Dominique Morrison Has 38 As ORU Beats South Dakota State

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, Oklahoma – It was hard to tell which was more impressive – Dominique Morrison's individual performance or the Golden Eagles' performance as a team.

Luckily for coach Scott Sutton, he and his ORU team didn't have to choose, but rather got to enjoy both in a 97-75 blowout of South Dakota State on Saturday.

Morrison had a career-high 38 points in the victory to help Oral Roberts improve to 14-4 (6-0 Summit League).

He shot 11-for-15 from the field and 5-of-8 from 3-point range. He also went 11-of-11 from the free-throw line and pulled in seven rebounds.

The Golden Eagles claimed sole possession of first place over the Jackrabbits, who entered the game tied with ORU at 5-0 in conference play.

The 22-point margin of victory was the largest conference victory for ORU since an 87-56 win against Centenary on Jan. 23 of 2010.

ORU actually trailed by eight points early in the game, but it didn't take long for the Golden Eagles to battle back. They eventually regained the lead at 33-31, but didn't stop there, pushing the lead to 44-37 at the half.

The Golden Eagles led by as many as 27 points before recording the 22-point win.

Oral Roberts as a team shot almost as well as Morrison did, hitting 60 percent of its shots from the floor.

Steven Roundtree 17 points for the Golden Eagles and Warren Niles and Michael Craion added 15 points each.

ORU will look to keep its perfect conference record intact as it hits the road to take on Western Illinois on Thursday. Tipoff for the game is set for 7 p.m.