Balanced Attack Leads Tulsa Past USF on Sunday, 73-61

Sunday, February 18

Reynolds Center

2 PM

Tulsa

16-10, 9-5

USF

8-20, 1-14

USF

Tulsa

Balanced Attack Leads Tulsa Past USF on Sunday, 73-61

2/18/2018 4:52:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

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TULSA, Okla. — Martins Igbanu led four players in double-figures with 16 points as Tulsa claimed its fifth consecutive win with a 73-61 victory over USF on Sunday afternoon at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

Igbanu went 7-of-9 from the floor and scored 14 of his 16 points in the second half for the Golden Hurricane (16-10, 9-5), who bridged the halves with a 19-0 run to take control. Junior Etou just missed out on a double-double with 11 points and nine rebounds to go along with five assists, while DaQuan Jeffries and Curran Scott also finished with 11 points.

Tulsa held a 39-31 advantage on the glass and scored 26 points in the paint.

"It was a really good win," head coach Frank Haith said. "I thought that after a slow start, we really shared the ball well. The first part of the game we settled for some contested jump shots, but the last 10 minutes of the first half and into the second half I thought that we played well. We shared the ball, we played with good toughness and our defense was outstanding, so it was a good win. It was good to see Curran (Scott) get some production off the bench as well as DaQuan (Jeffries). In the second half we made an emphasis of getting the ball inside and have more paint touches."

Meanwhile, David Collins scored 17 points to pace the Bulls (8-20, 1-14), who dropped their seventh straight game.

After closing the first half on an 8-0 run, Tulsa opened the final stanza with an 11-0 spurt to blow the game open.

Igbanu got TU rolling with eight of the team's 11 points during the run as the home squad pounded the ball inside against USF. Jaleel Wheeler added a free throw and Sterling Taplin drove inside for a bucket for the other points during the stretch, which pushed the advantage to 45-23 with 15:25 to play.

Tulsa forced nine missed USF shots to open the half and the Bulls went 0-of-17 from the 5-minute mark of the first half to the 14:31-mark of the second half.

Etou then scored seven straight points for the Hurricane and a pair of free throws from Scott had Tulsa out to its largest lead of the day, 54-30.

The TU lead was 71-49 following Lawson Korita's triple with 4:21 left and the lead remained in double digits for the rest of the contest en route to the 73-61 final.

The Tulsa bench and team defense were the difference in the first half as the Golden Hurricane took an 11-point lead to halftime.

Jeffries sparked TU to an 8-0 run with back-to-back 3-pointers after the squad missed its first eight shots and fell behind 7-0. The Bulls led 15-10 before a 10-0 TU spurt that included another Jeffries trey and a three-point play from Scott.

The Tulsa defense helped the home squad stretch its lead with an 8-0 run to end the half. In the final five minutes, USF managed just a pair of free throws and did not score in the final 4:43.

During that stretch, the Bulls missed eight shots and Tulsa pushed its lead to 34-23 going into the break.

Tulsa will be back in action at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 21 when it hosts UCF (17-9, 8-6) at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

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