It was a fitting throwback to the Nolan Richardson days for Tulsa to have an exciting, gut-wrenching game against former Missouri Valley Conference rival New Mexico State.
As in the old days in the early 1980's, Tulsa found a way to prevail in a game that could easily have gone south.
P.J. Haggerty scored a game-high 23 points to lead Tulsa to a 65-59 victory over New Mexico State Friday night in front of a crowd of 2,871 at the Reynolds Center.
Tulsa (8-3) overcame a 16-point first half deficit where everything was seemingly going wrong to come back and win and keep its home record this season a perfect 8-0.
New Mexico State (5-9) almost knocked Tulsa out with its 29-13 lead where it seemingly gained confidence on every possession.
But when Haggerty finally broke the spell with a 12-foot floating jumper with 7:28 left in the first half, TU started to slowly climb back into the game. A banked three-pointer by Cobe Williams with 9 seconds remaining in the half narrowed the NMSU lead to 37-33 going into halftime, and gave Tulsa much needed momentum.
Still, Tulsa seemingly stayed forever on the brink of not being able to get the lead after missing on several chances. But when Jared Garcia hit two free throws with 6:22 left in the second half to put Tulsa up 55-54, the Golden Hurricane had their first lead since it was up 2-0 after an early Garcia bucket.
And once Tulsa regained the lead, it never lost it. A huge three-pointer from the left corner by Williams with 5:33 remaining upped the lead to 58-54.
The Aggies would never come closer than within three points from that point, but still hung in the game, and were down only 62-59 until Garcia's bucket with 20.8 seconds remaining gave Tulsa a little breathing room. And a Garcia rebound of a missed NMSU three-pointer with 7 seconds left sealed the game.
Garcia, who finished with 17 points, 8 rebounds and a steal, stayed confident in his team despite the large early deficit.
"We stayed poised. And we're at home. Anything can happen," Garcia said. "Being down is part of the game. How we respond is really important."
Garcia made two baskets in the last minute with his team up just three points each time to help stave off the Aggies.
"There was a play to be made for my team, and one of us had to do it," Garcia said. "So I just stepped up, stayed calm, and made those shots."
Amazingly, Tulsa held New Mexico State to just one field goal, and just 5 total points, over the last 8:52 of the game. That one bucket came with 43 seconds remaining, and cut the Tulsa lead to 62-59.
"New Mexico State's got a really hard playing, physical, old team, and we knew coming in, just watching them on video, 17th strongest schedule in the country, and just how hard they play, that we needed to be proactive, and not reactive," said Tulsa head coach Eric Konkol.
"And we were very reactive early. We fell behind. Our guys grew up tonight. I thought that our young guys really grew up and saw what a physical, hard playing college basketball game really felt like when you're out on the floor. Just really proud of our team for sticking with it."
Haggerty was the leading force in Tulsa staying in the game when things looked bleak. His driving to the basket, making shots, and drawing fouls kept Tulsa from falling into the abyss.
Tulsa's leading scorer at 16.2 points per game, Haggerty got to the free throw line an amazing 15 times, making 13 (86.7 percent). His efforts rubbed off on his teammates, leading Tulsa to making 25 of 28 free throws (89.3 percent). Haggerty came into the game shooting an average of 8.5 free throws at a 81.2 percent success rate.
Williams scored 13 points for the Golden Hurricane, which included 3 of 5 on three-pointers. That is important since he had been struggling from long distance the last few games. The point guard had 4 assists and only one turnover, and had 2 steals.
Matt Reed came off the bench and played 13 quality minutes spelling Garcia in the post. The 6-foot-10 Reed had 8 rebounds to go along with 6 points.
Isaiah Barnes seemingly didn't have one of his best nights, with 4 points and 5 rebounds in 34 plus minutes after averaging 10 points per game. But Barnes' defense and intangibles led to his having a team high plus/minus ratio of plus 15. Haggerty was next for TU at plus 11.
It was a strange game in that both teams were mostly cold shooting three-pointers, with NMSU making only 4 of 27 threes (14.8 percent), and Tulsa making just 4 of 20 (20 percent). The Aggies shot just 37.7 percent from the field, and Tulsa shot 34 percent.
A big difference was New Mexico State only shot 10 free throws, making 9. The Aggies outrebounded the Golden Hurricane 41-36.
Femi Odukale led the Aggies with 12 points and 7 rebounds, while Kaosi Ezeagu added 10 points and 7 rebounds.
As for the throwback atmosphere of the game that was reminiscent of the old Missouri Valley Conference games when Nolan Richardson was the TU coach, it brought back good memories for old-time Tulsa fans.
TU was 5-0 at home versus New Mexico State from 1981-1983 while Richardson was at TU, including two excruciating nail-biters in Richardson's first season in 1981 when Tulsa won the NIT - an overtime regular season win, and a one-point, first round MVC tourney game.
The last game the two teams played against each other in the MVC was in the MVC conference tourney semifinals in Las Cruces in 1983, where Ricky Ross scored with 1 second remaining to lift Tulsa to a 49-48 victory.
The Aggies left the MVC after 1983. TU and New Mexico State were in the MVC together from 1973 to 1983.
Just like the old days at TU, the home crowd made a difference when Tulsa was coming back.
"The Reynolds Center got loud tonight. And when we needed help, and when we needed a stop, our fans were there for us in a big, big way," Konkol said. "Just want to keep encouraging people to come to 11th and Harvard, and a big Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and thank you for the help to our fans."
Tulsa's next game, and last non-conference game, is next Friday night, Dec. 29, against Southwestern Oklahoma State at 7 p.m. TU opens conference play on Thursday, Jan. 4 at home against Memphis.
