For those who love alley-oop dunks and scoring 100 points in victories, this was your game, TU fans.
Isaiah Barnes led the way with 22 points and a few dunks as Tulsa easily defeated Arkansas-Pine Bluff 103-80 on Saturday afternoon in front of a crowd of 2,753 at the Reynolds Center.
“We’ll practice it. We got that one play to Isaiah in the zone in the first half. We’ll do some different 2-on-1 drills,” said Tulsa coach Eric Konkol of the alley-oops. “We’ve got some guys with some good bounce. We want to be able to get above the rim if it’s there.”
Dwon Odom, along with Barnes, displayed his dunking ability with impressive slams. There were so many dunks that Barnes and Odom couldn’t remember how many they each had.
“I’m not going to lie, his was crazy. That got me turned up for sure,” Barnes said of the 6-2 Odom’s windmill dunk off his steal on a fast break.
Odom, who just turned 24, said he saves his dunks for the games. Konkol said the same thing about Odom, who emphasizes the athletic ability on the team.
“We’ve got a lot of explosive players, and we’ve got a lot of explosive plays,” Odom said.
Tulsa (2-0) enjoyed a game which wasn’t out of hand in the first half but still offered up many dunks. As the second half progressed, the game was a blowout, and it was a fun time for dunks and scoring.
It was a good tune-up game for the Golden Hurricane against a team that clearly wasn’t going to beat Tulsa, although UAPB hung in there for as long as they could.
Keaston Willis scored 17 points for TU, including 2 of 4 on three-pointers and 9 of 9 on free throws. Odom had 14 points and 6 assists. Tyshawn Archie had 15 points and 5 assists. Braeden Carrington added 9 points and 4 assists.
Tulsa had an impressive 24-7 assists to turnover ratio, and had 14 steals.
“We wanted to share the basketball and get good stops,” Konkol said. “To see the 24 assists was really, really important.”
Making his debut for Tulsa was 6-7 post player Justin Amadi, an experienced, accomplished transfer from James Madison who missed all of last season before transferring to Tulsa. Amadi had 5 points and 3 rebounds in 12 minutes coming off the bench.
Amadi’s presence allowed Tulsa to play some with two big men, instead of almost exclusively with a four-guard offense that it used in the exhibition game and first game of the season.
“Justin is very athletic. He’s fast, he’s explosive, he’s got a nose for the ball. He’s just missed a lot of time,” Konkol said. “He just got cleared this week. We did an accelerated course with some things we thought we could do with him.
“He’s got a way of cutting. Ty found him on that lob dunk. It was really nice. It was needed. We needed that size.”
UAPB (1-2) was led by Zach Reinhart and Dante Sawyer with 15 points apiece.
Next up for Tulsa is the Mayor’s Cup game on Wednesday night at the Reynolds Center against Oral Roberts. Last year’s loss at ORU will provide some motivation.
“I just remember last year confetti dropping on our heads. That for sure sat with a lot of the guys, myself included,” Barnes said. “So, we’ll be ready.”
