It was the type of game that won’t be remembered long from now. Probably not even later in the year.
But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Some people might vaguely remember a fun alley-oop dunk by DaQuan Jeffries on a pass from Sterling Taplin. Or they might mention how a moving three-point shot that Zeke Moore made to start the game was mystifyingly turned into a two-pointer in the books. How that call would make the Nitpicking Hall of Fame.
But in the end, Tulsa’s 74-52 win over South Carolina State on Saturday afternoon was full of non-drama in front of 3,251 fans at the Reynolds Center.
Tulsa (2-0) was playing a team that wasn’t very good, but not unbelievably bad. South Carolina State (1-1) was good enough to put up a fight, but not good enough to stay close if Tulsa played a decent game.
In short, the Bulldogs were the perfect opponent for a second game of the season where TU is still trying to figure out who plays in what role, and what the rotation will be. An opponent that gave Tulsa room to work out its kinks while not being too much of a pushover.
Jeffries put on a show in the second half by scoring 16 of his team-high 18 points to go with a team-high nine rebounds. Jeffries made seven of eight shots in the second half, including two of three on three-pointers.
Jeffries’ high school teammate at Edmond Santa Fe, Curran Scott, was the only other Golden Hurricane player in double figures with 11 points.
The most impressive statistic of the game was Taplin having 10 assists and no turnovers in 22 minutes, finishing with six points while performing to his usual outstanding standard as a senior point guard should.
The game started out slowly, with Tulsa scoring just four points in the first seven plus minutes, and going from leading 4-0 to trailing 5-4 and at 8-7. But after scoring nine points in the first 10 plus minutes, the Golden Hurricane finally got going, leading 36-25 at halftime.
From there, TU never took the foot off the pedal, and left South Carolina State in the dust.
South Carolina State of the MEAC finished 10-22 last year. Damani Applewhite led the Bulldogs in scoring with 21 points
“I do like what I see. I think this team has a chance to be really good,” said TU coach Frank Haith. “But it is early, and we’ve got to keep getting better. I think the biggest thing for this team is, as we continue to grow, we embrace our roles, and sometimes roles can change, but wherever you’re at, you embrace it.”
All 12 eligible scholarships players played, but juco transfer Peter Hewitt only played the last two minutes. Basically, it was Tulsa playing 11 players for the second consecutive game.
One interesting twist was seeing Nebraska transfer Jeriah Horne and Jeffries in the lineup at the same time. That is significant because both play the four. Horne finished with eight points and five rebounds in 19 minutes.
“There will be a lineup where Quan can play the small forward spot too, so he can play the three, and Jeriah play the four, and Martins (Igbanu) play the five,” Haith said. “But also, Jeriah can play the five, and Quan can play the four if we want to play small. We’ll have that versatility. We’ll definitely see a lot more of that for sure, because Jeriah and Quan will play a lot together on the court.
As for narrowing down the rotation from 11 players, Haith said it will definitely happen sometime soon, but isn’t going to pin down a date for that occurring.
The starting lineup, for the second consecutive game, was Jeffries, Igbanu, Taplin, Moore and Darien Jackson. Moore scored six points in a team-high 26 minutes. The other six players in the rotation now are Horne, Scott, Simon Falokun, Elijah Joiner, Chris Barnes and Lawson Korita.
“I want our guys to continue to compete at practice. All that stuff will work itself out,” Haith said of who is in his rotation. “I think right now we want all of our guys to understand getting better, coming to work every day.
“We’re not going to play 11 guys,” Haith said. “I can see us playing nine guys. I can even maybe see us playing 10. But 11 guys is very, very hard to do.”
Tulsa’s next game is at 12 noon on Friday at the Reynolds Center against Cal Baptist.
