Tulsa Hosts USF Tonight at Reynolds Center

TULSA BASKETBALL

Tulsa Hosts USF 7 PM Thursday Night at Reynolds Center

GAME #27 ... TULSA GOLDEN HURRICANE (12-14, 6-8 AAC) vs. USF BULLS (7-19, 1-14 AAC)
Date/Time:	Thursday • February 23, 2017 • 7:00 p.m. (CT)
Site:	Donald W. Reynolds Center (8,355) • Tulsa, Oklahoma
Coaches:	Tulsa – Frank Haith (Elon '88), 3rd year USF Murry Bartow (UAB '85), 1st year
TV:	ESPNews (Dave LaMont and Stephen Howard)
Radio:	Big Country 99.5 FM (Bruce Howard and J.R. Rollo)
Live Stats:	Live Stats
Series:	Tulsa leads 4-0
Twitter:	@TUMBasketball \| @TulsaHurricane
Instagram:	TulsaMBasketball
Game Notes:	Tulsa I USF

THE GAME . . .
•   The Tulsa Golden Hurricane (12-14, 6-8 AAC) lost at #18 Cincinnati, while USF (7-19, 1-14 AAC) fell at Tulane by a score of 94-71.
•   Tulsa claimed a 12-point road win at USF in January.

THE SERIES . . .
•   This is the fifth meeting between Tulsa and USF.
•   The Hurricane leads the series 4-0, as Tulsa won the earlier meeting this year in Tampa, 79-67
•   Tulsa has won two home games and two games in Tampa in the series.
•   The first game in the series came on Jan. 17, 2015 in Tampa, as the Hurricane claimed a 75-58 victory, the biggest win margin of the four games.
•   Tulsa has won the previous four games by an 11.5 margin.

TULSA IN THE AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE . . .
•   Tulsa is in its third season as a member of the American Athletic Conference, after finishing its first year in second-place and placing in a tie for third-place a year ago.
•   Tulsa has an overall 32-18 record in its third season of American play, which in the last three years is the third best league mark behind SMU (40-9) and Cincinnati (38-11).
•   Tulsa had league records of 14-4 in 2014-15 and 12-6 in 2015-16.
•   In the preseason coaches poll, Tulsa was picked to finish 9th in the league . . . this year, Tulsa has defeated teams picked above them –– UConn (2nd), Memphis (5th), Temple (6th) and UCF(8th).

FRIENDLY CONFINES OF THE REYNOLDS CENTER . . .
•   Since joining the American Athletic Conference for the 2014-15 season, Frank Haith's Hurricane teams have compiled an overall 19-6 home record against league opponents in its three seasons.
•   Tulsa posted a 7-2 mark in the 2014-15 campaign, an 8-1 record last year and is 4-3 this year.
•   Three of the home losses have come against nationally-ranked teams, including #23 SMU in 2014-15, #18 SMU in 2015-16 and #14 Cincinnati this season . . . the other losses were to an unranked Cincinnati in 2014-15, an unranked, but receiving votes SMU team this season, and Houston this year.
•   Tulsa won 12 straight AAC home games before 2-point loss vs. #14 Cincinnati on Feb. 1, 2017.

QUICK SHOTS . . .
• Tulsa is playing its 106th season of basketball.
• Tulsa features only three players on its roster that appeared in a game at TU prior to this season – Pat Birt, TK Edogi and Sterling Taplin.
•   Tulsa graduated 9 seniors after last year's 20-12 season and NCAA tournament appearance, including losing 81-percent of its scoring and 78-percent of its rebounding.
• Tulsa has 10 newcomers to its roster, including two juniors, three sophomores and five freshmen.
•   Tulsa has used 9 different starting lineups through 25 games this year.
• Ten players have made their Tulsa debuts this season . . . they have accounted for 66.8 percent of Tulsa's total points, scoring 1,159 of Tulsa's 1,736 points thru 26 games.
• Tulsa has out-rebounded 13 opponents this season, winning 8 of those games . . . among those 13 games, Tulsa has had 7 double-digit rebounding margins, including a high of 21 more than ORU.
•   After allowing its first two opponents this season to average 82.0 points, both losses, Tulsa has held its next 24 opponents to a 65.5 scoring average.
•   Tulsa has had 7 different players lead the Hurricane in scoring in at least one game this year.

LOOKING AT NUMBERS . . .
•   Tulsa shot a season-high .579 percent from 3-point range on 11-of-17 at #18 Cincinnati.
•   In the first meeting this year, Tulsa held the then 14th-ranked Cincinnati to 21.5 points below its season scoring average.
•   The Hurricane also shot 40.5 percent from the field against Cincinnati, the nation's second-ranked field goal defensive team in the first meeting.
•   Tulsa's 77 points in its win over UCF in the first meeting this year was the most points allowed this season up to that point by UCF, bettering the previous high of 74.
•   Tulsa shot 42.6% against a UCF team that came into the contest leading the nation for FG% defense, allowing opponents to just 34.8%.
•   Tulsa is shooting 72.8-percent from the free throw line at home and .722 on the road.
•   The Hurricane has a .441 field goal percentage at home, while hitting .398 on the road.
•   Sterling Taplin has a 1.4 assist-to-turnover ratio overall this year, and has a 2.1 ratio in home games.
•   Tulsa leads the American Athletic Conference in both league games and all games. In league play, Tulsa has a free throw percentage of .768, and all games at 72.5 percent.

JUNIOR LEADING HURRICANE . . .
•   Junior Etou, a junior who sat out last year after transferring from Rutgers, has been a key component to the Tulsa team.
•   Etou averages 12.6 points and 7.0 rebounds to rank first on the team in both categories.
•   He has five 20+ scorig games this season.
•   In Tulsa's last outing, Etou had 22 points, and connected on a career-best 6-of-9 treys, and also added a team-high 8 rebounds.
•   Etou scored a new career-high with 31 points and added 12 rebounds for his fourth double-double of the season at East Carolina on Jan. 25.
•   His previous career-high was 23 points against Memphis, while he also turned in a career-best 13 rebounds in that game.
•   His earlier career-high was 22 points, while knocking down 13-of-14 free throws, against Illinois State at the Diamond Head Classic.
•   In the last 16 games, Etou has connected on 86.6-percent of his free throws (71-of-82), raising his free throw percentage from 61.5 percent to a current a 79.5 percent.
•   He has scored in double-figures in 15 games and has 4 double-doubles.
•   Against Illinois State in the first meeting, Etou had 15 points, including a layup at 2:29 that gave Tulsa its first second-half lead, and added 3 rebounds.
•   Against Oklahoma State, Etou's layup with 0:40 on the clock tied the game at 67-67.
•   Etou began the year with a 20-point, 10-rebound performance against Jacksonville State.

TULSA IN ITS' 19TH SEASON AT THE DONALD W. REYNOLDS CENTER . . .
•   The 2016-17 season is the 19th for Tulsa in the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
•   The Hurricane has posted an overall 224-70 record in their home arena for a .762
winning percentage.
•   Tulsa won its 100th game at the Reynolds Center on Jan. 27, 2007 with a 70-66 win over SMU.
•   TU won its 200th game at the Reynolds Center on Feb. 18, 2015 with a 69-58 victory over East Carolina.
•   In Tulsa's 224 wins, 144 have been by double digits.
•   Tulsa has a 103-29 non-conference record for a .780 winning percentage.
•   Tulsa has won 139 of its last 173 home games at the Reynolds Center.
•   The Hurricane had a Reynolds Center-best 28-game non-conference home-court winning streak snapped on December 30, 2008 against BYU . . . the loss also snapped an overall 18-game home winning streak.
•   Tulsa won 23 straight home games from the 2008-09 season beginning with a 69-50 win over Marshall on Jan. 17, 2009 until the 2009-10 season when the streak was snapped with a 93-86 loss against Memphis on Feb. 13, 2010.

CHARITY STRIPE HAS BEEN KIND TO TULSA . . .
•   After the first 3 games, Tulsa was shooting just 55.2-percent from the free throw line (37-of-67).
•   In Tulsa's last 23 games, Tulsa is shooting 74.8-percent from the line (372-of-497), improving its season average from .552 to .748.
•   Tulsa has hit 77.2 percent of its free throws (277-of-359) in the last 16 games.
•   After the poor free throw shooting in the first three games, Tulsa went the next three games hitting 75.9 percent from the line (44-of-58), including 13-of-16 at ORU for a percentage of .813 in that third game.
•   Tulsa connected on a season-best .909 from the line (20-of-22) at Houston.
•   Tulsa has hit over 75-percent from the charity stripe in 13 games, including 8 of those games over 80-percent and twice 90+ percent.

TOUGH STRETCH . . .
• Tulsa has dropped its last 6 games, including 5 against the top-4 teams in the league – SMU, Cincinnati twice, Houston and Memphis – and the another loss came at UCF.
•   The five losses have come against teams that have compiled a combined 98-32 record for a .754 winning percentage.
•   Among those five teams, UCF had the least amount of returning lettermen with 6, compared to 2 for Tulsa . . . alll but Memphis (2) had 3 returning starters . . . Tulsa returned one starter from last year.
•   The 6-game losing streak is the longest for Tulsa since losing eight games in the 2003-04 campaign.
•   In this stretch, Tulsa is shooting just .367 from the field and .367 from 3-point range and is scoring just 54.8 points per game, but three of those opponents rank among the top-6 in the country for scoring defense – SMU (3rd, 58.0 ppg), UCF (5th, 60.9 ppg) and Cincinnati (6th, 61.2 ppg).
•   Those three teams also rank among the top-7 for FG percentage defense – UCF (1st), Cincinnati (4th) and SMU (7th) – while Houston ranks 25th and Memphis 44th.
•   In the 6-game stretch the opposition shoots .473 from the field, .413 from 3-point range and averages 70.5 points.

TULSA BENCH OUT-SCORING OPPOSITION BY 10 POINTS . . .
•   Tulsa's bench has averaged 23.3 points (606) in 26 games this season, while the opponents average 13.3 points (345) off the bench, a difference of 10.0 points.
•   The bench is scoring 34.9-percent of Tulsa's points, while the opposition has 19.1 percent scoring from the bench.
•   Tulsa's bench has outscored all but three of its opponents this year – Wichita State (52-20), Oklahoma State (26-14) and San Diego State (15-12).
•   Against UCF in the first meeting, the Tulsa bench tied its season-high with 42 of Tulsa's 77 points.
•   Tulsa's bench has scored over 30 points 8 times this year –– 33 vs. Jacksonville State, 35 vs. New Orleans, 35 at ORU, 30 at Little Rock, 34 vs. Texas State, 42 vs. Stephen F. Austin, 37 at USF and 42 vs. UCF.
•   Tulsa's largest margin in bench scoring is 34 points, which has occurred twice . . . Tulsa outscored the ORU bench 35-1 and the Texas State bench 34-0.

Tulsa Hosts USF Tonight at Reynolds Center

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Players Mentioned

Pat Birt

TK Edogi

Junior Etou

Sterling Taplin

Tulsa Hosts USF Tonight at Reynolds Center

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