Tulsa Falls to SMU in Quarterfinals of AAC Championship

Friday, March 11

Fort Worth, Texas

6:00 PM

Tulsa

11-20,4-14AAC

SMU

23-7,13-4AAC

Tulsa

SMU

Tulsa Falls to SMU in Quarterfinals of AAC Championship

3/11/2022 10:07:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Gamebook (PDF) | Season Stats (PDF)

FORT WORTH, Texas –– The Tulsa Golden Hurricane's season came to an end on Friday evening in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Championships as SMU pulled away in the second half to win 83-58 at Dickies Arena.

Tulsa finishes its season with an 11-20 record, while SMU improves to 23-7 and advances to play either UCF or Memphis in the semifinals of the AAC Championship.

"Give SMU a lot of credit, they played very well," Tulsa head coach Frank Haith said. "I felt like to beat them, we had to play our best basketball. I thought we busted our tail last night. To beat this team, we needed to be on point defensively like we were last night. And we had to execute like we did yesterday."

Sam Griffin paced the Hurricane with 16 points and dished out an assist. Jeriah Horne had 12 points, seven rebounds and four assists, while fellow senior Darien Jackson had 11 points and six boards. Rey Idowu had a team-high eight rebounds.

The American's Player of the Year, Kendric Davis, led the Mustangs in scoring with 24 second half points. He also had five rebounds, five assists and four steals. Three others finished in double figures in Marcus Weathers, who had 18 and nine rebounds, Emmanuel Bandoumel recorded 16 and six, and Michael Weathers added 12 points and seven blocks.

The Hurricane was held to 33-percent shooting for the game while SMU hit 43 percent of its shots. The Mustangs also converted 13 3-pointers on 34 attempts (38.2 percent) while Tulsa was 7-of-22 (31.8).

SMU blocked 10 shots to Tulsa's five and took care of the ball, committing only three turnovers to Tulsa's 12, which resulted in an 18-2 advantage in points off turnovers.

"They (SMU) took us out of a lot of things with their defense." Haith said. "And then offensively, Kendric (Davis) got it going. When I thought we could make a run, he turned it up another level and played like the player of the year in this league."

Tulsa trailed 40-29 heading into the second half and Horne had the first bucket to get Tulsa back within nine, but Davis responded with a 3-pointer for his first points of the night. When Haywood gave TU momentum with a 3-pointer of his own, Davis once again was good from distance to keep the lead at 12, 46-34.

Down 50-39, Tulsa scored five consecutive points, complete with an and-1 from Jackson to get the Hurricane within six. But once again Davis snuffed out Tulsa's opportunity with a 3-pointer. Tulsa wouldn't get the lead under single digits again as that three kickstarted a 17-6 to push the Mustang lead to 17, 67-50 with 7:25 to play. The Mustangs would go on to outscore Tulsa 16-8 the rest of the way.

In the opening stanza, Griffin came out firing to guide the Tulsa offense. He hit his first three shots, including two 3-pointers, to help Tulsa grab an early 9-6 lead. The sophomore guard finished with 13 points in the opening half to pace the Hurricane.

SMU had two players in double figures in the opening frame, led by Bandoumel, who put in 16, including four 3-pointers. Davis was held scoreless in the first frame, missing on all 10 of his shots and six 3-point attempts.

Michael Weathers quickly tied the game with a 3-pointer after Griffin gave Tulsa the lead, and then a dunk from Marcus Weathers put SMU up two. Tulsa would tie the game at 11 and briefly take the lead 13-12 before Bandoumel put the Mustangs up 15-13 with a 3-pointer with 12:33 to play in the half.

LaDavius Draine tied the game at 15, but SMU took the lead for good, splitting a pair of free throws to go up 16-15 at the 10:42 mark. This started a run of eight consecutive points before Tulsa responded with a 7-0 run to get the deficit back to one, 23-22.

However, the Mustangs would outscore Tulsa 17-7 over the remaining 7:18 of the first half to take a 40-29 lead into the locker rooms.

Tulsa was held to 31 percent from the field in the opening half, while SMU shot 44 percent. Tulsa held a 26-20 advantage on the glass, and 11-5 on offensive rebounds.

Rey Idowu and Curtis Haywood II led the charge on the boards, as each had five rebounds in the first half. Jackson had three and Nikita Konstantynovskyi had two. Jackson also had one 3-pointer in the first half, the only other Hurricane than Griffin to convert from deep.