The impact of having Brandon Rachal back cannot be overestimated, as was clearly evidenced Wednesday night against East Carolina.
In a tale of two halves, Tulsa was back to its strong self in the first half with a less than 100 percent Rachal. Without Rachal in the second half, Tulsa looked vulnerable again.
Still, Tulsa had enough, in great part due to Martins Igbanu continuing with his stellar inside play. Igbanu had 24 points and 10 rebounds to lead TU to a 70-56 victory in front of a crowd of 3,232 at the Reynolds Center.
Tulsa (16-8, 8-3 AAC) blasted out to a 39-23 halftime lead with Rachal back in the starting lineup coming off an ankle injury. In the second half, with Rachal sitting out as a precaution, the lead was twice whittled down to eight points, the last time coming with under five minutes remaining, and Tulsa struggled on both ends at times while ECU (10-15, 4-8) wouldn't go away.
"Brandon only played 11 minutes, but his impact," said TU coach Frank Haith. "He had a steal, he had a block in those 11 minutes. We got back to being who we are."
The Golden Hurricane had been a very good defensive team, and was in first place in the AAC before Rachal went down with a left ankle injury six days ago, eight minutes into the second half in a 72-56 home loss to UConn. Without Rachal, Tulsa got trounced by a mediocre UCF squad on the road Sunday afternoon.
"You lose a little bit of your mojo when you lose two games in a row," Haith said. "I go back to the UConn game. It was a three point game when Brandon goes down. You can see that energized UConn and that kind of deflated us a little bit. And we go on the road and we play a Central Florida team and you can see we're smarting a little bit without Brandon out there. And they shot the ball incredibly.
"We weren't ourselves. And so we needed to get back to playing the way we're capable of playing with or without Brandon. I thought our guys stepped up."
Besides Igbanu, who has been on a roll lately, Darien Jackson was the key to Tulsa being able to hold on in the second half. With Jackson's five key steals, along with scoring eight of his 11 points in the second half, he was a difference maker.
With the athletic ability and defensive tenacity of Jackson and Rachal again present in the first half, Tulsa was again fun to watch.
"He (Rachal) helps us tremendously," Haith said. "He's the guy who kind of does it for us, defensively. He and Darien both. When he and Darien are out there on the wings, and Eli, who was under the weather, playing at the level they're playing at, we're pretty good."
With a 16-point lead going into the second half, Haith made a small gamble on sitting Rachal out, believing that Tulsa could survive the game with a win while protecting his leader in scoring, rebounds and steals.
"It stiffened up and I just didn't want to," Haith said of Rachal's ankle and not playing him in the second half. "We need him to get healthy. We've got to try and get through this game. We knew it wasn't going to be easy. They are coming off a big win on the road at Tulane. I know they're capable. But I didn't want Brandon out there re-injuring himself."
A heavy dose of the 6-foot-8 Igbanu was required to finish off the Pirates. Igbanu scored 14 of his 24 points in the second half despite getting mauled inside. Constantly at the foul line, Igbanu made 12-of-18 free throws, both career highs , and was six-of-11 from the field.
"The guy is playing at a high, high level," Haith said of Igbanu. "He's doing what he needs to do. We had some guys struggle a little bit, offensively, but obviously, Martins was terrific."
Igbanu has been nearly unstoppable on offense, lately. He is averaging 25.1 points in his last six games, and is coming off games of 29 and 30 points, respectively. He is averaging 17.9 points in conference play, and 13 points overall.
"It's always going to a physical game down there, so I think they did a good job of calling fouls today," Igbanu said of his high free throw numbers. "I've been expecting myself to play at this level. It didn't really go like I wanted it at the start of the season, but I thank God and thank my coaches and thank my teammates for always supporting me and giving me the confidence I need. I know I put the work in, so it was just a matter of time."
Critical to the game was also Tulsa's defense of East Carolina's leading scorer Jayden Gardner, who averages 20.4 points and 10.2 rebounds in conference play. The 6-7 Gardner was held to four-of-12 from the field, and finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds. In Tulsa's 65-49 victory almost a month ago at ECU, Gardner scored 19 points, including 13 of 14 from the free throw line.
""I thought we did a great job on him," Haith said of defending Gardner. "Our identification of where he was was great. We didn't want him catching easy catches inside of the paint area. We did a great job of forcing him out which allowed us to get to him. It was a good team defensive effort on him. He's really good with his right hand. We did a really good job of taking that away. Jeriah (Horne) had a couple of blocks on him.
J.J Miles, averaging 7.4 points per game, led East Carolina with 21 points.
For Haith, getting the win over ECU was something he wasn't taking for granted. It was obviously a relief.
"A great win. A good bounce back," Haith said. "This was a huge game. I'm excited about this win; Any win is great, trust me."
Tulsa next plays at USF at 11 a.m. Saturday morning.
