Tulsa ends six-game skid with 82-68 win over USF

The best recipe for ending a losing streak is to play a struggling team. And make no mistake, South Florida is definitely struggling.

The result for Tulsa was a mediocre, but satisfying meal, as the Golden Hurricane eventually devoured USF 82-68 on Thursday night in front of a crowd of 3,849 at the Reynolds Center.

Tulsa (13-14, 7-8 AAC) ended a nightmarish six-game losing streak behind a balanced attack where five players finished in double figures. Pat Birt scored 16 points to lead the Golden Hurricane.

“You’re hoping that you build on this and we get our mojo back, our confidence,” said TU coach Frank Haith.

That confidence was shattered when Tulsa blew a nine-point lead with in the last three and a half minutes against No. 14 Cincinnati on Feb. 1. Since then, Tulsa has been playing in a confused daze.

“In my career, I don’t know if I’ve had a streak like this, so it was tough,” Haith said. “I thought our staff - I thought we all did a great job of just being positive with our guys. I wanted our guys to understand that we were still with them.”

USF (7-20, 1-15) has only one win in conference play - a home win on Feb. 11 over East Carolina - Tulsa’s next opponent. The Bulls were a team just waiting to be dispatched, and Tulsa was ready to end the losing streak.

TU scored the first nine points of the game on three 3-pointers, and got out to a 15-1 lead less than four minutes into the game. It looked like it might be a laugher at that point, but when a team is lacking confidence, like Tulsa has been, nothing is ever easy.

The Bulls got back into the game and trailed just 39-34 at halftime. They even tied the game at 47-47 and again at 49-49. But there is a reason why USF has lost so many games.

Corey Henderson broke the final tie of the game with consecutive treys, and Sterling Taplin added one of his own, as Tulsa boosted the lead back to nine points at 58-49.

Not wanting to stand prosperity, Tulsa still couldn’t put the game away for a while, and led only 65-62 until another three-pointer by Henderson, who scored all 11 of his points in the second half, with 5:50 left gave Tulsa some breathing room. TU was able to pull away from that point, and USF was done.

“I thought Corey Henderson made some big shots when we needed them.” Haith said. “There were some guys who really stepped up and made some plays for us.”

Martins Igbanu stepped up as much as anyone for the Golden Hurricane with 14 points and seven rebounds in 23 minutes. The 6-foot-8 freshman came through with timely buckets early in the second half just when Tulsa was having trouble getting a bucket from anyone.

“When the game got tight, we executed a lot better,” Haith said. “I thought we did all the things necessary to win.”

For Birt, the six-game losing streak has been especially tough since he could rarely score during that stretch. He was only 2 of 23 (8.7 percent) on two pointers in those six games, and 5 of 23 (22 percent) on three-pointers, for a combined 15.2 percent shooting.

Birt wasn’t great against USF, making only 4 of 13 from the field (30.7 percent), including 1 of 4 two-pointers, but did make 3 of 9 of his three-pointers. He played with more confidence than he had shown lately.

“You have to deal with adversity. It will either make you or break you,” Birt said. “You either grow from it or you don’t grow at all. It was a tough streak but I’m glad it’s over.

“We just had to say, ‘Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t give up’.”

Geno Thorpe kept USF in the game by leading all scorers with 24 points.

Haith was relieved to end the streak.

“We have to grow though some things. As Pat alluded to, when you have some adversity, we have not been good in that area,” said Haith. “In Cincinnati (TU‘s last game, an 80-60 loss), we were playing great, and when some things didn’t go our way, we have some meltdowns on both ends of the court. That’s usually what happens to young teams. We have to grow from that.”

With the tough stretch in the rear view mirror, TU has a realistic chance to get back to .500 going into the conference tournament, starting with East Carolina (13-15, 5-10) at home on Sunday. After playing at SMU (24-4, 14-1) next Thursday, Tulsa finishes the regular season at Tulane (5-22, 2-13) on Sunday, March 5.

“We want to improve our seed going into the conference tournament. That is our goal,” Haith said. “There’s opportunities to play in post season. When you get to the conference tournament, you’re competing to play in the NCAA Tournament.

“We’ve played everybody in this league, and we’ve competed with everybody in this league, so there’s no reason for us not to be confident if we start playing the way we’re capable of playing to go down there and win the tournament.”