RECAP: Tulsa Avenges Early Season Loss To Cincinnati With OT Win

James Woodard scored a game-high 19 points to lead four double-figure scorers as Tulsa went to overtime in defeating the Cincinnati Bearcats, 70-68, in front of 4,402 fans Thursday night at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.
 
Tulsa improved to 17-9 overall and 9-5 in the American Athletic Conference while Cincinnati fell to 19-8 and also 9-5 in league play.
 
Pat Birt added 13 points, Rashad Smith 12 and Shaquille Harrison had 11 points for the Hurricane. Woodard had a team-high nine rebounds, Harrison added eight and Rashad Smith seven as the Hurricane out-rebounded the Bearcats 42-41. Gary Clark had 18 points to lead Cincinnati, as Troy Caupain had 15 and Octavius Ellis 11 points while all three players shared team-highs for rebounding with nine apiece.
 
"Obviously, it was a great win for us. It was just a battle, and both teams played extremely hard. The flow of this game was just unbelievable. I thought our guys and their guys had no quit," said Tulsa Head Coach Frank Haith. "In a game like this, you got to make plays and down the stretch. We were good from the free throw line and that was big. The one stat that I thought was extremely important for us to win was rebounding, and we out rebounded them by one. I think that gave us a chance to win that ball game."
 
In overtime, Cincinnati scored the first two points on free throws by Ellis, then Woodard knotted the score at 64 on a jumper with 3:20 on the clock. Jacob Evans made one of two free throws giving UC a 65-64 lead at the 1:22 mark. The Hurricane then scored the next four points on a Smith jumper and two Harrison free throws. Harrison swished both freebies after a Cincinnati lane violation gave him a second chance after a miss of his first attempt.
 
With Tulsa leading 68-65, UC's Caupain connected on two free throws of his own to make it a one-point Bearcat deficit. Tulsa's Birt hit two free throws for another three-point lead, 70-67, with 0:07 to play. Tulsa's Smith fouled Caupain near halfcourt, forcing two free throws. Caupain hit his first and banked his second off the glass, giving the Hurricane the ball out of bounds.
 
However, Cincinnati had one last chance to take victory away from the Hurricane when Shaq Thomas stole the in-bounds pass and launched a three-pointer that bounced off the rim securing the 70-68 win for the Hurricane.
 
Cincinnati forced the extra period when Caupain knotted the score at 62-62 on a driving layup with 0:01 left in regulation after Woodard's layup with 1:12 remaining gave the Hurricane its two-point lead.
 
Tulsa began the second half by scoring the first six points to take its first lead of the game, 33-32, when Rashad Smith hit a jumper at the 17:10 mark. After exchanging baskets the next two times down the floor, Cincinnati took a five-point lead at 49-44. The Hurricane tied the game at 49 with 8:13 left on the game clock on three free throws and a Shaquille Harrison layup.
 
From that point, the game was tied four times, including at the end of regulation and the lead changed hands six times, as neither team had more than a two-point lead in the final 6:48.
 
In the second half and overtime period, the Hurricane outscored the Bearcats 26-12 in the paint, while improving its field goal percentage from 32.3 percent in the first half to 48.4 percent in the final 25 minutes. Tulsa also made 11-of-11 free throws in the second half and overtime, compared to 4-of-9 in the first 20 minutes.
 
Other than a 2-2 tie, Cincinnati led for 18:05 of the first half as the Hurricane began the game cold from the field, connecting on just 2-of-10, in the first five minutes and trailed the Bearcats 11-4 when Gary Clark hit a jumper at the 15:20 mark.
 
Tulsa sliced the Cincinnati lead to three points, 20-17, on a Brandon Swannegan layup at the 8:56 mark, before the Bearcats pushed the lead to nine points on three straight baskets with 6:47 left in the first half. Woodard's three-pointer with 5:21 on the clock cut the Cincinnati lead back to three points at 26-23, but the Bearcats answered with a layup for a 28-23 lead on their subsequent trip down the floor.
 
It looked as though Cincinnati would take an eight-point lead into halftime before Woodard heaved an 80-footer just before the buzzer to cut Tulsa's deficit to five points at halftime, 32-27.
 
In the first half, the Hurricane shot just 32.3-percent from the field and 44-percetn from the free throw line but hit 3-of-5 three-pointers for 60-percent. Woodard led Tulsa with 10 points while Clark led the Bearcats with 13 points in the first 20 minutes.
 
Tulsa goes on the road to face the UCF Knights on Sunday with a tip-off time of 1:00 p.m. The Hurricane returns to the Reynolds Center next Tuesday, Feb. 23, to face the Temple Owls in a 6:00 p.m. game.