This week, the Golden Hurricane men’s basketball played the road half of the season split against two conference opponents, UCF and Cincinnati.
The first game was against UCF, a team that Tulsa beat at home by double digits. The road game in the series was a different story. In the first half, the Golden Hurricane were able to match most of the runs made by the Knights. UCF’s largest lead in the half was 12 at the five-minute mark, but Tulsa fought back to close the gap to four at the halftime break.
The beginning of the second half looked much the same as the first half, until Tulsa’s offense sputtered out. The 43–40 score with 12 minutes remaining was as close as the Golden Hurricane would get to completing the comeback victory. They mustered only 13 points for the rest of the game, compared to 28 scored by UCF. The Knights took the game by a final score of 71–53.
The second game of the season against Cincinnati was also distinct from the first game. The Golden Hurricane almost upset the best team in the American Athletic Conference two weeks ago at home. Travelling to play at Cincinnati proved to be a much bigger challenge.
Similarly to the game against UCF, Tulsa kept up for most of the first half. Cincinnati was able to push its advantage up to 9 at times, but at halftime the difference was only six points.
The defining moment in this game was the dominant run to start the second half for the Bearcats. They opened the half with a run that put them up by 20 points, and that was enough to down the Golden Hurricane. The final score was 80–60 in favor of the Bearcats.
Tulsa has now dropped their sixth straight conference game, putting their at 12–14 (6–8 AAC). They will look to bounce back against USF on Thursday at home. Tipoff is at 7:00 p.m.
