With bizarre calls and foul trouble for Tulsa abounding, DaQuan Jeffries couldn't have picked a better time to assert that he is back.
Jeffries scored a career high 24 points to go with 11 rebounds, and his double-double led Tulsa to a 64-51 victory on Saturday night in front of 5,189 vocal fans at the Reynolds Center.
A starter before a broken finger on his shooting hand caused him to miss several games, Jeffries came off the bench to light a fire under the Golden Hurricane and help end a four-game losing skid.
Jeffries has taken a few games since coming back to get his game on track.
“Just going out there and playing with confidence,” Jeffries said of his performance. “Coach (Haith) has been telling me this week to go out there and play like my hair is on fire. I felt like that helped.”
His performance spoiled former TU legend Tubby Smith's second return to play the Golden Hurricane. Smith was greeted with cheers on TU Legends Night where several former Tulsa players were honored during timeouts.
But the most memorable fan moment, and funniest, came early in the second half when Memphis was benefiting from some highly questionable calls. When Tubby didn't like a rare call that went against Memphis, one fan let his feelings be known.
"Sit down, Tubby," could literally be heard across the arena up into the rafters. The fan was likely fed up with the fake flop calls that Memphis, and in particular Kyvon Davenport, were getting rewarded for.
A dominant Tulsa (11-9, 4-4 AAC) first half performance that had the Hurricane ahead 33-20 at halftime was in the process of being whittled down to two points at 49 -47 with 8:19 remaining. The 16-8 foul advantage for the Tigers in the second half, after an 8-8 first half, didn't help TU.
With Tulsa's top two scorers in foul trouble and having off nights in Junior Etou and Sterling Taplin, the Golden Hurricane looked to be in big trouble. The duo, averaging a combined 28 points this season, only had two points apiece.
Adding that Tulsa had squandered a second half lead at Memphis two weeks ago, as well as blowing a second half advantage in its last game at Temple, things appeared to be getting dicey.
But Corey Henderson's three-pointer got things going, and back-to-back steals led to Tulsa scoring eight consecutive points in 43 seconds to boost Tulsa's lead to 57-47.
“Everyone in the huddle just kept saying ‘Stay with it, don’t get down, and put your foot on their throat’,” said Jeffries. “We needed this badly. It was a good win and it got our confidence up so it helped us.”
The most amazing thing was Memphis (13-7, 4-3) would not score again from the field the last eight minutes. Memphis only had four field goal attempts in the final eight minutes, and none in the last 4:21. Tulsa would finish the game on a 15-4 run.
One particular stat that stood out was that Tulsa's bench outscored Memphis 37-0. Besides Jeffries' 24 points, Jaleel Wheeler added a season high 13 points off the bench.
“He probably had his best game this year,” TU head coach Frank Haith said of Wheeler. “Something we’ve been waiting for. Jaleel is very capable. He’s put some numbers in the books in the past. So it was good to see him come back and look like we know he’s capable of looking. That just helps us moving forward.
“He played athletic. He got a couple offensive rebounds and a couple steals. That’s what we want Jaleel to be. He knocked some balls loose in our defense. We need that, particularly because this is an athletic league. He’s important for us.”
Another particularly telling stat was that the Tigers only had four assists to go with a whopping, season-high 20 turnovers.
Davenport led Memphis with 21 points and 10 rebounds.
“We had two games back-to-back that were right down to the wire. The Wichita State game here, and obviously the Temple game, where we controlled that game most of the game, but in the last two minutes didn’t finish it,” said Haith. “This is a very good league. Look at this league race. It’s very competitive. Anybody can get beat, so it was important for us to protect our home court and beat a team that was hot. Memphis had won four in a row coming in to the game tonight. It was a great win for us, and a much needed win for us.”
