Tulsa starts well in Canada
While it's hard to judge the level of competition, Tulsa's opening performance in its Canadian exhibition tour was impressive regardless. The Golden Hurricane took a few minutes to get going, but then took flight and cruised to a 90-44 win over Brock University.
"I thought we did some things pretty well," said Tulsa head coach Danny Manning. "I thought we played with good effort for the most part. We still made too many mental mistakes. We need to clean those up. We have to do a better job of rebounding the basketball, and also sharing the ball.
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"It was our first game. We have a lot we can learn from this, and hopefully continue to build. Overall, I think the guys played well."
Playing four 10-minute quarters, Tulsa fell behind 10-5 just three minutes into the contest. The team woke up at that point, closing the first quarter with a 16-2 run and a 21-12 lead.
TU remained on fire to begin the second quarter, scoring the first 18 points of the period and building a 39-12 advantage. The Hurricane outscored Brock 26-11 in the third quarter and 23-11 in the fourth.
The 46 point win was dominant in all areas. TU outrebounded their opponent 49-39 and shot a better percentage in every category. Tulsa hit 51.4-percent (38-of-74) from the field while holding Brock to just 25-percent. The Hurricane also made 46.2-percent (6-of-13) from beyond the arc.
TU forced the Brock Badgers into 27 turnovers, which the Hurricane turned into 36 points, and Tulsa got 34 points from its bench.
One area of concern, however, was free-throw shooting. While TU only had 17 attempts, they managed to hit just eight of them for 47.1-percent. Tulsa also had 13 turnovers in the game, but considering that true freshman Shaq Harrison started at point guard, it is certainly an acceptable number.
Tulsa also started returning guards Tim Peete and Scottie Haralson. The Hurricane opened with a fairly small front court made up of sophomore Rashad Smith and senior transfer Kauri Black. Smith led TU with 22 points and 9 rebounds in just 22 minutes, scoring in a variety of ways.
"Rashad made some plays tonight and did some good things for us," said Manning. "Scottie bailed us out a couple of times when he raised up and knocked down key shots. D'Andre (Wright) rebounded the ball pretty well. He chased the ball down and did a good job there.
"All of our guys at some point throughout the course of the game showed some flashes that were very exciting for us."
Haralson finished with 18 points, including four three-pointers, and Brandon Swannegan added 10 points and three rebounds. True freshman James Woodard had 7 points and 8 rebounds, and true freshman Zeldric King posted 6 points and 3 boards.
Shaq Harrison had a solid performance in 21 minutes at point guard, chipping in 6 points, 6 steals, 4 assists and 2 rebounds. Kauri Black added 6 points, 7 rebounds and 5 assists. A full box score can be found here.
On Thursday night, Tulsa will play Ryerson University in the Rams new Mattamy Athletic Centre. The game is expected to be streamed live at this link.