Tulsa Earns 67-65 Comeback Win Over Oral Roberts in Mayor’s Cup

Thursday, November 21

Reynolds Center

7:00 pm

Tulsa

2-2,0-0AAC

Oral Roberts

3-3,0-0Summit League

Oral Roberts

Tulsa

Photo by: Dave Crenshaw

Tulsa Earns 67-65 Comeback Win Over Oral Roberts in Mayor’s Cup

11/21/2019 9:46:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Box Score in PDF l Season Stats in PDF l Photo Gallery

Tulsa outscored Oral Roberts, 49-36, in the second half, to earn a 67-65 comeback win over the Golden Eagles in the Mayor's Cup on Thursday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center. TU moved to 2-2 on the season, while ORU fell to 3-3 overall.

Desiree Lewis' made basket and subsequent free throw with just one second remaining put Tulsa on top and made it a two-point game with virtually no time remaining.

"Des just made a tough play and then scored on the free throw to give us the lead and ultimately the win," Head Coach Matilda Mossman said.

After trailing by as many as 16 points at the 8:26 mark of the third quarter, the Golden Hurricane shot a solid 50-percent in the third quarter and 68-percent in the fourth for the victory.

Rebecca Lescay tied her personal-best of 15 points to lead TU, while Kendrian Elliott added 14 and Lewis posted 13 in the contest. Lescay also had a career-high seven steals, while Elliott tied her career-high of four blocks.

"It is a special way to celebrate your birthday," Mossman said. "Rebecca had been a little down and hadn't played as much, but today she really changed the momentum of the game because of what she did. She got steals on the defensive end and converted them into buckets for us. I'm excited to see that out of her because she's one of our toughest kids."

"I think coming in people expect our heroes to be Alexis and Kendrian, but tonight our heroes were Desiree and Rebecca. That's what we want from our team. We don't want to be a two-dimensional team, we want to have multiple scorers to take the pressure off just two people."

TU pulled to within four points, 47-43, at the 8:13 mark of the fourth quarter, and then a layup, a free-throw made and another layup all by Lescay put the Hurricane on top, 48-47, at the 7:17 mark. There were eight more lead changes and six tied scores before Tulsa finished on top.

Oral Roberts had an 11-6 lead at the end of the first quarter as TU shot a dismal 20-percent (3-of-15) from the field and ORU shot at a 41-percent clip (5-of-12). The two teams combined for just 1-of-10 from three-point range in the first 10 minutes.

The Golden Eagles hit back-to-back three pointers for a 17-8 advantage to start the second quarter and then climbed to a 13-point lead, 29-16, at the 1:38 mark before taking an 11-point (29-18) advantage into the break. TU shot a solid 44-percent in the second frame, but ORU bettered that with 50-percent from the field and 42-percent from behind the arc.

Tulsa outscored Oral Roberts, 19-16, in the third quarter, posting more points in the frame than in the previous two combined, and cut their deficit to just eight points (45-37) with one frame remaining.

The Hurricane had a 42-18 advantage in points in the paint, a 30-21 lead in points off turnovers, and had just 20 turnovers to ORU's 33. The Golden Eagles had a 29-26 edge in rebounds.

ORU was led by Keni Jo Lippe with 21 points, while Rylie Torrey and Macy Gore both added 11 points.

Tulsa will return to action on Monday, November 25 against Loyola Marymount beginning at 12:00 pm at the Reynolds Center.