Tulsa, OK - Corey Henderson and Junior Etou weren’t going to let slow first halves ruin things for themselves or the Golden Hurricane.
Henderson and Etou came back with a vengeance after halftime to help Tulsa smother SMU in a 76-67 victory Thursday night in front of 4,337 fans at the Reynolds Center.
Henderson scored 15 of his team-high 18 points in the second half, while Etou had a double-double in the second half alone with 11 rebounds and 10 points. Etou finished with 17 points and 15 rebounds, including six offensive boards.
Tulsa (12-10, 5-5 AAC) looked to be the clearly superior team for most of the way, but just when it seemed like it was going to pull away and put the Mustangs in the rear view mirror, SMU hung in there and made Tulsa sweat a bit until the end of the game.
“I thought it was a big win for us,” said TU coach Frank Haith. “We protected our home court. (Etou and Henderson) were big, particularly in the second half.”
The Golden Hurricane got out to a 28-22 lead late in the second half, only to see SMU score five points in the last seven seven seconds of the half to take a 31-30 halftime lead.
“We were slacking at the end of the first half, not taking care of the ball and turning the ball over and not playing with high energy,” Etou said. “The coaches came in at halftime and told us to play with confidence and a lot of energy in the second half, and that's what we did.”
Tulsa responded by going on a 12-0 run to start the half, as Etou and Henderson combined to score eight of those points. Tulsa led by as many as 14 points at 49-35, but a shocking three-pointer by Central grad Elijah Landrum (Landrum’s first of his career in conference play - 4 of 32 for the season) cut the lead to five points at 51-46 just past the midway point in the half.
But just as they did all game, Henderson and Etou answered, this time with consecutive threes, and SMU never got as close again. SMU did cut the lead to six in the last minute, but couldn’t capitalize.
It didn’t hurt Tulsa’s cause that SMU was already playing without second leading scorer and leading rebounded in 6-6 guard/forward Jarrey Foster, who was lost for the season with a knee injury in its win 15 days ago at Wichita State.
Another whammy hit the already thin Mustangs when Owasso High School product Shake Milton was unable to play due to a bruised right hand. The loss of SMU’s top two leading scorers was too much for the Ponies to overcome.
Helping SMU more than make up for Milton’s 18 points per game was the unexpectedly proficient performances of Jahmal McMurray and Ben Emelogu. Averaging 9.9 and 8.3 points, respectively, in conference play, the duo combined for 46 points, thus exceeding their combined conference average by nearly 28 points.
McMurray, a USF junior transfer guard, scored SMU’s first 10 points and finished with 22 points, including 7 of 17 on three-pointers. Emelogu, a senior transfer from Virginia Tech, hit 10 of 18 shots from the field, including 3 of 8 from behind the arc, to lead SMU with 24 points.
SMU (15-8, 5-5), whose non-conference record was padded with creampuff home wins against the likes of UMBC, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Northwestern State, UTRGV, and Cal Poly, also has had very impressive wins against then No. 2 Arizona and at No. 7 Wichita State.
Important stats for the Golden Hurricane included a 42-35 rebound advantage, as well as making 23 of 28 free throws to only 5 of 9 from the stripe for the Mustangs. Also, Tulsa had 14 assists to only nine turnovers, while SMU had nine assists and nine turnovers.
A big part of Tulsa’s inside advantage was Martins Igbanu owning Tulsa Union grad Ethan Chargois in the paint. Igbanu was 4 of 7 from the field and had 12 points and four rebounds, while Chargois looked slow while scoring two points and grabbing one rebound. Chargois came into the game averaging 11 points and five rebounds, although those averages have dipped to 7.5 points and 3.9 rebounds in conference play.
Igbanu has kept up his surge in conference play, where he averaged 12.6 points and 6.7 rebounds coming into the contest, and 9.2 and 5.3 overall.
For SMU, Landrum finished with eight points, but made only 2 of 7 shots, with a lucky three-pointer from the left side bouncing off the from rim and the backboard and hanging before falling. He was averaging 0.8 points in conference play.
For Tulsa, point guard Sterling Taplin was held six points under his average with five points on only four shots, but he played a strong floor game with seven assists to only one turnover.
The game for Henderson was another strong performance in conference play, where he leads Tulsa in averaging over 13 points per game.
For Etou, who has struggled some lately, the game was a confidence builder. He averages 12.6 in conference play, 15.2 overall, while compiling rebound averages of 8.4 in conference play and 7.3, overall, coming into the game.
“I had a talk with Coach Haith after the Wichita State game about watching Rashard Kelley. He’s always crashing the boards offensively, and he wants me to do the same thing, and that was my focus tonight,” Etou said of Kelley, who had 11 rebounds in the loss four days ago at Wichita State, and averages 7.7 boards per game.
Tulsa plays next on Sunday at noon at USF in Tampa.
