TU having a shot to tie and to win in the closing seconds after being down 11 points with under three minutes remaining was truly incredible.
But in the end, it was another close but no cigar ending for the snake-bit Golden Hurricane. This time it was a 66-64 heartbreaker against mighty No. 11 Houston Saturday night in front of a loud Reynolds Center crowd that was announced at 3,349.
Being cheered on by a boisterous student section, Tulsa climbed back after being down 17 points (38-21) at halftime, and outscored the Cougars 43-28 in the second half.
Jeriah Horne led the way for Tulsa with 24 points and 6 rebounds, including 17 points in the second half. With freshman point guard Anthony Pritchard running the show well, Horne benefitted from some terrific second half ball movement as TU players hit 8 of 13 three-pointers in the second half.
As Tulsa drove to the basket and Houston's aggressive, shot-blocking defense (9 blocks) overplayed Tulsa's drives, the Golden Hurricane kicked the ball back out and whipped it around, hitting the open man. That open man was frequently Horne, who hit 5 of 8 treys in the second half.
"Our ball movement was really good in the second half, and we were playing with more confidence," said TU coach Frank Haith. "But the biggest thing was we were getting stops, and we were getting rebounds. They are such a great rebounding team."
Tulsa (6-9, 0-4), a week removed from getting its game at UCF postponed due to 11 of its players having Covid, had amazing second half energy. But TU still fell to 1-7 in games decided by 5 points or less, including every conference game.
Pritchard had an amazing plus/minus ratio of plus 16 in over 27 minutes of playing time, with a plus 1 ratio even in the first half during his 11:20 of playing time. So when he was out of the game for 8:40 in the first half, Tulsa was outscored by 18 points.
Tulsa also suffered when Horne was briefly out of the lineup, as Horne played over 37 minutes with a plus/minus ratio of plus 10. So when he was out of the game for 2:25 in the first half, Tulsa dropped 13 points. Horne played all 20 minutes of the second half.
Sam Griffin hit 3 three-pointers, starting at the 2:53 mark, to close the margin to 66-64 with 1:05 remaining. Griffin, Tulsa's second leading scorer, only had one point up until that point.
TU finally got the ball back with 6.6 seconds remaining against the hard-charging, over-the-back rebounding Cougars, who missed two attempts before the ball went out of bounds to Tulsa.
Anthony Pritchard drove the length of the court to miss a very good look close to the basket on a double clutch effort with 2 seconds left. The ball went out of bounds off Houston, and 0.4 seconds remained.
Griffin got off an off-balance shot from the left corner that would have won the game for TU as time expired, but it was partially blocked and hit the side end of the backboard.
Houston (15-2, 4-0), coming off a Final Four season in 2021, won for the first time in the last three contests at Tulsa. The Cougars were led by Kyler Edwards, a very good player who was completely out of his mind against TU.
The 6-foot-4 Edwards, a senior who leads Houston's current roster in scoring at 12.1 points per game, scored 29 points, including 7 of 15 (46.7 percent) three-pointers. He came into the game shooting 33.7 percent from behind the arc, and averaging 2.2 made three-pointers per game.
The Golden Hurricane never led or tied the game after the opening minutes, but almost took the lead with around 10 minutes remaining when Rey Idowu had a close-in attempt, down 50-49, that would have given TU the lead. Idowu appeared to be fouled on the play, but, like most of the game, Tulsa couldn't get the call against the incredibly aggressive Cougars.
For only the second game of the season, Tulsa held an opponent to under 40 percent from the field (39.7 percent). TU finished 40 percent from the field.
Tulsa did a good job on the boards against the strong rebounding Cougars, who out-rebound their opponents by an average of 7.8 rebounds per game. Tulsa was only outrebounded 38-35, although opponents average 3.7 more rebounds than Tulsa gets this season.
"I'm proud of how hard my kids fought," Haith said. "I thought they gave it everything they had in this ball game against one of the better teams in the country."
Tulsa's next game is Thursday night at Cincinnati, before returning home against Memphis Sunday afternoon.
