Tulsa Set To Face Tulane For 22nd Time

THE GAME  . . .
•   The Tulsa Golden Hurricane (9-7) captured a 70-68 road win at Temple on Saturday as Sterling Taplin hit the game-winning layup with 0:04 on the game clock.
•   Tulane has an overall 4-13 record and 1-4 mark in AAC play.
•   This is the first of two meetings this year. The next meeting in New Orleans is March 5.
 
THE SERIES . . .
•   This is the 22nd meeting between Tulsa and Tulane.
•   Tulsa leads the series 16-5 and has won the last seven meetings . . . the last Tulane win came on January 19, 2013 in New Orleans.
•   Tulsa has posted a 10-1 record at home, 5-3 in New Orleans and 1-1 on a neutral court.
•   Tulsa has a 10.1 margin in its 16 wins, while Tulane's win margin in 4.4 points in the series.
 
TULSA IN THE AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE . . .
•   Tulsa is in its third season as a member of the American Athletic Conference, after finishing its first year in second-place and placing in a tie for third-place a year ago.
•   Tulsa has an overall 29-11 record in its third season of American play.
•   Tulsa had league records of 14-4 in 2014-15 and 12-6 in 2015-16.
•   In the preseason coaches poll, Tulsa was picked to finish ninth in the league . . . Tulsa has already defeated teams picked above them –– UConn (2nd), Memphis (5th) and Temple (6th).
  
COACH HAITH GETS 50th WIN AT TULSA . . .
•   While capturing its American Athletic Conference-opening win over UConn this year, it was also the 50th win for Frank Haith as the Tulsa head coach.
•   Haith now has a 52-30 record in his third season as the Hurricane head coach.
•   In his first two years, Haith led Tulsa to over 20 wins both years, including 23 in his first year and 20 victories a year ago.
•   Haith averaged 21.5 wins in his first two years, while leading Tulsa to an NIT in 2014 and the NCAAs in 2015.
 
TAPLIN NAMED AAC PLAYER OF THE WEEK . . .
•   Sophomore guard Sterling Taplin was named the American Athletic Conference Player of the Week for his performance in wins over Memphis at Temple.
•  He averaged 15.5 points, 5.0 assists, 3.0 steals and 2.5 rebounds, while shooting 55% from the field and 50% from 3-point range over the two games.
•   He scored a career-high 17 points and added 6 assists vs. Memphis.
•   Taplin had 14 points, a career-high 5 steals, 4 assists and 3 rebounds, while scoring the winning layup at 0:04 on the clock at Temple.
 
GAME WINNERS . . .
•   Sterling Taplin has knocked down two game-winning baskets through the first 16 games this year.
•   Both of the last-second wins ended with identical scores of 70-68
•   The latest was on Saturday as the Hurricane claimed a road win at Temple 70-68 . . . with the score tied at 68 since the 2:24 mark, Taplin scored on a layup with 0:04 on the clock to get the win as a long three-pointer for Temple fell short at the buzzer.
•   Taplin's first game-winning basket came against Illinois State when the Hurricane mounted a 14-point comeback in the second half.
•   In that game, Taplin knocked down a layup with 0:11 on the game clock to give Tulsa a 69-67 win . . . Tulsa's Corey Henderson added a free throw after a technical foul to make it a three-point lead.
 
QUICK HITS . . .
•   Tulsa is playing its 106th season of basketball.
•   Tulsa features only three players on its roster that appeared in a game at TU prior to this season – Pat Birt, TK Edogi and Sterling Taplin.
•   Tulsa graduated 9 seniors after last year's 20-12 season and NCAA tournament appearance, including losing 81-percent of its scoring and 78-percent of its rebounding.
•   Tulsa has 10 newcomers to its roster, including two juniors, three sophomores and five freshmen.
•   Ten players have made their Tulsa debuts this season . . . they have accounted for 67.2 percent of Tulsa's total points, scoring 737 of Tulsa's 1,096 points thru 16 games.
•   Tulsa has out-rebounded 9 of its 15 opponents this season, winning 6 of those games . . . among those 9 games, Tulsa has had 6 double-digit rebounding margins, including a high of 21 more than ORU.
•   After allowing 80+ points in the first two games (82.0 ppg), both losses, Tulsa held its next three opponents to 65.7 points per game for a difference of 16.3 points.
•   Tulsa has used 6 different starting lineups through 16 games this year
 
LAST TIME OUT . . .
•   Sterling Taplin's driving layup with 0:04 on the clock capped an 11-3 run to give Tulsa a 70-68 victory over the Temple Owls.
•   Temple took its largest lead of eight points, 63-55, at the 6:57 mark.
•   Two Junior Etou free throws and a layup cut the Temple lead to four points, 63-59, before Shizz Alston put the Owls back ahead by six points at 65-59.
•   It was at that point that the Hurricane scored the next six points on two traditional three-point plays, one by Jaleel Wheeler and one by Taplin, to tie the score at 65 with 4:34 to play.
•   The Hurricane added five more points in the final 2:50 to close out the game. Pat Birt knocked down a three-pointer to put Tulsa ahead 68-65 at the 2:50 mark, only to be equaled by Alston's trey 0:26 later to tie the score at 68 at the 2:24 mark.
•   The next two minutes were scoreless until Taplin's game-winning layup.
•   Taplin ended the game with 14 points, 5 steals and 4 assists in 31 minutes, while Etou had team-highs of 15 points and nine rebounds . . . Birt added 14 points.
•   Temple came out of halftime on an 11-2 run in the first three minutes after Tulsa led at the intermission 37-34.
 
 TULSA IN ITS' 19TH SEASON AT THE DONALD W. REYNOLDS CENTER . . .  
•   The 2016-17 campaign is the 19th for Tulsa in the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
•   The Hurricane has posted an overall 222-67 record in their home arena for a .768 winning percentage.
•   Tulsa won its 100th game at the Reynolds Center on Jan. 27, 2007 with a 70-66 win over SMU.
•   TU won its 200th game at the Reynolds Center on Feb. 18, 2015 with a 69-58 victory over East Carolina.
•   In Tulsa's 222 wins, 143 have been by double digits.
•   Tulsa has a 103-29 non-conference record for a .780 winning percentage.
•   Tulsa has won 137 of its last 168 home games at the Reynolds Center.
•   The Hurricane had a Reynolds Center-best 28-game non-conference home-court winning streak snapped on December 30, 2008 against BYU . . . the loss also snapped an overall 18-game home winning streak.
•   Tulsa won 23 straight home games from the 2008-09 season beginning with a 69-50 win over Marshall on Jan. 17, 2009 until the 2009-10 season when the streak was snapped with a 93-86 loss against Memphis on Feb. 13, 2010.
 
BETTER FROM THE FREE THROW LINE . . .
•     After the first 3 games, Tulsa was shooting just 55.2-percent from the free throw line (37-of-67).
•     In Tulsa's last 13 games, Tulsa is shooting 75.3 percent from the line (207-of-275), improving its season average from .552 to .713.
•     Tulsa has knocked down 81.8 percent of its free throws (112-of-137) over the last six games, and has connected over 80 percent in 4 of the last 5 games.
•     After the poor free throw shooting in the first three games, Tulsa went the next three games hitting 75.9 percent from the line (44-of-58), including 13-of-16 at ORU for a percentage of .813 in that third game.
•   Tulsa connected on a season-best .909 from the line (20-of-22) against Houston.
 
BENCH SCORING . . .
•   Tulsa's bench has averaged 25.6 points (409) in 16 games this season, while the opponents average 14.9 points (239) off the bench.
•   Tulsa's bench has outscored all but three of its opponents this year – Wichita State (52-20), Oklahoma State (26-14) and San Diego State (15-12).
•   The bench is scoring 37.3-percent of Tulsa's points, while the opposition has 21.8 percent scoring from the bench.
•   Remove a 52 to 20 scoring performance by Wichita State's bench over Tulsa's and the opponent scores only 12.8 percent bench points.
•   Tulsa's bench has scored over 30 points 6 times this year –– 33 vs. Jacksonville State, 35 vs. New Orleans, 35 at ORU, 30 at Little Rock, 34 vs. Texas State and 42 vs. Stephen F. Austin.
•   Tulsa's largest margin in bench scoring is 34 points, which has occurred twice . . . Tulsa outscored the ORU bench 35-1 and the Texas State bench 34-0.
•   In Tulsa's last two outings, Tulsa's bench out-scored the benches of Memphis and Temple by a combined 48-to-15 points, including 26-7 advantage vs. Memphis and a 22-8 edge over Temple.