Tulsa pulls away from Wichita State, 79-68

With P.J. Haggerty, Cobe Williams, Jared Garcia and teammates amped up in the second half, Tulsa's game against Wichita State resembled the old days when the rivalry was at its peak.

The intense, rowdy atmosphere resulted in TU completely turning around a lackluster first half into a maximum effort, clutch second half in the Golden Hurricane's 79-68 victory over archrival Wichita State on Wednesday night in front of a hyped up crowd of 5,028 at the Reynolds Center.

"Our crowd definitely pulled us together," Williams said. "It brought us the energy we needed. We started off slow, but once we started picking it up, the crowd was getting into it with us, and we were picking up on that vibe. The crowd had us locked in."

The backcourt tandem of Haggerty and Williams combined for 44 points, with Haggerty scoring 23, and Williams scoring 21, as TU overcame a 15-point first half deficit where Tulsa was behind 43-28 with 1:15 remaining in the half.

Tulsa (12-8, 3-5 AAC), winner of 3 of its last 4 games, played a terrific second half. But the Golden Hurricane didn't go ahead for good until Garcia's clutch put-back and subsequent free throw with 2:24 remaining off a barely missed Haggerty three-pointer that broke a 66-66 tie to put Tulsa up 69-66.

"That was a great college basketball environment," said Tulsa coach Eric Konkol. "This game was really down to P.J. and his teammates locking in and defending in the second half. I thought our energy and intensity was so much better in the second half. We came away with a very good conference win."

Tulsa finished the game on a 15-2 run, making the final score look much different from what most of the game looked like.

"We came out in the second half with a lot more aggression," Haggerty said.

Wichita State (9-12, 1-7 AAC) has struggled this season, but was coming off a huge win over SMU (KenPom 37 at the time) Saturday. That momentum carried on to the first half, where the Shockers were getting some ridiculous early bounces off bad shots going into the basket.

Those friendly rolls got WSU going, and former ORU coach Paul Mills, who has owned Tulsa lately, had his team getting to the basket with a lot of really easy buckets in the first half. Tulsa's defense seemed non-existent.

Haggerty, who normally seems to live at the free throw line, and his teammates were frustrated. Haggerty hadn't gotten to the line all half in a game where the officials were letting both teams play.

But things changed when Haggerty hit a jumper with 51 seconds left in the half, and then was fouled with 3.2 seconds left almost 90 feet away from the basket. Haggerty made both free throws, and the deficit was only 43-32 at halftime.

That set off Haggerty making 14 of 14 free throws, with 10 of those coming in the last 6 minutes of the game.

Tulsa came out of the blocks in the second half on fire, with a Cobe Williams three-pointer tying the game at 45-45 with 13:34 left in the second half. But the Shockers weren't going away.

In fact, Wichita State led most of the rest of the way. And a three-pointer by Colby Rogers off a shot from the right side that went in after barely hitting the front of the rim, then improbably finding its way off a high bounce into the basket, had WSU up 63-57 with 6:11 remaining.

But when Haggerty made two free throws with 5:56 remaining, that set Tulsa off on a 22-5 run that finished the game. Two more Haggerty free throws, and a three-pointer by Haggerty (his only points off a non free throw in the second half) off an incredible pass through traffic by Williams with 4:37 left, gave Tulsa its first lead in a long time at 64-63.

Still, Wichita State quickly took back the lead at 66-64 on an old-fashioned three-point play by Ronnie DeGray. But Williams came back with a driving layup to tie the score at 66-66 with 3:55 remaining, setting up Garcia's huge basket. Garcia, who finished with 9 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks, 2 steals and 2 assists, was seemingly everywhere down the stretch. His defensive intensity with blocks and diving on the floor was irreplaceable.

"He's a physically imposing type of guy," Konkol said of the 6-foot-9 Garcia. "With that, he has versatility of playing inside and outside. But to then sacrifice his body like that and get on the ground, we had a number of guys do that, it's inspiring. When you see a teammate do those types of things, you feel like, I've got to join into that, and it can become contagious."

Garcia, Haggerty, Williams and company were diving for loose balls at an incredible rate down the stretch. TU was clearly feeding off the crowd, which was larger than normal due to playing Wichita State, combined with the energy provided by Tulsa Public Schools and other schools having a large presence at the Reynolds Center at TPS District Day.

The difference in intensity between the first and second halves can be measured in rebounding. The Shockers outrebounded Tulsa 21-11 in the first half, but Tulsa had a 22-13 rebounding edge in the second half.

Also telling was Wichita State went from shooting 57.6 percent from the field in the first half to 34.4 percent in the second half. Meanwhile, Tulsa improved from 38.5 to 50 percent from the field in the second half.

Also, Tulsa was 20 of 24 on free throws, while Wichita State was 2 of 3 for the game.

"We had to get stops. We had to lock in on defense," Williams said. "When we went in at halftime, we had to talk it over and figure out what we needed to do. That's what changed in the second half."

A little skirmish early in the second half at the 15:49 mark with Tulsa trailing 43-39 got TU inspired even further. A double-technical foul, with no free throws resulting, was called on Garcia and WSU's Dalen Ridgnal after the two were fighting for a loose ball on the floor.

"That fired us up. It was like poking at the bear, I'm not going to lie," Williams said of the incident where the two teams had to be separated with a long timeout.

Rogers led a balanced Wichita State attack with 13 points that had 5 Shockers in double digits in scoring.

Wichita State had won 8 of the previous 9 games in the series, and 20 of the last 23. Tulsa had won the 13 previous games before that.

The recent lopsided nature of the series wasn't going to deter the Golden Hurricane this time.

"There's a never say die approach to this group," Konkol said.

Tulsa's next game is a tough one at a Florida Atlantic team Saturday at 5 p.m. that lost in the NCAA Tournament championship game last year.

Tulsa's next home game is Wednesday, Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. against reigning NIT champion North Texas.