Max Abmas scored a season-high 28 points to lead Oral Roberts to a 77-66 Mayor’s Cup victory on Saturday at the Reynolds Center.
The city’s two Division I programs went head-to-head in front of an energetic crowd of 4,662, as the Golden Eagles claimed their fourth consecutive triumph in the rivalry. Abmas added four assists and three rebounds, and played every second of the game, even after a minor injury on the court.
“Everybody knows he’s the focal point of attention, he gets a lot of attention from other teams’ defenses,” said ORU coach Paul Mills of Abmas. “You got to remember, he plays all 40 minutes, especially in games like this. We don’t take him out, I get nervous when I take him out, and he knows it, so he knows what he’s in for night-in and night-out. And it’s a tribute to his maturity and him just making the right basketball play.“
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Carlos Jurgens had 12 points and three assists for ORU (6-3), while Kareem Thompson and Patrick Mwamba each chipped in 11 points and eight rebounds). The Golden Eagles have won three straight games and five of their past six.
Abmas said the Mayor’s Cup meant a lot to him and that the energetic environment made the game fun to play.
“It was a great atmosphere out there, for sure,” he said. “The Cup coming up on the road, knowing that we’ll have some fans here, but just the Mayor’s Cup in general, it’s just so big, not only for us, but for our alums. We know how important it is to them, so we just want to go out there and do what we can to keep the Mayor’s Cup where it belongs.“
Bryant Selebangue led Tulsa (2-5) with 15 points and a game-high 12 rebounds for his third double-double of the season, while Brandon Betson added 14 points off the bench and Tulsa native Anthony Pritchard contributed 12 points. TU leading scorer Sam Griffin shot just 4-of-16 from the field but still wound up with 11 points, eight rebounds and four assists.
Tulsa has now lost four in a row since a win over Loyola Chicago back on Nov. 17.
“I want to say thanks to our student body, our fans and the city of Tulsa, for providing a great environment here today,” TU coach Eric Konkol said. “Love seeing the building electric like that, and of course an inter-city battle with ORU for the Mayor’s Cup.
“Of course, disappointed that we weren’t able to get this one done here today. So many different factors. I thought we played some really good basketball in moments, and it’s that consistency that we’re searching for, really on both ends.”
Late surge: It was a tight game through most of the contest until ORU pulled away early in the second half. Neither team led by more than five points until Abmas connected on a 3-pointer from the right corner with 12:58 remaining to cap off a 12-1 run that transformed a 40-40 tie into a 52-41 ORU lead.
The Golden Eagles maintained at least a seven-point edge until TU surged with a 9-2 run that was completed by Selebangue’s layup with 3:38 to go, pulling the Golden Hurricane to within 67-64 with 3:38 to go.
But that was as close as TU would get, as ORU responded with a 10-0 run over the next two and a half minutes, with Mwamba’s dunk with 1:06 left putting the exclamation point on a statement Golden Eagle victory.
“Max Abmas, he’s one of those types of players, he just made play after play after play,” Konkol said. “And then we turned the basketball over. I thought we had just a little bit of hurried anxious possessions on the other end, but when the other team is scoring like that, it puts a lot of pressure on your offense. And of course, we didn’t want to be in that position.”
Mills attributed ORU’s better second half, outscoring Tulsa 41-33, to allowing just two offensive rebounds after giving up eight in the first half.
“We just knew if we continued to do that, this wasn’t going to turn out well for us,” Mills said. “To us, that was the difference. They only ended up shooting 41 percent overall, but I thought we were much better at not giving up O-Boards and second opportunities (in the second half). It’s not the first shot that beats you, it’s the second one, and for us, we did a much better job in the second half making sure that we limited their opportunities.”
Turning it over: Tulsa’s total of 13 turnovers was an improvement over the 19 it had in the previous game against Oklahoma State, but the key stat of the contest was ORU outscoring TU 21-3 on points off of turnovers. The Golden Eagles turned the ball over just five times, by far Tulsa’s lowest opponent turnover total of the season and matching ORU’s best of the year.
“Looking at the stats, reflecting on the game, the points off turnovers was big,” Konkol said. “Knowing that Oral Roberts is not a team that turns it over very much, we were going to need to do a little bit better in that, and when we did (turn it over), we were going to have to get back and get set, but they’re an electric team.”
Injury scare: Abmas dove for a lose ball and hit the back of his head in the process with 5:28 remaining and stayed down for several moments. He got up slowly and seemed to be shaken up, but he ended up not missing any action because Mills called time out and when play resumed, Abmas was ready to go back in.
“I just saw a loose ball and I was going to dive and try to get it, so I hit my head on his knee, but I’m all good,” Abmas said. “I’ll be good next game.”
“When you watch Max go down, he’s pretty resilient, I’ve seen him go down a lot, he bounces back,” Mills added. “We called a time out right after that, I said, ‘Hey, you okay?’ He said, ‘Do NOT take me out.’ So I was going to go by whatever he told me. … We’ll get concussion protocol and he’ll be all right, but he’s a really tough kid.”
3 – free throw attempts for ORU in the game, making two of them, and that’s just the second-lowest total of the season after they didn’t go to the line at all in the 95-62 win over John Brown on Nov. 11
44 – rebounds for Tulsa, to 42 for ORU, making this just the second time this season that TU outrebounded its opponent, although ORU did have a 22-16 edge in the second half
78 – the number of shots taken from the floor by Oral Roberts, their highest total of the season, and the most that Tulsa has allowed all year. ORU made 33 of those shots for a shooting percentage of 42.3
52.9 – percentage of free throws made by Tulsa, connecting on 9-of-17, their third straight game with a number under 55 percent, but an improvement on the previous two contests (25 and 36.4 percent)
9 – steals by ORU, matching their season-high from their 98-86 win over Oklahoma Baptist on Nov. 9, with two each coming from Connor Vanover, Kareem Thompson and Abmas
ORAL ROBERTS (6-3): Vanover 4-11 0-0 8, Abmas 11-22 1-1 28, Jurgens 5-8 0-0 12, McBride 0-6 0-0 0, Thompson 5-12 1-1 11, Mwamba 5-10 0-1 11, Phipps 0-3 0-0 0, Weaver 3-6 0-0 7. Totals 33-78 2-3 77.
TULSA (2-5): Dalger 2-6 1-1 5, Selebangue 5-8 5-10 15, Embery-Simpson 2-5 0-0 5, Griffin 4-16 2-3 11, Pritchard 5-9 0-0 12, Betson 5-7 1-1 14, Gaston-Chapman 1-7 0-2 2, Knight 0-1 0-0 0, Chukwu 1-2 0-0 2. Totals 25-61 9-17 66.
Halftime: Oral Roberts 36-33. 3-Point Goals: Oral Roberts 9-36 (Abmas 5-14, Jurgens 2-5, Mwamba 1-1, Weaver 1-3, Thompson 0-2, Phipps 0-3, McBride 0-4, Vanover 0-4), Tulsa 7-21 (Betson 3-3, Pritchard 2-4, Embery-Simpson 1-3, Griffin 1-6, Dalger 0-1, Knight 0-1, Gaston-Chapman 0-3). Rebounds: Oral Roberts 38 (Vanover, Thompson, Mwamba 8), Tulsa 40 (Selebangue 12). Assists: Oral Roberts 16 (Abmas, McBride 4), Tulsa 9 (Griffin 4). Total Fouls: Oral Roberts 14, Tulsa 7. A: 4,662 (8,355).
