Tulsa Hosts UCONN Saturday in AAC Opener

TULSA BASKETBALL

Tulsa Opens American Athletic Conference Play Against UCONN Saturday; To Celebrate New Years Eve There Will be a Ball Drop at Halftime

GAME #13 ... TULSA GOLDEN HURRICANE (6-6, 0-0 AAC) vs. UCONN HUSKIES (5-7, 0-1 AAC)
Date/Time:	Saturday • December 31, 2016 • 1:00 p.m. (CT)
Site:	Donald W. Reynolds Center (8,355), Tulsa, Okla.
Coaches:	Tulsa – Frank Haith (Elon '88), 3rd year UConn – Kevin Ollie (UConn '95), 5th year
TV:	CBS Sports Network (Brent Stover and Bob Wenzel)
Radio:	Big Country 99.5 FM (Bruce Howard and J.R. Rollo)
Live Stats:	Live Stats
Series:	UConn leads 4-2
Twitter:	@TUMBasketball \| @TulsaHurricane
Instagram:	TulsaMBasketball
Game Notes:	Tulsa I UConn

THE SERIES . . .
•      This is the seventh meeting between Tulsa and UConn.
•      UConn leads the series 4-2, having won all four of its games in Connecticut, while Tulsa's two wins have come at home.
•      The teams split last year's game as Tulsa captured a 60-51 home win, and UConn won the second game of the season in Storrs by a score of 75-73.
•      Tulsa has an 8.5 win margin in its two games, while UConn's win margin is 13.3 points.

STARTING AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE PLAY . . .
•      Tulsa enters its third season in the American Athletic Conference, after finsihing its first year in second-place and placing in a tie for third-place a year ago.
•      Tulsa had league records of 14-4 in 2014-15 and 12-6 in 2015-16.
•      The Hurricane is 1-1 in conference openers, winning at UCF in 2014-15 by a score of 56-54, and losing last year at home to #18 SMU, 81-69.
•      In the preseason coaches poll, Tulsa was picked to finish ninth in the league, while UConn was selected to finish in second-place behind first-place selection Cincinnati.

LAST TIME OUT . . .
•      Tulsa and Illinois State met for the second time in 18 days, this time in the third-place game of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.
•      In the earlier meeting, Tulsa came back from a 14-point deficit for the win, but not this time as Tulsa trailed by 21 points, but could only get as close as nine points.
•      Ice-cold shooting from the field was Tulsa's nemesis in the loss . . . Tulsa shot season-lows of 26.9-percent from the field and 19.2-percent from behind the arc.
•      Tulsa did shoot well from the free throw line, connecting on 82-percent (23-of-28), including 22-of-26 in the second half.
•      Junior Etou scored a season-high 22 points, while hitting 13-of-14 free throws, and also had a game-best eight rebounds.

COMPARING HOME & AWAY . . .
•      As one might suspect, statistics between home and away games would favor home games, as is the case with the Golden Hurricane.
•      Tulsa has played six games in the friendly confines of the Donald W. Reynolds Center as well as six games away from the Reynolds Center, including three neutral site games.
•      Tulsa scores 8.2 points more at home, while shooting .472 at home compared to .414 from the field . . . the Hurricane also converts 37-percent from three-point range at the Reynolds Center compared to 31.8 percent away from it.
•      The one anomaly is that Tulsa shoots just 64-percent from the free throw line at home, but 71.4-percent away from home.
•      Tulsa has scored 70+ points at home in 5 of 6 games, while only scoring +70 on the road twice, and both were wins (ORU and Stephen F. Austin).

IN THE PAINT . . .
•      In Tulsa's first two losses, the Hurricane was out-scored in the paint by a margin of 21.5 points . . . Tulsa's first two opponents had a 62 to 19 edge in points in the paint area.
•      Since then, Tulsa has a +5.1 margin for scoring in the key in the last 10 games
•      Tulsa has averaged 31.3 points (313) to 26.2 points (262) for the opposition in the paint over the last 10 contests.

GETTING BETTER FROM THE LINE . . .
•      After the first 3 games, Tulsa was shooting just 55.2-percent from the free throw line (37-of-67).
•      In Tulsa's last 9 games, Tulsa is shooting 69.8 percent from the line (134-of-187), improving its season average from .552 to .673.
•      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 .821 from the line (23-of-28) against Illinois State at the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.

THEY CALL ME JUNIOR . . .
•      Junior Etou, a junior who sat out last year after transferring from Rutgers, has been a key component to the Tulsa team.
•      After averaging just 5.3 points and 3.7 rebounds in a three-game stretch, Etou jumped out and averaged 20.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in the next two games, coming against San Diego State and Illinois State.
•      He had a career-high 22 points, while knocking down 13-of-14 free throws, against Illinois State at the Diamond Head Classic.
•      Etou raised his free throw percentage with his 13-of-14 performance from .667 on the season to a current percentage of .729
•      Etou averages 12.0 points to rank second on the team, and has a team-best 6.7 rebounds.
•      The 6'8" forward is shooting 41-percent from three-point range, making 13-of-32 treys, while also shooting 53-percent from the field overall.
•      He has scored in double-figures in 7 of 12 games this year and has two 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 OSU, 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 campaign is the 19th for Tulsa in the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
•      The Hurricane has posted an overall 220-67 record in their home arena for a .767 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 220 wins, 142 have been by double digits.
•      Tulsa has a 103-29 non-conference record for a .780 winning percentage.
•      Tulsa has won 135 of its last 166 home games at the Reynolds Center.
•      The Hurricane had 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.

FG PERCENTAGE UPS AND DOWNS . . .
•      In Tulsa's first two games, the Hurricane combined to shoot just 37-percent from the field (41-of-112).
•      In the next 9 games, Tulsa connected on .480 percent from the field (227-of-473).
•      Tulsa shot over 50-percent in 4 of those 9 games –– New Orleans (.544), Little Rock (.500), Texas State (.511) and Stephen F. Austin (.500).
•      But, in Tulsa's last outing the Hurricane shot season-lows of 26.9-percent from the field and 19.2-percent from 3-point range.
•      Tulsa's season field goal percentage is now up to .443 overall.

BENCH SCORING . . .
•      Tulsa's bench has averaged 26.5 points (318) in 12 games this season, while the opponents average 17.5 points (210) off 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).
•      The bench is scoring 38.6 percent of Tulsa's points, while the opposition has 25.2 percent scoring from the bench.
•      Remove a 52 to 20 scoring performance by Wichita State's bench over Tulsa's and the opponent scores only 14.4 percent bench points.
•      Tulsa's bench has scored over 30 points 6 times this year –– 33 vs. Jacksonville State, 35 vs. New Orleans, 35 at ORU, 30 at Little Rock, 34 vs. Texas State and 42 vs. Stephen F. Austin.
•      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 UCONN Saturday in AAC Opener

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Players Mentioned

Junior Etou

Tulsa Hosts UCONN Saturday in AAC Opener

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Junior Etou

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