Senior Tytionia Adderly secured her place in program history as the No. 25 FGCU women's basketball team (14-2, 1-0 A-SUN) pulled away in the second half to secure an 82-56 win over Lipscomb (3-11, 0-1 A-SUN) in the conference opener for both teams on Saturday in Alico Arena.
With a defensive rebound just under three minutes into the second half, Adderly became the first player in program history, and just the 12th in A-SUN history, to achieve 1,000 career rebounds. She entered the game nine rebounds shy of the milestone, finished the game with 1,002 and is now just four shy of moving past Brandi Miller (Belmont, 2001-05) for the 11th-most in conference history.
"To get 1,000 rebounds in a career is remarkable," FGCU head coach Karl Smesko said. "It's a lot rarer than 1,000-point scorers. She just defends and rebounds. I was really happy today that she was looking for points and chances to shoot a three or attack the basket because that's a dimension she has."
In addition to all that, Adderly led all scorers with a season-high 21 points to go along with her 11 rebounds, four assists and two steals in the win over the Bisons. She finished with a season-best nine made field goals over 20 attempts and even made a career-high three from long distance.
"I talk about it all the time," Ulel said of Adderly post game. "To get a 1,000 rebounds, or even 500, that's hard. A 1,000 points for me is two or three points. She's individually getting one rebound at a time, and that's disgusting. She does everything. She's the heart of our team. I don't think she realizes like when she plays well, we're just so excited for her."
The win, which improved the Eagles to 10-2 all-time as a ranked Division I program, was the 100th for the program in Alico Arena in regular season conference play, and they've done it in just 102 games. On top of that, they extended the nation's fifth-longest conference winning streak to 29 straight.
"It's extremely fun," Ulel said of FGCU's home court advantage, which was north of 2,000 fans on Saturday. "It's something we can always count on. Even if our shooting isn't good, we know our fans are always going to be loyal. I can have a horrible game and our fans are going to come up to me and tell me I played so good. It's really exciting having a crowd to play for. We go to other schools, bigger schools, and their crowd isn't as big. It's really exciting to have committed fans like that."
In addition to Adderly, FGCU received 44 points combined from the trio of senior Nasrin Ulel (18), redshirt senior Keri Jewett-Giles (16) and and redshirt junior Kerstie Phills (10).
Redshirt senior Davion Wingate also added nine points, while Jewett-Giles finished second on the team with five rebounds and led the way with three steals. Phills also added four rebounds and did her damage in just 21 minutes.
Ulel, who had five double-digit scoring performances over the season's first 11 games, now has four such outings over the past five, which included a season-high 27 in a win over Duke on Dec. 29. Over the recent streak, she is averaging 17.8 per contest.
"She's someone who hurt her finger, and I couldn't get her to sit out," Smesko said of Ulel. "She was playing through it even though she couldn't really catch the ball because she wanted to be out there and help her teammates. Now, her hand feels good and her shot feels better. And you can see it's opening up some other things. She's able to drive to the basket and shot fake and step through or get all the way to the rim. It's good to see her progression."
Over the game's first 20 minutes, FGCU struggled to get going as a team, shooting just 4-for-23 from long distance, including 1-for-10 in the opening quarter. Adderly and Jewett-Giles each had eight points during that stretch as the Eagles used strong defense to hold Lipscomb to a 7-for-22 first-half performance from the field, which allowed the Green and Blue to open up a 32-23 lead.
The third frame saw Adderly finish 6-for-10 from the field for 13 points and four rebounds as the Eagles stretched their margin to 13. They produced 10 points off turnovers in the quarter alone and shot 10-for-18 from the field as a team, which was just three fewer field goals made than they had the entire first half.
FGCU continued to ramp it up in the final quarter, shooting 8-for-13 and outscoring Lipscomb 24-11 in the frame as Ulel had nine points in just over seven minutes on 4-for-5 shooting.
Overall, the Eagles outscored Lipscomb 30-4 in points off turnovers and held advantages in paint points (40-22), second-chance points (13-2), fast break points (8-2) and bench points (8-2).
FGCU will be back in action Monday against Liberty (8-6, 1-0) at 7 p.m. inside Alico Arena in a rematch of last year's A-SUN title game.
Notes:
With the win, FGCU remains tied for the most in the nation with 14.
In addition to her program and conference recognition, Adderly also ranks third among active NCAA Division I players in career rebounds.
In Charlie Creme's latest NCAA bracketology, FGCU is slotted as a No. 8 seed with a predicted first-round matchup against No. 9 Creighton in Corvallis.
The Eagles are now 26-0 all-time against Lipscomb, having won every game by double-digits.
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