Scott's buzzer-beater puts Tulsa past South Florida

Last-second moments like this for Curran Scott are even sweeter when family is there to share it. Especially since being able to have his family attend games was a huge reason Scott wanted to transfer to Tulsa.

Scott hit a buzzer-beating three-pointer to break a tie and boost Tulsa to a 78-75 victory over South Florida in front of an ecstatic 4,025 fans Saturday night at the Reynolds Center.

Scott’s mother, Kim Stout, was one of Scott’s family members who made the trip over from Edmond to see Scott’s game winner to go along with 11 points and a team high six rebounds.

“Thank goodness it happened so fast because I didn’t have time to get nervous,” said an overjoyed Stout after the game. “I thought Sterling was going to take it, but he passed it to Curran, and thank goodness he made it.”

South Florida (11-3, 1-1 AAC), having been behind for almost all of the game, had tied the score with 4.4 seconds left on a three-pointer by David Collins. After a timeout, Taplin inbounded the pass to Martins Igbanu, who quickly passed it back to Taplin, who then raced down the court.

Instead of taking a contested shot near the lane, Taplin dished to Scott in the right corner, and Scott delivered.

“When coach put me in, I was thinking, if this ball comes to me, I’m going to knock it down,” said Scott, who transferred from Charlotte after his freshman season in 2016. “Luckily I was able to do that for us.”

On the play, Scott and former Edmond Santa Fe high school teammate DaQuan Jeffries crossed each other after starting in opposite corners on the baseline. That caused enough confusion among USF defenders to leave Scott open, who got the shot off with less than a second remaining.

Scott had hit a shot from almost the exact same spot with 1:24 left that seemed like it would be the dagger to the Bulls in increasing Tulsa’s lead to 70-62.

Tulsa (11-4, 1-1) upped the lead to nine points at 71-62 on a free throw by Jeffries with 1:13 before the wheels started to come off for the Golden Hurricane.

In nightmarish fashion, Tulsa turned the ball over twice in the final minute by its own basket, and USF capitalized. Also, TU didn’t get any breaks on two fouls on wild drives to the basket by USF in the final minute, including a blocking call on Jeffries that bordered on the absurd with 36 seconds left that resulted in the lead being cut to 71-68.

The Bulls were able to cut the lead to 71-70 on a steal and basket by T.J. Lang with 30 seconds remaining, and it was looking like a possible collapse of epic proportions.

Still, Tulsa was able to make most of its free throws down the stretch, and for the game, finished 30 of 37 (81.1 percent), while USF made only 11 of 22 from the line.

“That’s how you win tight ball games,” TU coach Frank Haith said of free throws.

Taplin led the way with 10 of 10 from the line, including twice nailing both ends of the double bonus when the lead had been cut to only one point, the last coming with 14.2 seconds remaining to up the lead to 75-72.

Tulsa had seemed like it was in control for most of the game, but could never deliver the knockout punch. The Golden Hurricane’s biggest lead was 65-54 with just over six minutes remaining.

Haith was disappointed that his players didn’t use the two timeouts it had left at the time when USF had successfully trapped Tulsa in the closing minute.

“We’ll learn from those mistakes, but those are two bad turnovers," Haith said of the turnovers by Elijah Joiner and Lawson Korita. “We had four turnovers down the stretch. Obviously, we’re going to have to do a better job down the stretch.”

Haith, however, wasn’t dwelling on the negative after the game. He was obviously happy with Tulsa’s resiliency after seeing the lead evaporate.

“Our competitive spirit, I was really pleased with,” Haith said.

Jeffries led Tulsa with 20 points, while Igbanu (9 of 10 on free throws) and Taplin each had 15 points.

South Florida was led by Laquincy Rideau’s 19 points, while Collins added 16 points.

USF, having a much taller team, and coming into the game outrebounding its opponents by an average of almost 10 per game, had a 38-34 advantage on the boards, but grabbed 16 offensive rebounds.

Although USF appears to be much improved from its 10-22 performance in 2017-2018, its good record with an athletic and tall squad is deceiving due to playing a cupcake schedule.

Scheduling itself for success, the Bulls went 10-2 in non-conference play, winning eight of its nine non-conference home games against Alabama A&M, Austin Peay, Florida A&M, Stetson, Colgate, Appalachian State, Alcorn State and Fairleigh Dickenson.

USF lost a home game to The Citadel, and has only played one road game, making the short trek to play Florida International. Its only other loss came in Jamaica to Georgetown. The Bulls conference win came at home over unproven UConn.

Tulsa extended its home record to 9-0, and has now won 15 consecutive home games. TU is awaiting a strong test on Thursday at home against Cincinnati.