Tulsa Secures Crucial Win Over League-Leading Temple

Pat Birt scored a game-high 23 points as Tulsa handed American Athletic Conference first-place Temple a 74-55 loss in front of 4,827 fans Tuesday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
 
Tulsa fell behind 12 points at the eight-minute mark of the first half, but out-scored the Owls 61-30 over the next 28 minutes and moved its record to 19-9 on the season and 11-5 in conference action. Temple fell to 17-10 overall and 11-4 in league play, but still maintains a half-game lead over SMU in the American standings.
 
The top of the league standings after tonight’s game has Temple at 11-4, SMU 10-4, Tulsa 11-5, Cincinnati 10-5, UConn 9-5 and Houston at 9-6.
 
“Obviously, it was a heck of a win for us. I thought our guys played with great determination. We were slow to get started, and I think it was because we were wound tight in the first half,” said Tulsa Head Coach Frank Haith. “We changed our defense and started to play better at the end of the half. In the second half I thought that we had great flow with our offense, and we were really good defensively. There were a lot of guys that made plays tonight, and it was just a real gutsy performance by our guys.”
 
James Woodard added 15 points and a career-high eight assists, while Marquel Curtis scored 13 points as Tulsa avenged an earlier 83-79 overtime loss to the Owls on February 4. The 23 points for Birt was the fifth time in the last seven games that the junior reached the 20-point plateau.
 
Tulsa starting forward Rashad Smith’s streak of 75 straight starts ended when the senior missed the game due to an injury sustained in a Sunday win at UCF.
 
“There is no question that we were severely undersized tonight without Rashad Smith, and we are not very big anyway,” said Haith. “For us to win the game today we felt like rebounding was the most important thing and our ability to limit them to one shot and push back. Our guys were fighting like crazy, and we were very conscious in finding guys, locating guys and pushing back.”
 
Despite a poor-shooting first half, the Hurricane ended the game connecting on 44-percent of its field goals, including 52-percent in the second half. Tulsa out-scored the Owls in the paint, 30-16, had a 10-0 advantage on fast-break points and ended the game with a 37-35 edge on the boards.
Temple’s Obi Enechionyia had a team-high 17 points, while Quenton DeCosey added 11 points and nine rebounds for the Owls.
 
Tulsa held a two-point lead, 31-29, at halftime after out-scoring the Owls 18-4 in the final eight minutes. Temple cut the Hurricane lead to one-point twice early in the second half at 36-35 and again at 39-38. Tulsa then jumped out to a 47-40 lead on a D’Andre Wright dunk at the 13:24 mark, before the Owls hit the next four points making the score 47-44 with 12:14 left.
 
Ahead by just three points, the Hurricane responded with a 13-2 run over the next 5:10 as Curtis’ layup at the 7:12 mark gave Tulsa a 60-46 lead. Tulsa held a double-digit lead the rest of the contest, taking its largest lead of 21 points, 74-53, with 1:37 left in the game.
 
Tulsa came out cold to start the game, hitting less then 30-percent of its field goals for the first 10 minutes. The Hurricane led 11-10 when Woodard hit a jumper at the 13:41 mark, but Temple went on a 15-2 run over the next six minutes to take a 25-13 lead with eight minutes left in the first half.
 
After Tulsa started the game 0-of-9 from three-point range, Birt’s trey at the 7:44 mark ended the drought to make the score 25-16. Birt’s three-pointer began a stretch that saw the Hurricane close out the first 20 minutes with an 18-4 run.  
 
Tulsa took its first lead since 13:41 when Birt knocked down his second three-pointer at the 2:36 mark to give the Hurricane a 28-27 lead.
 
Levan Alston’s jumper with 1:26 on the first-half clock to cut Tulsa’s lead to 30-29 was Temple’s first field goal since the eight-minute mark. Tulsa’s Shaquille Harrison added a free throw to put Tulsa ahead at halftime 31-29.
 
Both teams shot 37-percent in the first 20 minutes, but the Owls connected on 5-of-12 treys for 42-percent and Tulsa shot just 21-percent from behind the arc. After the 0-of-9 start, Tulsa ended the half making three of five treys.
 
Birt led Tulsa with 10 first-half points, while Marquel Curtis added seven points for the Hurricane. Enechionyia had nine points in the first half for the Owls.
 
Tulsa travels to play the Memphis Tigers this Sunday with a tip-off time of 3:00 p.m. The Hurricane returns to the Reynolds Center to close out the regular season against the USF Bulls on Saturday, March 5, in a 4:00 p.m. game.