Sports editor Jaralynn Tammi Morellano discusses men’s basketball’s inability to score last week.
The University of Tulsa’s men’s basketball team had a cold and painful night in its match against North Texas last wednesday. As the school was facing a string of negative-degree reaching snow days, the Golden Hurricane was in Denton, Texas facing the chilling bite of defeat. The Mean Green kept Tulsa in its wraps from the beginning, widening the gap throughout the game to ensure its 63-44 victory.
North Texas came flooding out of the gates as the whistle blew for the game. It scored the game’s first six points. Things didn’t look too bad at first, the Golden Hurricane banking a three to put itself halfway to its opponents. It all started to go down hill when the Mean Green would score a trey of its own. Tulsa would struggle with rebounding and turnovers in this opening half. These mistakes would drive North Texas to a 10-point lead not even a quarter into the game (17-7). This lead would not be the end of the Mean Green’s scoring streak.
UNT would extend its lead to a whopping 23-7 before Tyshawn Archie would break its streak with a well-timed jumper. Things started to look promising when North Texas went minutes without any points, the team missing six straight shots with two turnovers in a row. What could have been a couple minutes for the Golden Hurricane to catch up turned into a couple minutes of starved, untouched baskets on both sides of the court. This was, for the first time in the half, where Tulsa was finally matching its opponents offensively. Both teams were just not scoring. The Golden Hurricane went four minutes without a point, so it made no headway in closing the gap of points.
Archie would be the saving grace of Tulsa, his pair of free throws ending this painstaking drought for the Golden Hurricane. These points would not take away from the fact that the team continued with no field goals for another minute of the game. Dwon Odom would be the one to squash this no-scoring streak. Odom was the silver lining of Tulsa’s five straight miss streak, his shot being 1-of-9 made during the entire no-score ordeal.
UNT was led by Moulaye Sissoko, who scored nearly half of the team’s points. The senior forward performed a perfect 6-of-6 game in the first half. With the Golden Hurricane fumbling many opportunities to add to the scoreboard, things were not looking too good when it went into the half down 30-19.
TU would seem to hit the gas in the second half, matching the opening energy of North Texas in the first. The Golden Hurricane would come out of the locker rooms and score the first six points of the half. This feat was led by Odom and Isaiah Barnes. Odom would feed Barnes, who would knock down a triple. The Georgia State transfer would continue the momentum with a drive-in layup. Finally, Barnes would be sent to the foul line, where his 1-of-2 shot acted as the cherry on top of this scoring sundae.
The Mean Green would live true to its name as it just did the exact same thing to show Tulsa another 6-0 scoring run. This pushed it back into a double-digit advantage, the score reaching 36-25. Before UNT could extend its lead any further, Golden Hurricane Jared Garcia would make a layup to stop it in its tracks. Archie would follow this performance with a steal, a play that would have him end at the foul line. He split these free throws and got the Golden Hurricane within eight points of the Mean Green (36-28).
It seemed that the Mean Green would always fire back and stay just out of reach of the Golden Hurricane. In the next two minutes, it would outscore TU 7-1 to earn a 14-point lead. TU would continue to fight and crawl to keep up with its opponents. However, North Texas would continue to outscore the Golden Hurricane. TU would continuously experience multiple minutes of no-score streaks. In the end, they fell 63-44.
Both teams went into the night with two-game winning streaks, but the Mean Green came out with the game to extend its streak. North Texas continues to stand second in the American with a 10-3 conference record. Tulsa stands at 10 out of the 13 teams with a conference record of 5-9. It stayed in Texas to face the Rice Owls, where its record dropped further to 5-10 in the American and 11-17 overall. The team will not see its next action until March 1 on its senior day at 1 p.m. in the Reynolds Center. This game will be the last home game of its season, and it will be streamed on ESPNU for all TU fans.
