Thursday night, LCU volleyball player Malori Maddox returned to the Rip Griffin Center for the first time since suffering a brain bleed in late September.

Maddox arrived at the gym with 3:07 left in the first half of an LCU men's basketball tilt with Texas Permian Basin.

Her presence not only ignited the crowd, but the LCU basketball team as they turned what was a 30-28 deficit upon her arrival, in to a smooth 81-72 victory.

Maddox hadn't been inside the Rip Griffin Center since she left her volleyball match against Midwestern State with a severe headache back on September 26, 2015. Doctors then discovered Maddox was suffering a brain bleed and required emergency surgery that evening.

Malori Maddox
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Maddox spent the next few months healing in Dallas, undergoing a second surgery to remove a brain AVM. She returned to an emotional Rip Griffin Center on Thursday to a community that rallied around her on her road to recovery.

At halftime of the men's basketball game alongside members of her family, Maddox was presented with a check worth $8,900 raised by the community to help fund her medical expenses.

On the same evening, the number 1 (or no. 2 depending on the poll) LCU Lady Chaps reached 16-0, smashing Texas Permian Basin 70-34 at the RGC to match their best start to a season in program history.

Two big wins, potential history in the making and the healthy return of one of the university's most beloved athletes made Lubbock's Rip Griffin Center the place to be on Thursday night.

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