Tulsa Looks to Extend Home Streak Against No. 15/16 K-State on Saturday

Saturday, December 8

Reynolds Center

3:30 PM

Tulsa

Kansas State

Buy Tickets

Photo by: Dave Crenshaw

Tulsa Looks to Extend Home Streak Against No. 15/16 K-State on Saturday

12/7/2018 10:25:00 AM | Men's Basketball

GAME #10: TULSA GOLDEN HURRICANE (6-3) vs NO. 15/16 KANSAS STATE WILDCATS (6-1)
Date/Time:	Saturday • Dec. 8 • 3:30 p.m.
Site:	Reynolds Center (8,355) • Tulsa, Okla.
Coaches:	Tulsa – Frank Haith (Elon '88), 5th year Kansas State – Bruce Weber (Wisconsin-Milwaukee '78), 7th year
TV:	CBS Sports Network (Rich Waltz and Steve Lappas)
Radio:	Big Country 99.5 FM (Bruce Howard and J.R. Rollo)
Live Stats:	Live Stats
Series:	Tulsa leads, 6-1
Twitter:	@TUMBasketball \| @TulsaHurricane
Instagram:	TulsaMBasketball
Game Notes:	Tulsa \| Kansas State
Tickets:	918-631-GoTU \| Buy Online

Holiday Promo: Fans are encouraged to bring a stuffed teddy bear to Saturday's game for a halftime teddy bear toss. All stuffed animals collected will be donated to the St. Francis Children's Hospital in Tulsa.

Fast Break Points
• Tulsa is in its 108th season of basketball and fifth season in the American Athletic Conference.
• TU will close the week with a 3:30 p.m. matchup against No. 15/16 Kansas State on Saturday, Dec. 5 at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
• TU leads the all-time series against the Wildcats, 6-1, and it has won all three meetings in Tulsa. The Hurricane took last year's meeting, 61-54, which was played at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita.
• Tulsa has won 12 consecutive home games and 21 of its last 23 contests at the Reynolds Center dating back to last season. The squad is 6-0 at home this season.
• TU is coming off a 74-71 win over Oklahoma State on Wednesday night. DaQuan Jeffries scored a game-high 20 points and the Hurricane led throughout the second half after opening the period with a 9-0 run.
• With 50 assists this season, Sterling Taplin has moved to ninth place on the program's all-time charts with 325. Taplin needs 11 more assists to move up to No. 8 on the list.
• Jeffries leads the team in scoring at 13.4 ppg and he is second on the squad with 5.2 rebounds per outing.
• Tulsa's .725 free throw shooting percentage leads The American, while its 161 makes and 222 attempts rank among the top 40 in the nation.
• The Hurricane return three starters and eight letterwinners from last year's team, which went 19-12 overall and 12-6 to finish fourth in The American.
• TU has notched 46 league wins since joining The American, which ranks third behind only Cincinnati (57) and SMU (51) during that span (2014-present).
• Tulsa was picked to finish ninth in The American Preseason Poll. TU has finished better than its preseason prediction in all four seasons under head coach Frank Haith.

Notes
The Game
• Tulsa will close the week with a second-straight home matchup against a Big 12 Conference opponent, as it will host No. 15/16 Kansas State at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8.
• The game can be seen on the CBS Sports Network, while fans in the Tulsa area can tune to Big Country 99.5 FM with Bruce Howard and former Hurricane player J.R. Rollo on the call. Live audio from the game also can be found by using the TuneIn app.

Scouting the Wildcats
• Kansas State was picked to finish second in the Big 12 Conference as the team returns all five starters and 10 letterwinners from last year's squad, which went 25-12 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight.
• The Wildcats enter Saturday's game coming off an 83-71 loss at Marquette last Saturday in the team's first true-road game of the season. K-State won the Paradise Jam with victories over Eastern Kentucky, Penn and Missouri.
• Five players average at least 7.5 ppg, led by 6-foot-10 senior Dean Wade's 15.4 ppg. Wade also leads the team on the glass at 7.7 rpg.
• K-State is forcing 17.7 turnovers per outing, which ranks 19th in the country, and the squad is averaging 20.3 points off those turnovers per game

The Series
• Saturday's matchup marks the eighth all-time meeting between Tulsa and Kansas State. The Golden Hurricane lead the series, 6-1, including a 61-54 win over the Wildcats last season in Wichita.
• TU has won all three previous meetings in Tulsa. This will be the first game between the programs in Tulsa since a 72-61 Hurricane victory on Dec. 12, 1990.
• K-State's only win in the series came on Dec. 14, 1989, when the Wildcats took a 75-69 win in Manhattan.

Last Meeting
• Junior Etou scored a game-high 22 points behind a season-best five 3-pointers and the Tulsa defense limited Kansas State to just 32.1-percent shooting as the Golden Hurricane defeated the Wildcats 61-54 on Dec. 9, 2017, at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita.
• Martins Igbanu got his first start of the season in place of an injured DaQuan Jeffries and scored 10 points. Sterling Taplin added nine points, a career-high eight rebounds and six assists.
• TU held K-State to then-season lows of 54 points, a 32.1-percent effort from the floor and just 12.9-percent from behind the arc. The Hurricane snapped the Wildcats' 23-game non-conference winning streak in home venues.

A Tulsa Win Would ...
• Improve Tulsa's record to 7-3 on the season, which would tie the team's best 10-game start under Frank Haith.
• Give Tulsa its first win over a ranked opponent since defeating No. 16 SMU, 82-77, on Feb. 10, 2016 in Dallas.
• Give Tulsa its third straight win over Kansas State and improve its record in the all-time series to 7-1.
• Improve Tulsa's home record to 7-0 this season and give the team its 22nd win in its last 24 games at home. It would be Tulsa's 13th consecutive home victory.

Last Time Out
• DaQuan Jeffries scored 20 points and Tulsa held off a late charge from Oklahoma State for a 74-71 win over the Cowboys on Wednesday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
• Jeriah Horne came off the bench to score a season-best 16 points to go along with seven rebounds, while Lawson Korita (career-high 13 points/7 rebounds) and Martins Igbanu (10 points/8 rebounds) also scored in double-figures.
• Tulsa opened the second half on a 9-0 run to grab a double-digit lead. The Hurricane led throughout the second half and held off a late charge from the Cowboys, who hit three 3-pointers in the final minute.

Haith Enters Fifth Season at TU
• Head coach Frank Haith is in his fifth season at Tulsa, where he has compiled an 83-55 record and led the Golden Hurricane to a pair of postseason appearances during his tenure. Overall, he has an on-court record of 288-184 (.611) in his 15th season.
• Haith's 83 wins on the TU bench rank seventh in program history as he passed former Golden Hurricane coaches Bill Self (74), Tubby Smith (74), Francis Schmidt (73), Chet Benefiel (65) and John Phillips (61) on the charts last season.
• Haith's 19.3 wins per season at TU rank fifth among those who coached more than one season for the Hurricane.

Haith in Exclusive Coaching Company
• Head coach Frank Haith is the one of just two active Division I head coaches to take teams in four of the Power 6 conferences to the NCAA Tournament (Houston's Kelvin Sampson is the other). Haith guided Tulsa (The American) to the Big Dance in 2015, Missouri (SEC) in 2013, Missouri (Big 12) in 2012 and Miami (ACC) in 2008.
• In addition, Haith is one of just 24 active coaches that have taken at least three different programs to the NCAA Tournament.
• Haith and the Hurricane will face two other members of that list this season, when the team takes on Bruce Weber and Kansas State (Dec. 8) before two matchups with Sampson and Houston (Jan. 2 and Jan. 27).

Taplin Leads the Way
• Senior point guard Sterling Taplin has developed into one of the top point guards in The American and he was named preseason second-team all-conference in a vote by the league's head coaches.
• The East Amherst, N.Y., native is the team's leading returning scorer after he registered a career-best 11.8 ppg last season. He also set career bests with 3.7 rpg and 4.4 apg, which also ranked fourth in The American.
• Taplin's 11.8 ppg last season ranks 11th among returners in The American. In all, he set career highs last season in field goals (127), 3-pointers (38), points (354), rebounds (112) and assists (132).

Climbing the Charts
• Senior point guard Sterling Taplin is climbing the career assists charts at TU and he entered the program's all-time top 10 with three assists in last Saturday's game at Utah. He currently ranks ninth with 325 assists and needs 11 assists to pass Eric Coley (1996-2000) and move to eighth place.
• Taplin had a career-high 10 assists in TU's win over South Carolina State (Nov. 10). With that effort, he became the 14th TU player to have at least 10 assists in a game and he was the first to do so since Ben Uzoh had 10 on Feb. 13, 2010.
• With 817 points, Taplin needs 183 points to become the 38th player in TU history to reach 1,000 career points.

DaQuan Does It All
• Senior DaQuan Jeffries is averaging 10.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game while shooting 55-percent in his 34 contests at TU. This season, Jeffries is averaging a team-leading 13.4 ppg to go along with 5.2 rpg and 1.0 bpg, while shooting 56.6-percent.
• Jeffries had one of the best outings of his career on Nov. 27 against UT Arlington, when he went 10-of-11 from the floor to tie a career high with 24 points. He had the best shooting percentage for a TU player who made at least 10 field goals since Charlie Davis went 11-of-12 (.916) against SMU on Jan. 19, 2002.
• In addition, Jeffries ranks 27th on the program's blocks list with 45 swats. He has nine blocks this season, including a season-high three rejections in the win over Little Rock (Nov. 19).

Tulsa's Success in The American
• Since joining the American Athletic Conference prior to the 2014-15 season, the Golden Hurricane has posted 46 league wins, which ranks third in the circuit during that time.
• Only Cincinnati (57 wins) and SMU (51 wins) have earned more victories than Tulsa's 46.
• TU has finished better than its preseason prediction in each of Haith's four seasons. Tulsa is the first program in The American history to finish better than its preseason prediction in four consecutive seasons. The Golden Hurricane was picked to finish ninth in the conference prior to the 2018-19 season.

Home Cookin'
• After hosting the first TU men's basketball game on Dec. 29, 1998, the Golden Hurricane is in its 21st season in the Donald W. Reynolds Center this year.
• Tulsa has posted an overall record of 245-72 (.773) in its 20+ seasons, including a 6-0 mark this season.
• The building has seen 42 sellouts and 1,880,207 fans have witnessed Tulsa basketball at the Reynolds Center.
• The Hurricane has won 21 of its last 23 games in the Reynolds Center, including 12 straight victories.

The Schedule
• Tulsa will play 13 games in 2018-19 against opponents that participated in the postseason last season. Seven of those matchups will come at home, including back-to-back contests against Oklahoma State (Dec. 5) and Kansas State (Dec. 8).
• TU also will have six games against teams that opened the season ranked or receiving votes in the AP Top 25. The Hurricane will host No. 16 Kansas State, while it will have matchups against UCF (Jan. 19) and Cincinnati (Jan. 10, Jan. 24), who each received votes to start the year.

Earning Degrees
• Frank Haith has made achievement in the classroom as much of a priority as success on the basketball court over his nearly 15 years as a head coach.
• During head coaching tenures at Miami, Missouri and Tulsa, 54 of the 58 (93.1-percent) seniors that have come through his programs have earned a degree.
• Since arriving at Tulsa, 14 of the program's 15 seniors (93.3-percent) have graduated, including Corey Haith, Corey Henderson Jr., Jaleel Wheeler and Junior Etou from last year's team.
• Additionally, Tulsa has had at least two student-athletes recognized on the American Athletic Conference All-Academic Team in each of Haith's four seasons. Last year, both Alex Foree and Curran Scott made the team, which honors student-athletes with at least a 3.0 GPA.

Dialing Long Distance
• Tulsa lit it up from behind the arc last season and totaled 247 3-pointers, which was the program's highest output since the 2007-08 campaign.
• Along with the most 3-pointers made in the Frank Haith era, TU also posted its best 3-point shooting percentage at .348. That mark was the best for the Hurricane since the 2011-12 team connected at a .384 clip.
• After hitting 188 treys in 2014-15, which was TU's first under Haith, the squad has seen an increase in 3-pointers made each season (2014-15/188; 2015-16/219; 2016-17/234; 2017-18/247).
• The Hurricane will be without its top two 3-point shooters from a season ago after the graduations of Corey Henderson Jr. (73) and Junior Etou (42).

Look Who's Back
• Tulsa returns eight letterwinners, including three starters, from last year's team, which went 19-12 and finished fourth in The American with a 12-6 league mark.
• Returning starters include senior point guard Sterling Taplin (30 starts), junior forward Martins Igbanu (23) and junior guard Lawson Korita (17).
• Other returners include senior guard/forward DaQuan Jeffries, senior forward Alex Foree, junior guard Curran Scott and sophomore guards Elijah Joiner and Darien Jackson.
• In all, Tulsa returns 56.3-percent of its scoring, 56.7-percent of its minutes, 48.9-percent of its rebounding, 69.5-percent of its assists and 59.7-percent of its steals.

Roster Experience
• Despite having seven newcomers on the roster for 2018-19, Tulsa features 11 players with Division I experience.
• Those 11 players have totaled 18 years of Division I experience, led by three years from senior Sterling Taplin.
• Even with the influx of newcomers, Tulsa is one of just seven Division I programs without a scholarship freshman on the roster. TU's only freshman is walk-on George Christopolous, who is redshirting this season.
• Counting walk-ons, TU is one of just seven Division I programs to have one or fewer total freshmen on its roster.

New Faces
• Along with the eight returning letterwinners, Tulsa has seven newcomers in addition to Jeriah Horne, who sat out the 2017-18 season after transferring from Nebraska.
• The newcomers eligible to make their debut for the Hurricane this season are Chris Barnes, Zeke Moore, Peter Hewitt, Jeriah Horne, Simon Falokun and walk-on Lindsay Deline Jr. Reggie Jones will sit out the 2018-19 campaign after transferring from Western Michigan and walk-on George Christopoulos will redshirt, as well.
• Of the six eligible to make their debut for TU, three student-athletes have Division I experience (Chris Barnes/UTEP, Jeriah Horne/Nebraska, Zeke Moore/Saint Louis), while Peter Hewitt redshirted at UC Davis in 2016-17.
• TU newcomers have totaled 169 points (18.7 ppg) so far this season, led by 74 points (8.2 ppg) from Jeriah Horne.

Exhibition Excellence
• Tulsa improved to 67-2 all-time in exhibition games with a 95-60 win over Division II Northeastern State on Nov. 2 in the Reynolds Center. It also marked the 38th straight exhibition victory for the Golden Hurricane.
• Curran Scott scored 16 points off the bench to lead a balanced scoring effort that saw nine Tulsa players tally at least eight points.
• Newcomer Simon Falokun was the only other player in double-figures with 14 points on 4-of-4 shooting and a 6-for-6 effort from the free-throw line. Falokun also had six rebounds and a pair of blocks.

Tulsa Signs Isaiah Hill to NLI
• Isaiah Hill, a 6-foot point guard from Bakersfield, Calif. (Liberty HS), signed a National Letter of Intent on Nov. 14, the first day of the early signing period, to join The University of Tulsa men's basketball program for the 2019-20 season.
• Hill is the highest-rated high school recruit in TU history, according to 247sports.com, which lists Hill as a three-star prospect and the No. 25 point guard recruit in the nation.
• He averaged 22 points, eight rebounds and six assists per game as a junior en route to first-team All-Area honors from the Bakersfield Californian.
• Hill played AAU ball for the Compton Magic, which is the same program that current TU guard Chris Barnes came out of.
• In addition, Hill was the starting quarterback for the Liberty HS football team as a sophomore and junior. He did not play as a senior to focus on his basketball career.

Up Next
• TU will play its final non-conference home game at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 13 when it hosts New Orleans at the Reynolds Center. Non-conference play closes with a neutral site game against Dayton (Dec. 16) before a Mayor's Cup matchup with Oral Roberts (Dec. 22) at the Mabee Center.

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