Gage Johnson
Sports Editor
gjohnson17@murraystate.edu
With 5:33 left in the Murray State women’s basketball game against Oakland City on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, freshman forward Macie Gibson secured a rebound and landed awkwardly, ending her season before it had truly even started.
This was Gibson’s third game with the Racers, coming off a senior season in which she was named a Miss Kentucky Basketball finalist after leading the state in scoring (31.2 ppg) and rebounding (17.2 rpg). Gibson finished her high school career with 3,169 points and 1,700 rebounds.
Gibson had scored eight points and snagged two rebounds off the bench, but the last rebound was the last stat she recorded in the 2018-19 season.
Gibson recalls the moment every now and then, making her sick to her stomach just thinking about it. A few days after being injured, Gibson had an MRI and found out that it’d be quite some time before she took the floor again because of a torn ACL.
“It put me in shock,” Gibson said. “Whenever I got my MRI and coach told me [the results] it just brought me to tears. It was devastating for me because I work so hard and I was just getting comfortable with the pace of college basketball and then it just kind of hit me in the face.”
After being given redshirt status, the long road to recovery began for Gibson. She spent the next year with a brace, working on as much as she could and strengthening her right leg with the help of Assistant Athletic Trainer Matthew Johnson.
The recovery process was extremely difficult physically, but became more of a mentally-taxing process for Gibson.
“It was very difficult,” Gibson said. “All of it was very mental for me. Going into rehab every day—it was like three hours a day—I had to know what I was doing was to get back to my full strength again. I had to take everything very serious and work hard to get back to where I was.”
Meanwhile, the Racers were having one of the best seasons in recent memory. Murray State had won seven of its last 10 games to earn the sixth seed in the OVC Tournament.
While she certainly doesn’t wish injury upon any of her players, Head Coach Rechelle Turner actually thought having the time to sit back and watch wasn’t a bad thing for Gibson.
“I think it was good for her to be honest,” Turner said. “There were a lot of times she was frustrated last year because she saw maybe a lack of effort or a lack of communication and she would make comments about it. I said ‘you need to remember that when you get back in there, and that should fuel your fire to get back and want to be better when you do get back.’”
Being one of the tallest players on the team and one of the few bigs that Murray State has, Gibson has taken on the challenge of learning how to play both spots in the frontcourt.
“It’s going to be a learning curve for me to play the four and the five,” Gibson said. “I’m a little hesitant at the five, but I’m working to get better at it and I can shoot so I think that’ll help a little bit.”
Turner knows it will take some time after a major injury like Gibson’s, but believes just as much as Gibson does that she can be a crucial player for the Racers in the upcoming season.
“She’s not 100 percent by any means, but every single week that passes by she progresses more and more,” Turner said. “She’s going to be a big part of our offense. She can do a lot of things. She gives us a little extra height and muscle on the inside, but she may be the best shooter that we have on this team.”
Her ability to stretch the floor with her lightning-fast release is something Turner thinks will cause a lot of problems for opponents this season.
“It barely touches her fingers and it’s gone,” Turner said. “She definitely is going to be a mismatch for certain people because they’re going to have to guard her out on the perimeter and then they’re going to have to box her out on the inside. So depending on who’s guarding her, I think she can take advantage of that.”
Gibson will begin the season with a brace, but the goal is for her to be able to play without it come conference play.
While many might think Gibson wants to show everyone what she can do after sitting out a year, her only goals are to follow the “We over Me” slogan Turner has instilled in the team and rack up the wins for the Racers.
“I want to make a big impact,” Gibson said. “I want to win, so I will do anything for us to win. I’d like to win more games than we did last year and I’d like to move up the ladder to get higher than eighth and get to the tournament.”