Tulsa Suffers 79-70 Setback at Oral Roberts

Saturday, December 2

Tulsa, OK

7:00 PM

Tulsa

4-2,0-0AAC

Oral Roberts

3-4,0-0Summit League

Tulsa

Oral Roberts

Tulsa Suffers 79-70 Setback at Oral Roberts

12/2/2023 10:38:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Box Score (PDF)

TULSA, Okla. –– The Golden Hurricane allowed a late 11-0 run, which made the difference in a 79-70 loss to ORU in the Mayor's Cup at the Mabee Center on Saturday evening.

Tulsa drops to 4-2 on the season, while Oral Roberts improves to 3-4 and retains the Mayor's Cup after winning its third straight in the series. Tulsa continues to lead the overall series 36-22.

With the score tied 60-60 with 5:22 to play, the Golden Eagles broke the game open with an 11-0 run to take a 71-60 lead with 1:47 to play. From there, Tulsa turned to fouling to extend the game and ORU went 8-of-12 down the stretch to ice the win.

PJ Haggerty led Tulsa with 17 points, hitting 6-of-12 from the floor and knocking down his only 3-point attempt. Cobe Williams scored 14 and Keaston Willis, making his debut in a Golden Hurricane uniform, scored 10. Jared Garcia had a team-high seven boards.

Issac McBride and DeShang Weaver were the top scorers for ORU. McBride scored a game-high 22 and Weaver dropped 20. All of Weaver's 20 came in the opening half, while McBride scored 15 in the second 20 minutes.

The teams were fairly even shooting the ball, with ORU hitting 45.8 percent of its field goals (22-of-48) to Tulsa's 42.1 percent (24-of-57). Tulsa knocked down 10 3-pointers at a 40 percent clip, while ORU made one more and shot 40.7 on the deep ball.

HOW IT HAPPENED
IN THE FIRST HALF . . .
ORU jumped out to an early 5-0 lead before Tulsa got on the board with Cobe Williams splitting a pair of free throws at the 18:03 mark. Barnes connected on a triple for Tulsa's first field goal of the half at 16:41, putting Tulsa up for the first time 6-5.

The teams traded a couple of leads before the Golden Eagles started catching fire from deep, hitting three in a row to go up 17-11, its largest lead of the half.

Tulsa responded quickly as Willis entered for the first time and buried a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to three. Haggerty brought it to one with a jumper and the Hurricane would tie it at 18 on a Mohamed Keita dunk and take the lead on a pair of free throws from Jarred Hall with just under 10 to play.

The game was then tied at 20-20, 23-23, and 25-25 before a Cobe Williams 3-pointer gave Tulsa a lead the Hurricane would retain the rest of the half. TU extended its advantage to 33-26 on a Matthew Reed 3-pointer. This would be Tulsa's largest lead of the night.

ORU closed the half outscoring Tulsa 10-6. Isaiah Barnes got the final bucket of the opening half with a second chance dunk after pulling down an offensive rebound to send Tulsa to the break leading 39-36.

Tulsa had shooting clips of 46.4 percent from the floor, 42.9 from 3-point range and 77.8 from the foul line in the opening half. Haggerty led the way with eight points, while Isaiah Barnes added seven.

IN THE SECOND HALF . . .
The second half was tightly contested for the first 15 minutes. ORU tied the game at 39 before Tulsa found the bucket with a 3-pointer from Jared Garcia. The teams would then go on to trade lead changes and ties with the score never getting above a four-point lead until a McBride floater put ORU up 65-60 at the start of ORU's big run with 3:54 to play.

After Garcia had tied the game at 60, ORU hit a 3-pointer to go up 63-60. A Tulsa turnover led to the floater to go up five. The Hurricane turned it over on the following two possessions before a 3-point shot from Trey Phipps gave the hosts a 68-60 lead with 2:33 to play. After Tulsa missed a shot out of the timeout, the Golden Eagles responded with its third 3-pointer in the past four field goals to go up 11.

A Cobe Williams layup at 1:32 stopped the run and gave Tulsa its first field goal since he knocked down a 3-pointer with 6:52 to play. The Hurricane had gone 5:20 of game time without a shot from the floor and 3:50 without scoring a point.

ORU went on to seal the win at the foul line as Tulsa couldn't find a way to claw back into the game.

Tulsa was held to just 37.9 percent shooting in the second half and 36.4 from 3-point range, while ORU knocked down 47.8 percent of its shots and 45.5 percent on 3-pointers. The Golden Eagles, thanks in part to late game fouling, also got to the charity stripe 24 times in the second half, connecting on 16 attempts (66.7 percent).

GAME NOTES
• This was the 58th meeting against Oral Roberts, and Tulsa leads 36-22.
• Three Hurricane scored in double-digits in Saturday's contest … Tulsa has had at least three double-digit scorers in every game this season.
• Cobe Williams had his 58th career double-figure scoring game, and his fifth in a Tulsa uniform
• PJ Haggerty led the team with 17 points … it's the fourth consecutive game a freshman has led Tulsa in scoring.
• Keaston Willis returned from an injury to make his Tulsa debut, scoring 10 points and knocking down two 3-pointers.
• There 12 lead changes and 10 ties in the contest.
• Tulsa was outrebounded 35-32, but held a 10-8 advantage on offensive rebounds, turning them into 17 second chance points.

Tulsa returns to the Reynolds Center for a Tuesday night contest with Loyola Chicago. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. and will air on ESPN+.