Welcome back, Pat Birt, and welcome to a potentially standout career, Lawson Korita.
Korita and Birt’s long-range bombing of a combined seven out of 11 from behind the arc, along with the floor leadership of point guard Sterling Taplin, took away visions of upset that were dancing around in the heads of the visiting Texas State Bobcats.
Taplin had a team-high 13 points, while Korita and Birt had 12 and 11 points, respectively, as Tulsa defeated Texas State 74-59 on Saturday night in front of an announced crowd of 3,990 at the Reynolds Center.
Birt had been struggling all season, averaging 8.4 points per game on 24.4 percent three-point shooting after averaging 12 points per game last season on 36.6 percent from long range. A player that carried Tulsa offensively at times last season, Birt hit three of five three-pointers, including two in the first half that sparked a lethargic first-half Golden Hurricane offense.
“It was great to see guys like Lawson and Pat Birt make shots,” said TU coach Frank Haith.
The only senior on the team, Birt had begun his senior year looking like he was lacking in confidence. But after hitting three treys, he was so confident in the second half that he could be seen jumping up and down waving for the ball when he was open in the left corner.
For Korita, it was his first career game scoring in double-digits. The 6-foot-5 freshman from Little Rock made four of six three-pointers in 28 minutes, and he continues to look like a player who will become a standout.
Following a recent pattern, Tulsa got down early in the game, this time by seven at 12-5, as the Bobcats couldn’t miss while making all close-in buckets. Tulsa’s man-to-man defense at that point was looking less than stellar to say the least.
Tulsa (5-4) battened up its defense after that, and the defensive improvement combined with good shooting tied the game at halftime, 35-35. After the break, it was all Golden Hurricane, and the Bobcats were off the mark on contested shots, while Tulsa was finishing the game shooting 51.1 percent from the field.
“I thought our guys in the second half locked down defensively, and I think that got our offense going by getting consecutive stops on the defensive end,” Haith said.
The hustle by Taplin and Korita was evident when they were both diving for loose balls in the second half, and the team and crowd responded. Taplin had 12 of his 13 points in the second half.
“I thought Sterling had a really good floor game with 13 points and seven assists and three steals,” Haith said. “In his last three ball games, you’ve seen him grow and grow and grow.”
Taplin, averaging 7.6 points and three assists coming into the game, has averaged 14.7 points and 5.3 assists over the last three games.
“We played well in the second half. We rebounded and we locked up on defense,” Taplin said. “We just took our time on the offensive end and executed what we had to do, and we played well together in the second half.”
The Golden Hurricane out-rebounded the Bobcats 23-10 in the second half for a game advantage of 38-27, which is something that was not lost on Haith.
“We were able to secure rebounds, and we got outrebounded against Oklahoma State,” Haith explained. “That was a big part of our preparation for this game - rebounding the basketball. Once we were getting stops and securing rebounds, I thought we were able to execute really well.”
Five Tulsa players finished in double figures in scoring. Besides Taplin, Korita and Birt, Will Magnay and Jaleel Wheeler each added 10 points.
Texas State (5-5) had played less than a scintillating schedule coming into the game with victories over the likes of Oklahoma Panhandle State, Prairie View A&M, SIU-Edwardsville, along with losses to UT Rio Grande Valley and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
However, their coach, Danny Kaspar, is an accomplished coach with 507 career college victories. His previous stop at Stephen F. Austin ended with a 27-5 record in 2013 that set the table for his successor, current OSU coach Brad Underwood, to have a remarkable three-year run there that got him hired at OSU.
Bobby Conley scored 11 of his game-high 19 points in the first half to lead Texas State.
In an interesting pattern of playing time, guard Corey Henderson started only his third game of the season but only played three minutes, all in the first half.
Meanwhile, freshman guard Joseph Battle, who had played only three minutes in one game all season, scored three points, his first points of the season. His points came on a drive to the bucket and subsequent free throw after being fouled. In four minutes, Battle also had two rebounds and a turnover.
The only sore spot in the game was that TU turned the ball over 20 times.
“We had 19 assists, which is a season high,” Haith said. “So we’re starting to get it, in terms of sharing the basketball, our execution is a lot better, and we shot the ball very well.
“We’ve still got to clean up the turnover deal. That’s a product of being a young team. I think we’ll get better as we keep working on that.”
