Tulsa Duo Combine for 51 Points as Tulsa Takes Down South Carolina State

Monday, November 20

7:00 PM

Tulsa

4-0,0-0AAC

South Carolina State

2-3,0-0MEAC

South Carolina St.

Tulsa

Photo by: Bill Powell

Tulsa Duo Combine for 51 Points as Tulsa Takes Down South Carolina State

11/20/2023 10:14:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

GAME STATS I PRESS CONFERENCE

TULSA, Okla. –– PJ Haggerty and Jared Garcia combined for 51 points as the Tulsa Golden Hurricane claimed a 90-70 victory over South Carolina State Monday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center. It was the second and final game for Tulsa in the Golden Turkey Slam event presented by Russ Potts Production.

Haggerty scored a game-high 28 points followed by Garcia with 23 points, both career-highs for the duo. Haggerty made 19-of-22 free throws, the third most in school history behind 23-of-23 by Rick Park in January 1964 and 20-of-22 by Roger Wendel in December 1957.

The 6'8" Garcia was 7-of-12 from the field, including 3-of-6 from three-point line, and 6-of-10 from the charity stripe. Garcia added eight rebounds, as did freshman Matt Reed. Cobe Williams had a game-high six steals while as a team the Hurricane had 13 thefts on the night.

Tulsa grabbed 43 rebounds, one less than SC State, but has now managed to hit the 40+ rebound total in all four games this season.

The Golden Hurricane improved to 4-0 with the victory for its first 4-0 start since the 2018-19 season, while South Carolina State fell to 2-3.

"We knew we were going to play a team that's exception at one, playing really, really hard and was 15th in the country in steal percentage. I was very pleased going into halftime that we turned it over just three times, but the 14 turnovers and the hurries – they really bothered us in the second half," said Tulsa Head Coach Eric Konkol.

"Again, this gave us so many opportunities to grow and learn from some different things. From the pressure to making big free throws. It basically turned into a free throw contest late where they were scoring quickly – and we have to clean up some things on our pick and roll defense – and they forced us to make free throws because they were just going to come at us. And we were able to knock enough down. Overall, always happy to come away with a victory, but certainly a lot of things to look at and get better at. We knew this would be a unique game, and it certainly was."

After a slow start and trailing 6-4, the Hurricane busted out on a 28-2 run and proceeded to take a 44-20 lead into halftime. Tulsa built its lead to 25 points in the second half with a little more than six minutes gone on the clock, 57-32. But, there was no quit in SC as the Bulldogs cut its deficit to 12 points with just over five minutes to play.

HOW IT HAPPENED
IN THE FIRST HALF . . .
SC State jumped out to a 4-0 lead as Tulsa shot just 1-of-6 in the first 2½ minutes.

After SC State took a 6-4 lead at the 17:05 mark, Tulsa went on a 28-2 run over the next 10+ minutes for a 32-8 lead at the 6:25 mark.

In the first 5 minutes of the contest, Tulsa made just 2-of-12 from the field and 0-of-4 from three-point range before a Jared Garcia three-pointer at the 14:49 mark gave Tulsa back the lead at 8-6.

Garcia scored the first three field goals for Tulsa to start the game and ended the first 20 minutes with a game-high 13 points.

After its cold start, Tulsa heated up from the field to end the first half shooting 42% from the field and 40% from three-point range. The Bulldogs shot just 33% from the field and was 0-of-3 from behind the arc in the first 20 minutes.

The Hurricane led at intermission 44-20, scoring its most first-half points of the season, bettering its previous high by 10 points (34 vs. Incarnate Word).

IN THE SECOND HALF . . .
Tulsa started slow in the second half as well, making just three of its first nine shots from the field and 0-of-2 from behind the arc.

PJ Haggerty scored nine of Tulsa's first 11 points in the second half.

The Hurricane had its largest lead of 25 points at the 13:44 mark when Mohamed Keita scored on a layup.

The Bulldogs would not go away scrapping to cut the Tulsa lead to just 12 points at the 5:41 mark with the score 71-59.

Tulsa closed out the half out-scoring SC State 19-11 the remaining 5:19 of the contest. The Hurricane made 8-of-8 free throws in the final 2:34 to keep the game out of reach.

Haggerty had 17 points and Garcia tallied 10 in the second half.

GAME NOTES
• Tulsa has started the season 4-0 for the first time since the 2018-19 season when Tulsa also began the year 4-0.
• This was the third meeting between Tulsa and South Carolina State as the series now stands at 3-0 in favor of the Golden Hurricane.
• Tulsa has had at least three double-digit scorers in each of their first four games this season.
• Tulsa's 44 first-half points was a season-high bettering the 34 points Tulsa scored against Incarnate Word.
• Junior Jared Garcia had a season-high 23 points for his first double-figure scoring game of the season … it bettered his previous career-high of 14 points while at Charlotte against Marshall in March 2021.
• Freshman transfer PJ Haggerty has scored in double-figures in all four games this season.
• Tonight's game marked the second straight 20+ point performance for Haggerty with a new season-high of 28 points … he had 20 points in Tulsa's last outing vs. Jackson State.
• This was Haggerty's second straight game with double-digit free throws made as he went 13-of-16 from the line tonight and a game earlier was 10-of-12.
• Freshman Matt Reed had a season-high eight rebounds, bettering his previous high game of six boards.
• Cobe Williams' six steals is the most since last year when Anthony Pritchard had six against SMU (1/1/23).
• Carlous Smith had season-highs with 10 points and 7 rebounds.
• Through four games, Tulsa has outscored the opposition by a margin of 17.7 points.

Tulsa will play its first road game of the season on Saturday at Little Rock. Tipoff is scheduled for 2:00 p.m.