 25.9 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, was no less impressive.
Crooks finished with 18 points, two rebounds and four assists, but played just 27 minutes three nights after going for 26 in a 79-72 win at Utah. The junior was surrounded by 16 points and four assists from Jada Williams and 15 points from Mackenzie Hare.
But each of Crooks' 12 field-goal attempts, including her six makes, was contested by a double team or help defense that limited the Big 12's leading scorer.
"I think we passed the ball pretty good today," said Rohkohl, whose team assisted on 19 of 32 made field goals on 51.6% shooting. "We were missing that the last two games, but today we were playing well as a team together."
But the key was Hamlin, who scored 7 points in the first 62 seconds of the second quarter to pace a 9-2 run that overturned a 1-point first-quarter defense.
The freshman from Santa Clara totaled 17 of her 19 first-half points to help BYU to a 43-42 halftime edge, including three of the Cougars' five 3-pointers, while Gibb added 9 points as BYU held the Cyclones to 6-of-16 shooting in the second quarter.
"She's a player that can kind of just erupt at any moment," Gibb said of Hamlin. "When she gets it going, it's so much easier for everyone else on the floor. That's more attention put on her, and we are able to space the floor.
"Her being able to knock down some tough shots really opened up the court for a ton of other great shots," she added. "I think we did a good job of moving the ball and helping each other to get great shots."
The win marked BYU's first against Iowa State since a 75-69 victory March 18, 2002 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a win that sent the Cougars to their first-ever Sweet 16.
The Cougars were decided underdogs after back-to-back wins on a Sunflower State swing against Kansas and Kansas State, while Iowa State came in with five-straight victories that included an 84-70 win over then-No. 21 Texas Tech.
Such is life in the Big 12.
"The strain of 18 games in this league, with different styles of play, when you catch a team on a given night, it's part of the narrative nationally that we all have to continue to fight," said Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly, the league's all-time wins leader. "When we beat each other up, a lot of national people think our league isn't strong. When other leagues beat each other up, they get credit. I don't understand that necessarily.
"Women's basketball in our league probably needs to work toward the same perception of men's basketball in our league," he added. "You look at the scores game-to-game, and you're going to see that."
Crooks' second foul forced her to the bench early in the third quarter, and BYU took advantage. Gibb scored 9 points in the quarter, including a 3-pointer with 2:02 remaining as the Cougars plowed through the Cyclones 26-10 to take a 69-52 lead into the final period.
The Cougars had just three turnovers in the first three quarters, and forced five off the Cyclones to score 9 points. BYU finished with nine turnovers — five of them in the final 4:11 — and scored 11 points off nine takeaways of its own.
Williams scored 7 in the fourth quarter, and the Cyclones forced four turnovers in 3.5 minutes to pull within 80-67 on Beaty's transition layup with 2:01 left.
But Gibb responded with BYU's 10th 3-pointer of the night, and the Cougars pulled away to snap a brief two-game skid.
BYU hits the road again Saturday to play at Colorado (1 p.m. MST, ESPN+).
